During the annual Soil Drilling Championship organized by study association Pyrus, one of the teams came across several vacant student rooms. The rooms seem to be part of an Idealis complex that had sunk without trace.
The Drillmaster team were competing for the second year running in the championship, which always takes place in a field on Haarweg. Halfway through his go, Soil, Water and Atmosphere student Harm-Jan Heukema’s drill hit something hard. ‘At first I thought it was a large stone but when we drilled another hole nearby, the drill got stuck again.’
It was clear by then the team were not going to get a prize, but they were curious to see what they had found and so they got digging with spades. Heukema: ‘To our amazement, it wasn’t a stone; it was the roof of a student room. We found bitumen rotting away, then a gutter and an empty beer crate.’
It looks as if the soil drillers had chanced upon the basement of a building used in the 1960s as temporary housing when there was a shortage of student accommodation. ‘It may sound crazy but I’m actually not surprised,’ says Idealis director Art van Bas. ‘There are various student housing complexes on Haarweg and even I get confused about where ABC or 333 are exactly. One building less and you wouldn’t really notice.
We found rotting bitumen, then a gutter and an empty beer crate
Plus Idealis has moved offices several times over the years and the archives didn’t always come with us in their entirety. It’s possible there are a few boxes with blueprints for this complex in the Duivendaal cellar.’
The Dutch Archaeology Society will start further excavation of the student rooms this week. Then the renovation work can start. This is expected to be complete by next spring. ‘Great news, a real stroke of luck,’ says Van Bas. ‘It means we’ll once again be able to make sure all students have accommodation by May. I have even thought of a name for the complex: Earth House 2.’
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