So the idea of tanks is not new either individually, but it even sketched actually right below it. I would say the first tanks were probably chariots through over 5000 years ago. But tanks themselves is a really broad concept of a mobile vehicle that is designed to protect the occupants whilst they attack. Tanks as we know them today, steel armored boxes that are self-propelled that move across battlescapes and, you know, protect their occupants, but also enable them to deliver firepower against their enemy occurred in the First World War. I was kind of I’ve been thinking about that in preparation for the podcasts and absolutely. Davis was sort of a basically came about during the war. And Mephisto is a battle tank that was deployed by the Germans in late in the First World War. The name of Mephisto painted on the tank. So that character, Mephisto, is painted on the front of the tank. He’s a devil and an evil spirit that interacts with a person. Mephistopheles is a character in a German play. It’s the name that the crew gave their tank. So it’s a First World War weapon of mass destruction, as it were. So Mephisto is a is a name given to a German tank. Can you tell us what is Mephisto? And how did it end up in the collection? I want to talk particularly about I wouldn’t say it’s the most iconic, but certainly one of the iconic pieces in the Queensland Museum, and that is Mephisto. And so I’m interested in how Queensland developed post European colonization and all of the things that came with that. So I’m looking at Queensland historical archeology. But my focus is probably I focus, obviously, working for the Queensland Museum. So we’re talking around 16th, 15th, 16th century for that context within Australia. And we know Makassan and Southeast Asian traders came earlier than the Dutch as well. But obviously, Dutch people came earlier than that. So for many people, that would be the Captain Cook kind of period. And so when we consider that kind of time period archeology spans from millions of years ago to, you know, pre humans right through to today, I focus on historical archeology, which in an Australian context is really the time that foreigners started coming to Australia and visiting, interacting with Aboriginal people. So archeology is obviously it’s the study of the human past through the material remains, the things that people have left behind. Can you start maybe just by telling us archeology? What in particular does that sort of field span And particularly we’re going to talk about one of the pieces in the Queensland Museum collection. I’m joined right now by Nick Hadnutt (NH), who is a curator of archeology. We take a deep dive with conversations with these storytellers that inspire us to be curious about the past, make sense of the present, and, of course, consider our future. Join me, Dr Rob Bell (RB), as we chat to the people that make museums so fascinating, from curators to scientists and researchers. RB: Welcome to the Museum Revealed podcast brought to you by the Queensland Museum Network. It remains the sole surviving A7V tank in the world. It was sent to Australia as a war trophy, arriving at Norman Wharf in June 1919 where it was towed by two Brisbane City Council steamrollers to Queensland Museum, then located in Fortitude Valley. It remained on the battlefield for months before troops of the 26th Battalion AIF, composed mainly of Queenslanders, regained lost ground and retrieved it, dragging the tank behind Australian lines under cover of darkness. During the battle, Mephisto became stuck in a shell crater and was abandoned by its crew. Named Mephisto by its crew, this 30-tonne tank was part of an advance towards the French town of Amiens, resulting in the capture of Villers- Bretonneux and the temporary retreat of Allied forces. The A7V’s were involved in the first tank versus tank action. The German tanks were engaged in actions at such places as Villers-Bretonneux, a small French village that was recaptured by Australian soldiers at the cost of 1,200 lives. Crewed with 18 men, the cumbersome war machines clambered into action in April 1918. In late 1917 the German Army produced 20 A7V Sturmpanzerwagen’s which were deployed in combat the following year. After completing my honours degree, I worked for a number of years as the collection manager before joining the archaeology program as a curator in 2015. I joined the museum’s Cultures and Histories program as a volunteer and became a full time assistant collection manager in 2008, after completing a Bachelor of Arts (Archaeology double major) with the University of Queensland. I am the archaeology curator in the Cultures and Histories Program, responsible for researching, curating and sharing the Queensland Museum’s archaeology collections.
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