During site inspection, a board member of CATE found a small metal disc with a hole in the middle. The disc is inscribed with an upper case letter E.
Professor Terry Dougages, Dean of Archeology at Geelong’s Gordon University, believes that this find originated with workers at the former Alcoa aluminium site. “From the earliest colonial times,” Dougages states, “workers have used such artefacts as currency.” He cited the “holey dollar” in circulation in the convict settlement of Botany Bay as an example of this.
The board at CATE is considering adopting the E-disc as a symbol of the experimental art and technology which is at the core of the centre’s philosophy.
(No “dump” has yet been found. However, with excavations continuing for the underground rail terminal, it is likely that more artefacts from the smelter and earlier human uses of Point Henry will be located.)
CATE@thesmelter 