Bressanone/Brixen

True, my translation wasn’t exact: I had serious difficulties translating this simple text. It deals with people in their quality as “human beings”, but you can’t say “what are human beings doing”; “man” would be a possibility, but it’s a singular; “the human race” doesn’t sound right either.

Dutch or German would be no problem at all. “Ach, was treiben die Menschen, die doch bald zu Staub werden werden?” A nice lesson in German for prospective visitors of Germany (whose Kathrin has left): “werden werden” is very funny, but also quite idiomatic. :-)

Important, of course, is the message: Why should you want to be on “What’s hot”, if you’re bound to fertilize the soil anytime soon?

BTW, I do think the remains dug out are human; otherwise image and text wouldn’t fit well together. Probably, the medieval people’s pumpkin skulls were due to bad food and lack of vitamins.

What strikes me, is how long a short period sometimes seems to be. 600 years is generally considered to be “a long time”; on the other hand, it’s also just 12 Nigels in a row... (and even less Kees!). Isn’t that weird?
I suppose every era takes its particular circumstances for granted. The Middle Ages were rough, and I’m quite happy to be living in the present, but now we have a nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction (though not necessarily in Iraq), and state-controlled health care. If a medieval knight saw this, he would probably prefer fighting with his sword, and dying in peace. :-)