Ancient Technology

Rubobostes' Feast

Marius Ardeleanu (RO)
EXARC Journal Issue 2019/1
Ancient Technology
In Romania, in recent years, numerous cultural events and projects have been developed to reconstruct some aspects of everyday life from the past, or to promote archaeological sites (Ardeleanu, 2012, pp.72-73). One of these sites is the Porolissum Archaeological Reserve (Sălaj County). It includes an important prehistoric centre (with discoveries from the Neolithic Age, Bronze Age, Hallstat, and...

The Construction of a Skin-on-Frame Canoe at Kierikki Stone Age Centre, Finland, as a Medium for Group Training in Ancient Skills and Experiential Learning

Peter Groom,
Patrick Sweeney and
James Findlay (UK)
EXARC Journal Issue 2019/1
Ancient Technology
In July 2018 a group of students from the UK participating in the Placements in Environmental, Archaeological and Traditional Skills (PEATS) Erasmus + Work Placement, attended the Kierikki Stone Age Centre, Pahkalantie, Finland. Part of that training included experimental / experiential projects that were coordinated by Dr. Peter Groom of the Mesolithic Resource Group...

Viking Jewellery Mould Making. Experimental and Reconstructive Aspects

Anders Söderberg (SE)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/4
Ancient Technology
Craftsmanship relies upon the silent knowledge of the skilled experience of the creative workings of the hands, a knowledge that is difficult to convert to written characters without creating a blur of words that make very little sense. Theoretical reasoning lacks the dialogue with, and the resistance from, the raw material. Making up a picture of how wax, clay and metal would behave without practical experience of them is...

Prehistoric Dressing for Third Millennium Visitors. The Reconstruction of Clothing for an Exhibition in the Liptov Museum in Ruzomberok (Slovakia)

Kristína Urbanová (CZ)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/3
Ancient Technology
There can be various reasons for reconstructing clothing for museum purposes. The most frequent one, as in the case of this paper, is to improve and liven up an exhibition with 3D models (Hendszel et al., 2008), which present the fashion culture of individual periods, nationalities or specific regional features to the general public...

Experimental Reconstruction of a Nineteenth Century Lower Limb Prosthetic Peg Leg – The Box Leg

Charlotte Waller-Cotterhill (UK)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/3
Ancient Technology
10th EAC Leiden 2017
***Scientific attempts to understand early prosthesis manufacturing techniques are rare. The academic research of artificial limbs has been limited to the historical analysis of documentary sources. This area still remains a fairly under-researched topic even under the more recent developments of disability studies (Childress, 1985)...

Some Uses of Experiment for Understanding Early Knitting and Erasmus' Bonnet

Geeske M. Kruseman (NL)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/3
Ancient Technology

The experimental work directly related to the archaeological evidence turned out to be essential to the investigation, but much of it was too technical for the original publication. Experimental archaeology is its proper context, and I presented the posters this article is based on at the EXARC conference in Leiden in April 2017 (Kruseman, 2017a) and at the KEME symposium in Copenhagen in August 2017 (Kruseman 2017b). Thank you to the organizers and participants!

A Seventh Century BC Picenian Cloack Clasp Made of Iron, Bone, Bronze and Amber: Reconstruction of a Masterpiece

Mauro Fiorentini (IT)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/3
Ancient Technology
This article is dedicated to the reconstruction I’ve done in 2017 of a Picenian cloack clasp which is a pretty unique find. It has been found in a prince’s grave dating back to the early 7th Century b.C. and is considered a rare find because only a few similar items have been found in Central Italy, and because of the rare use of amber decorations and bronze plates, that makes this find a true masterpiece...

Traction Trebuchet

Siri Hjesvold (NO) and
Simon McCallum (NZ)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/3
Ancient Technology
The trebuchet, in all its forms, was very much in vogue in the reenactment and research community in the 1980s and 1990s. Several museums around the world have also built their own, with Middelaldercenteret in Nykøbing Falster in Denmark as one of the first modern examples of counterweight trebuchet (Hansen, 1989). Despite the multitude of builds, very little has been published about...

Animal Teeth in a Late Mesolithic Woman’s Grave, Reconstructed as a Rattling Ornament on a Baby Pouch

Riitta Rainio (FI) and
Annemies Tamboer (NL)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/1
Ancient Technology
10th EAC Leiden 2017
***In one of the Late Mesolithic graves at Skateholm, Sweden, dating from 5500–4800 BC, was buried a woman together with a newborn baby. Altogether 32 perforated wild boar (Sus scrofa) teeth, along with traces of red ochre pigment, were found in this grave. We interpreted these artefacts as a rattling ornament decorating a baby pouch...

Adze-plane, Skeparnon, Multipurpose Adze or Two-handled Adze? Practical Work with an Alleged Predecessor of the Woodworking Plane

Rüdiger Schwarz (DE)
EXARC Journal Issue 2018/1
Ancient Technology
10th EAC Leiden 2017
***This article presents a practical approach to a Graeco-Roman woodworking tool called “ascia-Hobel” in the archaeological literature, respectively “adze-plane” as the corresponding English term. The tool in question consists of an often semi-circular adze-blade attached to a two-handled shaft and seems to be suited both for chopping and...