Featured in the EXARC Journal

Ancient Technology

Traction Trebuchet

Siri Hjesvold (NO) and
Simon McCallum (NZ)
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)
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)
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...