Roman Era

This three-day conference (23-25 April 2013) was part of the OpenArch project, a project that spans five years and aims to raise the standard of scientific research and public presentation in the open-air museums throughout Europe, with a focus on the interaction with the visitor...

The 1987 conference in Århus, Denmark on ESF Workshop on the reconstruction of wooden buildings from the prehistoric and early historic period has been important to EXARC as we have acquired, and are gradually publishing, the manuscripts of the unpublished proceedings....

Judging from the extensive bibliography in this book, little to no literature exists on fish leather tanning in English. A quick Google and Amazon search reveals that a good general book on leather tanning includes at least one chapter on fish, reptile and other "alternative" skins...

For a BBC program in 1954, Sir Mortimer Wheeler tasted a reconstruction of the Tollund Man’s last supper, which turned out to be a tasteless mush. This led him to announce: "I believe that the poor chap of Tollund committed suicide because he could stand his...

Although Marcus Gavius Apicius was a brilliant observer and author, he was no cook, this is possible to recognise even after 2000 years... Only people truly knowledgeable in cooking, and also those who love to experiment, can cook according to the literary translation of Apicius...

7th UK EA Conference Cardiff 2013
***The series of experiment on iron smelting conducted by author in 2012 resulted in very good quality high carbon steel produced directly in the bloomery furnace. Bearing in mind the unusual mechanism of carburization in a 'Aristotle furnace', a question arose concerning possibility of occurrence the same phenomenon during the smelting process. This paper discusses the results of the metallographic studies of produced iron as well as the description of the conducted experiments.

7th UK EA Conference Cardiff 2013
***Many bone fragments have been burned in controlled laboratory conditions but few have been burned on outdoor pyres. In order to study and understand cremated bone, it is crucial to conduct experiments in real environmental conditions. In this study several cremations were carried out outdoors...

Claidhbh Ó Gibne has devoted himself to building traditional currachs and researching their history. His new volume, The Boyne Currach: From beneath the shadows of Newgrange, puts the currach in the context of the history of...

Saturday 1 September dawns gloriously, and is unseasonably sunny. Our fingers are crossed that this is the Indian Summer we'd been praying for all August since we intend to do a lot of walking in the next three weeks...

EAC Conferences
***The 7th Experimental Archaeology Conference was held on 12-13th January 2013. This annual event, first held in 2006. This year it was hosted jointly by the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University and St Fagan’s Open-Air Museum. Seventy-five delegates originally booked to attend, but one hundred actually...