Ancient Technology

Introduction

Experiments on glass bead techniques used in antiquity have produced many insights into how early medieval beadmakers made their beads (Heaser, 2018). The studies mainly focused on early medieval beads found in cemeteries of the fifth and sixth centuries AD in England. Replica tools and a simple modern blow torch were used to simulate the conditions of the ancient beadmakers (See Appendix 1).

The historiography concerning the Garum, as well as the archaeological evidence of the same, are very wide and cover the entire topic both from the historical and archaeological points of view. Can a team of archaeologists faithfully recreate Garum today, starting only with the historical knowledge available to us, and at the same time ...

Ötzi the Gletshermummie, Ötzi the Iceman and Tisenjoch are the names we gave the man that walked in the Alps 5,300 years ago. Thanks to the Ötzi museum in Bozen/Bolzano, Italy, I had the opportunity to reconstruct Ötzi’s shoes. For making the shoes I used a flint knife, for both shoes I mostly used one knife...

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the arrowheads used in the Viking Age and their distribution. The 187 excavation of Viking graves in the Black Earth of Birka region of Sweden, re-examined in 2019 by Price (Price, et al., 2019) and the finding of arrows and arrowheads where glaciers have melted in Norway, prompted my research into the forging techniques of specific arrowheads from these...

Ceramic crescents are a common find at Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in southwestern Iberia (late fourth – third millennium BC). These objects, which often weigh less than 100 g and are perforated on each end, are typically referred to as loom weights and thought to be associated with textile production, although their function remains uncertain...

Many thousands of glass beads have been excavated from Early British cemeteries of the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Amongst these beads is a type that was particularly common: decorated polychrome beads in red, yellow, and green glass in a variety of styles and combinations. Birte Brugmann, in her 2004 analysis of Saxon-period glass beads (Brugmann, 2004), named these beads “Traffic Light” (TL) beads...

Introduction

Colonial Williamsburg is unique among open-air museums. It encompasses 70 hectares (173 acres), where there are no barriers, except for motorised vehicles. Visitors can walk along the streets and visit shops, although an admission ticket is needed to enter workshops and interpretive centres.  People working at Colonial Williamsburg are dressed in period costumes and are well versed in both history, the crafts they demonstrate, and in explaining them to the public.

Introduction

The textile fragments from the Oseberg tomb (834 AD) in Norway are considered the world's largest and most important textile finds from the Viking Age. Among the textiles, 48 tablet-woven bands were identified and roughly divided into five categories by Margareta Nockert: I) Brocade, II) Tabby, III) Mixed I and II, IV) Ready threaded and V) Three or more colours without brocade (Nockert, 2006, pp. 147-155).

The discovery of an excavated cup with a glossy surface prompted reflection on the polishing of vessel surfaces and their mutual significance. We present the results of the application of three different polishing methods along with a reflection on their function and on the skills and ability of the potter...

Introduction

While researching ancient lime mortar technology, we encountered a number of cases in published archaeological studies that refer to the use of ashes and charcoal as aggregates in mixtures.