jewellery

With the help of experimental reproduction of archaeological artefacts, it is possible to study how and from which materials that objects might have been made in the Iron Age. Reproductions are carried out with items such as weapons, accessories, jewellery, buildings, food, ceramics, tools, working methods, and many others...

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.

Amber is a fossilized plant resin found in many areas of the world, such as the Baltic Sea coastline, in Central-and South America and, more rarely, in southern Italy. The following work aims to introduce the reader to some experiments carried out on raw Baltic amber cores, using different techniques and tools with the purpose of verifying how effective these tools can be, and any reaction of the amber...

The analysis of archaeological works of art involves their formal, thematic and interpretative description. The importance of these stages rests in their potential to reveal the biography of an artefact. Research methods investigating the production technology behind an object are a valuable factor extending the field of interpretation of a given object. Each finished work is the result of a creative process...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***This paper aims to present a techno-functional study of lignite ornamental objects found during the Fedele excavations (1977-1980) in the Boira Fusca Cave (Cuorgnè, Salto-Turin, Italy). The site demonstrates a chrono-cultural sequence which extends from the late Palaeolithic to the Modern era...

11th EAC Trento 2019
***The purpose of this paper is to explain our experience with the process of experimental archaeology, involving the reproduction and field testing of embossed decorations, inspired to archaeological finds. As a re-enactment group focused on Celts and Ligurians of III – II century BC we reproduce items and/or ornaments...

The present work is a reconstruction which was made with two objectives in mind. Thee first was to experiment with heat-treating of amber, a technique already hypothesised by Von Eles (1995), in order to verify possible resin alteration due to heating. Although already tried in the past (Fiorentini, 2018b) after having conducted some cold-working experiments (Fiorentini, 2018a)...

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...

Experiment Background

Unfortunately, no intact furnaces survive. Only the base plates for these potential furnaces and an additional scattering of sherds exist in the archaeological record. Thus, the shape of the body, lid, and chimneys must be inferred and then tested through experimental bead production.