review
Conference Review: Live Interpretation, 2013 EXARC’s Meeting in Hungary
Publication Date
In early September 2013, EXARC, in collaboration with Csiki Pihenökert, hosted a meeting in Hungary with the theme Live Interpretation in Open-air Venues. This continued the discussions held one year earlier in Foteviken, Sweden which focused on museum theatre and other forms of live interpretation...
Book Review: Experimental Archaeology and Fire. The Investigation of a Burnt Reconstruction at West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village by Jess Tipper
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What should an archaeologist do if one of the reconstructions of an experimental village is accidentally burning during the night? Simple: pick up a camera and start taking pictures. And then, of course, plan the excavation to record as much information as possible followed by an analytical and detailed publication on the results...
Book Review: Guédelon - Building a French Castle the 13th Century Way
Publication Date
Guédelon: How to Build a Castle by Darques is by no means a DIY book or a guided tour on paper of the Guédelon site. Guédelon: a Castle in the Making by Martin & Renucci is subtitled The Guédelon Adventure and although it carries a lot of information about the construction site and its sources, this book still reads much like an adventure book...
Book Review: Aurignacian Clay Hearths from Klissoura Cave 1: an Experimental Approach by Malgorzata Kot
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About 90 concave, clay-lined hearths were identified during excavations of Aurignacian layers (ca. 35000BC in Klissoura Cave 1, Greece). Only two similar combustion features, identified at the Czech site Dolni Věstonice and defined as kilns, were known from Palaeolithic contexts before the excavations at Klissoura...
Conference Review: Reaching Visitors Through Dialogue, Play and Experimental Archaeology. OpenArch Congress Archeon
Publication Date
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...
Book Review: Glossary of Prehistoric and Historic Timber Buildings by Lutz Volmer and W. Haio Zimmermann (ed.)
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The 1987 conference in Ã…rhus, 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....
Book Review: Fish Leather Tanning and Sewing by Lotta Rahme and Dag Hartman
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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...
Event Review: EXARC at the Times and Epochs Festival
Publication Date
As an EXARC Board member, I attended the Times and Epochs Festival in Moscow from June 21-23, 2013 in the open-air museum Kolomenskoye Park. This year, an estimated 200,000 people attended the medieval themed festival where they were able to witness and interact with 2,000 re-enactors from 40 different countries...
Book Review: Toffee Apples & Togas by Rita Roberts
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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...
Book Review: The Boyne Currach: from Beneath the Shadows of Newgrange By Claidhbh Ó Gibne
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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...