” As I was travelling through Central Europe to Athens, I had only a day to wander the streets of Belgrade; here are a selection of photos…”
While on Excavation in Idjos Serbia, we took a break from shovelling and ventured into the City of Timişoara, Romania.
‘What did Viking Dublin’s houses look like; how were they made and what were they made from?’
As excellent as preservation is in Dublin from the 10th and 11th centuries, the evidence for its houses survives to knee height at best. How we imagine these houses looked, from their doors to their roofs, to the ways they are drawn in books or rebuilt in heritage centres, are all inferred through archaeological and architectural interpretations.
At UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture however, we have a unique opportunity to test these interpretations, and explore first hand, some of the architectural features of the kinds of houses that would have stood in Dublin over a thousand years ago.
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“We are building a house using a simple rule”, Says Prof. Aidan O’Sullivan, Director of UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology, “It must be based on archaeological evidence, we cannot introduce any modern features that make it stronger in engineering terms and aspects like the sizes of the post-and-wattle or timbers we use, must be the same as what was found in the Viking Dublin excavations”
After months of planning and material gathering, the building of a Type 1 Viking Dublin house at UCD has finally begun. The structure, whose doorframes and post-and-wattle foundation walls are now firmly in the ground, is primarily based on excavated houses at Temple Bar West (BN1), and Fishamble Street (FS90) and uses environmental evidence from the Viking Dublin excavations, provided by Dr. Eileen Reilly.
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“With fragmentary evidence of around 600 buildings;… this is the most extensive record of its kind from Medieval Europe” – Pat Wallace (2016)
Of the hundreds of houses identified from the fragmentary remains of Dublin’s first settlement, the vast majority were nearly all of a kind known as, ‘Type 1’. Like other examples of Norse houses throughout Scandinavia and the Viking World, and unlike Irish Roundhouses, Type 1 houses were long, rectangular structures.
They had an entrance at both the front and back ends of the building. Stepping over a wooden threshold, one would have ducked below the lintel and walked into a rectangular three aisled room with bedding or sleeping areas either side of a stone lined hearth. After a moment, with eyes adjusting to the darkness, before taking a seat by the fire you might then have rested your hand on one of the most characteristic features of a viking house; one of always four, thick internal roof support beams.
These features and the senses of space they give are gradually what is beginning to take shape at our Centre for Experimental Archaeology; from fragmented traces in the ground, to physical constructs, the dynamics of which haven’t been tested in over a thousand years.
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The structure, which is part two of UCD School of Archaeology’s “Early Medieval and Viking House Project”, led by Aidan O’Sullivan, Brendan O’Neill, Eileen Reilly, and Stephen Fox, is funded by UCD Research Seed Funding, Dublin City Council, UCD School of Archaeology, the National Botanic Gardens, and the Irish Museums Trust.
The house will continue its build over the summer and its progress can be seen this month when UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology opens its gates for the UCD Alumni Festival on the 18th June from 11:00am – 16:30. There we will be giving tours of the Viking house, the Centre for Experimental Archaeology and hosting a range of craft demonstrations.
For more information about the project see our Early Medieval and Viking House Project section in ‘current projects’. And follow ArchaeoFox to receive project updates.
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Daily progress can be followed at: UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology Facebook Page & Here at www.archaeofox.com
For More Information on UCD School of Archaeology visit: https://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/
Follow us also on Twitter @EArchaeol and https://twitter.com/archaeofox
And on Instagram @ucd_experimental_archaeology and https://www.instagram.com/archaeofox/
Further Reading:
O’Sullivan, A., McCormik, F., Kerr, T. R. & Harney, L. (2013) Early Medieval Ireland AD 400 – 1100: The Evidence From Archaeological Excavations. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
Simpson, L. (1999) Director’s Findings: Temple Bar West. Dublin: Temple Bar Archaeological Report.
Wallace, P. F. (2016) Viking Dublin: The Wood Quay Excavations. Kildare: Irish Academic Press
Wallace, P. F. (1992) The Viking Age Buildings of Dublin, Vol 1. Dublin: The Royal Irish Academy
Wallace, P. F. (1992) The Viking Age Buildings of Dublin, Vol 2. Dublin: The Royal Irish Academy
“Objects have stories, lives, biographies”.
From their makers to breakers, their takers and then re-remakers, the stuff that once decorated a much older and different world from ours had owners. Owners that gave them a purpose. They were used, traded or passed on until they became broken, lost or discarded. And when an archaeologist finally takes it from the earth, these things enter a second life. One with a very different purpose, destined to fulfilling a modern curiosity and displayed in ways that would perplex their makers.
Since I was a boy I have often found myself in a stifling museum; my coat hanging across one arm, eagerly peering into some glass case and standing back only to let the condensation before my nose dissipate. ‘what are you?’, I would ask. ‘who made you?’, and ‘Why’?
Often, you can see what an object was made from; stone, metal, wood or clay. From its shape and style we can guess its function or even how it was used.
What you can’t do, is touch it. Feel it. Own it and know it, inside out. The senses we have in common with our ancestors are now our most useful tools. And vital to an holistic understanding of the past.
In September 2015 a small group of students at University College Dublin, had the opportunity to explore the ancient past in a way that right now other archaeology students simply cannot. Over the course of two weeks, at our Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Ancient Technologies located on campus, these few students went on a journey through craft and technology; from stone to clay, fire, wood and textiles.
In what was once described in ExArc Journal as a ‘whirlwind of activity’, I saw for myself the museum glass being slowly removed and replaced by ownership and understanding; stepping into the display case and experiencing each hidden element of every little life.
I hope you enjoy this selection of photographs. Remember to follow and share – and stay tuned for more updates from
ArchaeoFox: Exploring the World Through the Past/
Through the window of my room, in the little white house at the foot the museum, I sit at my desk; a broken, white chip-board drawer, refashioned into a writing table and decorated with a purple sheet, to hide the screws.
Several empty coffee mugs stand along a cracked window pane as my eyes – ignoring the gradual accumulation – scan each paragraph over and over:
‘Axes’, ‘Chisels’, ‘Rasps’ and ‘Awls’; ‘Adzes’, ‘drill-bits’, ‘timber’ and ‘Bronze’.
If there is a finite number of times one can repeat a set of words before they all start to blend, then surely I am about to approach it. But I know myself – by tomorrow, I will be stapling the edges of a PhD proposal I had been working on since Christmas and posting it back home, to UCD School of Archaeology.
“The all too Norwegian smells of overly strong coffee and tobacco drifted in behind the music, while the chicken and pork below barbecued and beckoned me to join the party.”.
I pull my face away from the laptop screen, resting my eyes for a moment; noticing where I am. Beyond the cups on the ledge, a road stretches along a row of Norwegian houses – the occasional truck roaring past a wave of blues, yellows and reds that move away towards the next town. While alongside them, telephone wires slouch between the heads of each street lamp like the lines on a stave of music – only drooping, as they wrap around the foot of every mountain.
Not a single cloud could be seen beneath our sleepless summer sun in Lofoten and just as I imagined what my housemates were doing with their day, the tinny sound of a tiny Bluetooth speaker crept through the open window.
It was the first rainless day we’d had in weeks and my housemates – all seven of them – wasted no time in making use of it. They sat on the veranda connecting their phones in turns; crackling a compilation of hip-hop, reggae and unforgivably what sounded like Norwegian rap. While their voices blended in a muffle of Norwegian, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and English – talking over each other in different dialects but all laughing in the same language.
The all too Norwegian smells of overly strong coffee and tobacco drifted in behind the music, while the chicken and pork below barbecued and beckoned me to join the party.
Such life, is what gives a house character. Without it, a place like the Chieftain’s longhouse at Borg, is merely a box of decoratively carved walls. Though magnificent, they are empty without the droppers of the things in the ground.
The walls of our house were by now accustomed to the voices of Tom, a leather worker and graphics designer from Holland; the first to arrive after me. He was followed by Hanne, a Norwegian Media Studies student who had driven several hours from the South of Norway to spend her summer guiding in the longhouse. Filling the back seats of her car were the several musical instruments of Goran, an archaeology student from the University of Trondheim – who had, not only a passion for Viking Archaeology and a knack for medieval music – owned as much viking clothes and jewellery as I did knives and tools.
Using a database of maps and satellite images, Goran and I hunt for local archaeological features in the area.
Espen, a good friend and sailor, arrived a day or two before Goran. He was shortly followed by Bernhard, whose height made me feel more like a Hobbit than a Viking, and who’s head in an inadvertent tribute to the book, never truly forgave the chandelier in the hallway. Both of them had studied sailing at the Fosen Folkehøgskole and would now spend their summer on the lake, lifting sails and rowing tourists about in our miniature Gokstad ship.
“On a rainier afternoon the HDMI cable is our source of entertainment – that and the collective pot of movies that circulates between those with external hard-drives; the currency of a world without wi-fi”.
As the summer came in, it brought with it the few remaining stragglers; like Johanne, a trainee nurse who would work in the cafe, and Niek another archaeology student from Holland – who was good at fight reenactment but would also discover this year a flair for Norse storytelling.
A dull moment never occurs in a house of such concentrated interests; though, on a rainier afternoon the HDMI cable is our source of entertainment. That and the collective pot of movies that circulates between those with external hard-drives; the currency of a world without wi-fi.
A nicer evening is usually spent hiking, driving or sailing. Though nothing creates a gathering quicker than a sizzling pan of barbecued food. And in the end, a guitar is usually heard and Jared can always be seen somewhere in the back, reaching into his blue, waterproof sailing bag and handing out a few bottles of home brewed beer; a hefe-weisse or a dark ale, but occasionally some of his more unique brands of chilli, coffee, and even seaweed beer.
After a few months, faces and voices became familiar, routines became synchronised and rituals blended. So much so, that our little White House barely even resembled the empty, quiet shack it was when I first moved in.
“… nothing creates a gathering quicker than a sizzling pan of barbecued food”.
“… their voices blended in a muffle of Norwegian, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and English – talking over each other in dialects but all laughing in the same language”.
From Left to Right; Bernhard, Jared and Odd, a local sheep farmer; Espen grabs a few heads for a last goodbye: Photo by Laura Di Mauro
“Where no-one uses their house keys, a knock on the door is replaced by the sound of a visitor kicking their shoes off.”
It was the end of April and the last dark sky of winter had passed over Lofoten. Terje unlocked the door and handed me the key.
“You are the first to arrive” he said, popping his head in on front of me. The old family had just moved out and it was so soon after the museum’s purchase that he hadn’t even been inside yet.
“We had to buy it” he said, “Each year brings more crafters and guides and many can only work here if they have a place to stay’.
We inspected each room together; the kitchen, basement, bedrooms and bathrooms. We then stepped into a wide living room that had a tv and on its wooden floor, a leather couch that wrapped around the half the room. A framed picture of the house, marked with the year 1985 stood on a coffee table at one end of the room. While on every wall, hung the collected decorations of an older generation.
Terje found the remote to the air conditioner.
“If it’s cold, just turn up the heat like this”, he said, pressing a button that offered no response.
Knitting his brow, he tried again before handing the device over to me, smiling.
“It’s ok, there’s some firewood down by the boathouse you can use”, he said gesturing to an old wood burner that was fixed in the corner of the room.
With a handshake at the hallway, he was gone. But no sooner had the door banged behind him, did I have my boots back on and was making my way down towards the boathouse, where, after a few minutes, I could see appearing through a slight fog over the hill, the shape of the Chieftain’s longhouse. A figure stood out in the middle of the road. It was tall and dressed in medieval clothes; standing in front of a wide open gate and waving his hands at an enormous white tour bus, guiding it into the car park like a Boeing 747 on a runway.
It was Manfred, a German guide who worked with me the previous year. He smiled at the bag of birch logs I was carrying on one shoulder and gave a hearty wave, before jumping aside; narrowly avoiding the flow of tourists that spilled out of the bus doors and into the car park.
I returned the wave and continued down the long winding road; flanked by grassy fields that seemed to surround Borg like it was sitting in a rocky bowl of green milk. The front door of the house closed behind me. I kicked off my boots, opened the wood burner and in a few minutes the room was glowing; orange, with the crackle of kindling.
“I kicked off my boots, opened the wood burner in the living room and in a few minutes the room began glowing; orange, with the crackles of kindling”.
Like a snail who carries his house on his back, I had once again overpacked. In anticipation of the limited amount of internet, I had brought many books that I knew I would need for my studies, as well as an arsenal of comics on my iPad, several 3DS video games and a violin to combat the boardroom.
I had started a different PhD proposal over a year ago, which focussed on the archaeology Early-Medieval and Viking-Age Ireland; however, by Christmas last year, I had changed my ideas, pushing my focus back to around 3,000 BC, examining the carpenters of Bronze-Age Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.
To pass the time last year, I survived purely on the Viking history and archaeology books they sold at the museum gift-shop. But now, although the books in my suitcase were wrapped in the robes of a 9th century Viking bow-maker, their contents, as with my thoughts, were far away in ancient Egypt and Greece; peering over the shoulders of Howard Carter, as he pries open the doors of the child pharaoh’s tomb; or beside Menelaus and Paris as they slug it out by the gates of Troy.
At the centre of a circle of stuff on the floor, I heard a banging in the hallway; but it was’t the rap of a fist.
Where no-one uses their house keys, a knock on the door is replaced by the sound of a visitor kicking off their shoes.
It was Brage, the apprentice blacksmith and a friend from last year. He was a bit taller and broader than me, and although his red tinged hair was thick and dark, his ocean-blue eyes always gave him away as a Scandinavian.
“Hei, Hei!, Lenge siden sist!”, he said with a smile after we embraced; to which I drew a blank.
“You still haven’t learned any Norwegian yet?” he asked laughing.
“How’s your Irish”, I said in defence.
“I only remember the one word you thought me” he answered, “When you couldn’t remember my name at first, you said you would think of the Irish word for ‘shoes’ ”.
“Oh yeah!” I laughed, remembering; “Bróga!”.
An apt name for someone who has a passion for walking and he certainly used his ‘brógs’ since I’de last seen him. We sat on the leather couch and he told me all about his bartending course in Barcelona; of the people he met, the laughs (and troubles) he had gotten himself into. He told me then, of how he walked across Spain on one meal a day. He listening to audiobooks on his phone on a pilgrimage from hostel to hostel, where eventually, he met a Norwegian family who offered him work on their farm in Northern Italy.
“How about you?” he asked.
“Where did you go?” he asked, selecting a book from a pile on the middle floor.
“Wow”, I said, “I went to North Italy too, but my trip wasn’t that adventurous – It was for family and research – I spent ‘New Years Eve’ in Bolzano, a city in the Alps where my girlfriend’s parents live.” I said, “But every time I go, I stick in a visit to Ötzi, the 5,000 year old Iceman that was found in the nearby mountain”.
“It’s just a coincidence they happen to share the same town”, I added ironically.
“It was meant to be”, Brage said with a laugh, selecting a book on Egyptology from the pile at the centre of the room.
“I stayed for about ten days, but later that week her parents drove us to the Torino Museum of Egyptology” I said, continuing.
“You wouldn’t believe the preservation of the wooden objects there!”.
“Inspiring?” he said, placing the book back down and spotting the violin in the corner.
“Well, it made me rethink my whole project!”.
“And your Girlfriend, Elisa, she is still studying Canada?” he asked.
“Yes”, I said, “She’s halfway through her PhD; three more years in Tissue Engineering’.
“Both becoming doctors, and neither the kind that will make a tonne of money” he said jokingly,
“You guys are crazy!”.
He picked up the violin.
“You’re learning to play?” he asked, plucking a string to his ear.
“I tried twice before, but I always gave up”. I said, “But this time, I pushed through the ‘sounding like a bag of cats’ phase; I’ve actually started to play some real pieces.
“I’ll wait a little before you give me a demonstration then” he said with a laugh, turning the grain in the light.
“Where did you get it” he asked?
“It’s my cousin’s” I said, “I took my brother to see the British Museum in London and the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers museums in Oxford in Febuary”.
“We stayed with family in Reading where; my cousin Nina, let me try her violin; she said she hadn’t played it in over a year, and so, gave to me”.
“Nice”, Brage said.
“I love it” I continued; “Maple body, ebony fretboard – you can still see the chisel marks on the headstock – There was a museum in Oxford had a few 18th century violins on display; it must be an amazing feeling to make one!”.
“Have you thought about what we’re going to make this year?” he then asked.
This, I was most looking forward too. Several weeks last summer were spent in the smithy, forging a Norwegian Sami Knife. We never got it fully finished and burnt the steel a few times. But it got the ball rolling for a challenging tradition and the project this year was a good one.
“Yes”, I said, reaching for my laptop and opening it, “While I was in Toronto visiting Elisa, I went to the Royal Ontario Museum”
“Since I was small, I had always wanted to see a dinosaur skeleton,” I said, “So, while at the Museum, hoping to indulge my inner child, I stumbled upon an exhibition that was dedicated to the ‘First Peoples’ of Canada that had a wide collection of Native American objects; that’s when I saw these”, I said, turning the Macbook around; revealing a selection of 18th -19th Century Western Bowie knives.
“You want to try to make one?” he said.
“Do you think we can?”, I asked.
“Well”, he answered, “We have the forge; I can’t think of a better place to try” he added with a grin.
I saw Brage everyday during the rest of the summer and over the next few months, my empty hallway began gradually filling with shoes. The tables and chairs of the little white house by the foot the museum began slowly accumulating jumpers and coats; while my toothbrush in the glass above the bathroom sink, one-by-one, gradually gained several new companions. The firewood by the burner eventually lost its use, while the windy rattle of the walls was replaced by the banter of housemates.
It was 2:30 AM at my white chipboard writing-desk and the party downstairs was in full swing.
I read the title of my proposal once more. In less than a year I had discovered whole a new direction and designed a whole new project; I wondered how many things would change again before the end. But first step was compete.
I squinted at a sun that now rose from behind the mountain, filling my room with new light.
A new project – A new challenge.
I attached the document to an email, addressed it to ‘UCD School of Archaeology’ and hit ‘send’.
I wouldn’t hear back from them until mid August, but I had the whole summer to forget about it. In the meantime, I needed to fill our little white house with stories; like the time Stephen finally closed his bloody computer, came down and joined the party.
The midnight sun slowly creeps over the mountain outside my window, moments after I submit my proposal.
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Selected photos by Karianne Kaas: https://kariannekaas.wordpress.com
I stood outside the barn and with both hands, pressed against its enormous red doors; the flakes of paint coming off and sticking to my fingers as I entered. The bow staves we ordered the previous year had arrived the day before I left Lofoten, but I was assured that they were now safely tucked away somewhere in the barn; ‘somewhere’.
I walked inside, but the year had made me forget how big it was. Filled in every corner of its wooden walls were the artefacts of a museum’s long history. Many tar stained ropes looked down at me as I stepped over a couple of old rowing oars. They were leaning against a crooked table that was neatly set with rusty tools, a half closed bucket of paint and a Coke bottle, oranged from the linseed oil. I spotted the shape of a large, straw archery target that stood out from the shadows in the back; tattered and beaten through from use. While the smell of the horses in the stable below, crept up through the cracks in the floorboards and mixed with the sweet musk of tar that filled the air.
“I walked closer and saw, protruding from one end of the box, as though it was gasping for air, the yellow and amber glow of the Yew tree”.
Amid these relics of activity, seemingly collected with as much love as those that are usually kept behind glass, I could see a long, brown box that was taped shut and wrapped in a pelt. I walked closer and saw, protruding from one end, as though it was gasping for air, the yellow and amber glow of the Yew tree. At length, I lugged my parcel back to the longhouse and threw it in the middle of the workshop. I knelt down, and making use of a small incision I made the year before, ran my knife along its corners; carefully, so as not to cut too deep. The box came apart to reveal a collection of sticks that only a bow-maker would appreciate. One such bow-maker, Daniel Talarud, had prepared this selection of staves for me. And scrolled on the ends of each limb, over a sealing of beeswax and white paint, were the names of each species in black ink: Hazel, Rowan, Ash, Hickory and, the two most important species of Viking Age archery: Yew and Elm.
“Never before have I had the opportunity to work with so many different kinds of materials”.
Never before have I had the opportunity to work with so many different kinds of materials. So too, do the public rarely get a chance to witness such a diverse use of woods in an ancient context.
I am often asked: ‘is it real wood?’, or ‘what type of tree is that?’
It comes as a surprise, that of the woods that were once such a common site in the past, many people today do not recognise their grains or have ever even seen beneath their bark. But for every hundred or so encounters like this, there are those few gems who spot them immediately. They are usually the older guys who grew up near some sort of lake or cabin in the woods; having worked in saw mills or travelled around in ships as carpenters. They even pick up some of my replica ‘Viking-Age’ tools and reminisce about using ones of a similar shape in their time. Having grown up in the city, I regret that I will never have the same traditional connection with the woods that they have. It certainly feels Ironic, dressing up like an ancient craftsman and talking about tools to men who are probably the last of the very line I am trying to reenact.
“Having grown up in the city, I regret that I will never have the same traditional connection with the woods that these guys have…”
However, Experimental Archaeology certainly does allow us to see where their woodworking heritage once came from, and this is something they are proud to hear and fascinated by. Not only does my research allow me talk about the wood species of bows and arrows in the Viking-Age, through experience, I am able to discuss with them the craftsmanship behind bow-making; of the choices of shape and dimension; length and width; how they chose between different tools at each phase of production and how each bow-maker read the grain of the wood, shaped and bent the bow through feeling; acting through his muscle without measurements.
“However, Experimental Archaeology does allow us to see where their woodworking heritage once came from…”.
My job is to talk about my craft, but more accurately, I aim to evoke a thought, that provokes a question. Though many are interested in the story of the bow, an equal number are just as interested in how I came to work here. A woman today asked me about my arrows. She was bouncing a small baby in a sling on her front, rushing my answer slightly, fearing the child may erupt at any moment. I offered her one of my arrows and she let go of her boys’ two feet to take it. As it moved past his face, the eyes of the child grew as wide as two golf balls, and just as the feathers were clenched and crushed between his little fingers, his mother pried it from his hands before it made a break for his mouth.
“I’m sorry!” She said, handing it back.
“That’s ok!” I laughed, running the fletchings through my hand, rejuvenating them. “I’m sure it’s not the first time in a thousand years a child has tried to destroy something nice in this house”.
“But where did you learn to do all this?”, she asked, continuing to distract the baby with his own mitten.
This story I actually have hidden, like an easter egg, in a corner of my workshop. Hanging on the wall behind me, I have an old and tattered textile. To all who pass it, it remains merely a rag of atmospheric decoration; but for those who ask the right questions; I walk over, pull back the textile and reveal what’s behind it.
“…for those who ask the right questions: I walk over, pull back the textile and reveal what’s behind it”.
It is the poster that I submitted with my Master’s thesis; a time-line that shows all the bows we have excavated in Ireland, dating between the 10th and 13th centuries. When cities like Dublin and Waterford were, in their infancies, merely settlements of mud and wood, bows that were once half- worked and discarded after breaking, were simply cast aside and forgotten about. Some ended up in a rubbish heap or condemned to the fire. Others were reworked and used in the wattled walls of Early Medieval houses.
I have studied them in detail, and by using the poster, each visitor can see for themselves my own thought process when piecing together the methods through which each of these fragments were made. However, there are many tricks and techniques that cannot be read from objects alone. I owe a lot of what I learned in the beginning to a very good friend of mine, Mikke Reinikainen. Nearly seven years ago, before I ever discovered archaeology, I met Mikke at a music festival in Northern Germany. He and a friend of his had set up a blacksmith’s forge in the Rathaus Square in Kiel, right outside the little Irish pub I was singing in; their hammers rhythmically ‘clinking’ along to the chorus of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’. During my break, I brought them each a cold pint of Guinness. He showed me his work, they came to our gig that evening and a friendship was forged.
“He and a friend of his had set up a blacksmith’s forge… their hammers rhythmically ‘clinking’ along to the chorus of ‘Whiskey in the Jar”.
Two years later, I completed my first bow; an eyesore that in my excitement, I just couldn’t resist posting on Facebook.
Minutes after posting:
‘Bwa-doop!’, an instant message came from Mikke.
“Why didn’t you say you were making bows?!” he asked.
“I thought you were a blacksmith”, I typed,
“Yes, but I’ve been making bows for years!!!”.
Later that year the deadline for my thesis was looming. The yew trees I cut had been drying in the sun that beat down relentlessly over Dublin that summer. I was standing in my garden with my tools placed around me, while my dog lay by my feet, rolling in a slowly growing pile of wood shavings. A yew bow was on the wall. In my right hand, was the rope of the tiller, and in my left, was Mikke, peering through the screen of my laptop, examining my bow as I bent it carefully back and forth.
It was the first time I experienced why, as early as bows were being carved with stone, prehistoric people have been making their bows from yew. A yew tree can live for many hundreds of years. Because it grows at such a slow rate, the grain is incredibly tight. It can also get very straight if it has gown in the shadows, partially starved of sunlight. Unlike other younger and carefree woods, who’s branches grow about in every direction, the yew doesn’t waste any time. It can’t afford to. So it grows straight up, saving its branches for the sunlight. And if another fool hearted species gets in its way, it turns at a right angle, bypasses it and continues again on its original route.
“…as early as bows were being carved with stone, prehistoric people have been making their bows from yew”.
Some become so tall, I often need to use a monocular to identify its pins. When the yew is split, you can see two colours: a pink inner heartwood that turns to amber when it dries, and a lighter, more supple sapwood that rests just beneath the bark. This inner heartwood becomes dense and strong, while the outer sapwood remains flexible. When you look at each of the Viking bow fragments from Ireland under a magnifying glass, you can see the dividing line between these two natural layers. By the early Iron-Age, people in Northern Europe had learned to combine both of these natural laminating qualities, making their yew bows both strong, and flexible.
Detail of where the bow sits in the yew tree; the sapwood in the back of the bow, the heartwood in the belly.
It’s no surprise then, why ninety percent of the bow fragments we have from the Viking Age are of Yew (Halpin 1997; Halpin 2008, Henken 1935-7). But such trees today are rare and even nonexistent in places like Lofoten, the common woods here being Birch, Willow and Rowan; with exception to the American pines that were introduced in the 1950’s. On one archery forum, a fellow bow-maker referred to me as working in the ‘Barren Lands’ of Norway. Environmental analysis of the hearths in the Chieftain’s Longhouse at Borg I, tells us that it was not much different here in the Viking Age than today, with charcoal remains identified as mostly birch and willow (Hansonn 2003). This perhaps explains why in over 400 years of settlement, only one arrowhead was ever found in the Chieftain’s Longhouse, in Borg I. Compare this to the hundreds of Viking arrowheads uncovered during the excavations of Waterford and Dublin (Halpin 1997), and you begin to wonder about the bow the Borg Arrow was made for.
Above: Plan of the foundations Borg I, the Chieftain’s Longhouse; showing walls, postholes and charcoal remains in the Living (Room A) and what’s now called the Feast Hall (Room C) Image from (Hansonn 2003)
My things were not so well hidden to Pedar, the son of Terje Boe; who tagged my box for me while I was gone.
Standing in the reconstructed living quarter near the place where that arrowhead was found, I leaned my modern Yew and Elm staves against the wall. I then placed a couple of Ash and Hazel staves beneath one of the beds and went to see about my tools, which for a year, I had left hidden around different parts of the longhouse; archaeologists find medieval ‘hoards’ for a reason!
I took a box from the upper section in the roof and another I had stashed in the walls of the house.
“Together in these boxes were the pieces of the first blacksmith who worked here over twenty years ago; a handful of beautifully forged replica Iron-Age tools”.
Together in these boxes, were the creations of the first blacksmith who worked here over twenty years ago; a handful of beautifully forged replica Iron-Age tools. Out of those they have on display, I use the ones he copied from the Mastemyr tool chest, a rare and valuable hoard of woodworking and blacksmithing tools that were found in a bog in Gotland, Sweden.
At eye level, three axes now hang under a shelf of pots filled with feathers and bowls of beeswax. Next to the axes, there is a brutal looking saw, affectionately known around the house as ‘Bear’, for the ‘whooshing’ growl it makes when it bites into the wood.
Every knot is a near weak point and every splinter is a potential fracture.
“Make sure the back of that bow is as smooth as a baby’s @*$#!!!”, I hear Mikke saying, constantly in the back of my mind.
To do this we use a file, a useful tool in a world that has no place for sandpaper. They too are copies from the Gotland tool chest, but they are almost identical to those on display in the National Museum in Ireland.
The older tools feel different to the ones I am used to today. But after a while you figure out how to use them more efficiently. Woodworking hand axes today are made from a high carbon steel, they hold an edge longer, but they are really heavy to compensate for the fragility of high amounts of carbon. These axes are thinner and lighter, and rather than bringing the axe down over my head repeatedly, with a flick of the wrist with these, I can chop for hours without feeling that strain my forearm is so used to.
“Of all the tools I get to play with here, there is one I treasure the most…”
Of all the tools I get to play with here, there is one I treasure the most. It was during my first month working at the Lofotr Viking Museum that received a text from the main office, to go down and collect a package that was addressed to me. As I entered the white wooden building at the administration, Gauta, one of the younger Norwegian porters, was on his way out with a long, cardboard parcel under his arm; a sharp piece of steel jutting out the end.
“Be careful of that!”, he said laughing as he handed it to me, “It looks like a nail or something!”.
But I knew what it was.
I carefully opened the parcel and inside I saw three beautifully fletched medieval arrows, and resting on top of them, was my own custom made, bow-maker’s draw knife; hand forged by Mikke.
In awe at how light it was, when I held it felt like my drawknife. Then I laughed when I noticed he made the handles out of Yew. It almost glowed as I removed it from its wine-red, leather cover. Then I noticed a detail that really brought a smile to my face.
Engraved into the surface of the steel was my own name; ’Sionnach’, the Irish word for ‘Fox’. I thought to myself, ‘well, now I have no excuses!’
So I picked up the parcel, headed back to the longhouse and I began carving a bow.
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References:
Halpin, A. (1997) ‘Military Archery in Medieval Ireland: Archaeology and History’. In: Europe. Brugge. Conference 11.
Halpin, A. (2008) Weapons and Warfare in Viking and Medieval Dublin. Dublin: National Museum of Ireland.
Hansonn, A. M. (2003) ‘Plant Remains from Borg I: 1’ In: Munch, G. S., Johanson, O. S. and Roesdahl, E. (eds) (2008) Borg in Lofoten: A Chieftains’s Farm in North Norway. Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press.
Henken, M. (1935-7) ‘Ballinderry Crannog No. 1’. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.
“I think we gotta go”, Tom said, taking my camera as I climbed back down an old stone wall, feeling blindly for any gaps with my feet. “Are they leaving?” I asked.
“Yeah I think they’re already in the car” he said. He placed my camera in its carrier bag and handed it back to me after I’de jumped down. Tom and I worked together in the longhouse. He’s really handy with leather; belts, bags, shoes and those sorts of things. And, when he’s not melting a hot pot of beeswax over the fire he occasionally guides Dutch groups through the longhouse. We’ve spent most of our workdays so far dressed in the garments of a less modern age; myself, in an outfit of brown and white linens and Tom, in a blue shirt and a pair of red and green-striped linen pants; the bright red sash around his waist giving him the slightest look of a pirate. Right now though, all of us walked out of the truck and blended in with the other tourists so perfectly that we felt like just another group of sun-hunters, standing and shivering a bit at the shore of Eggum.
“where the twilight lasts only a few seconds in most places, the sun here reaches its lowest point at around 1:00 am; suspended in an orange glow…”
Those who brought camper vans filled the car-park with collapsable tables and chairs while others in tents, wrapped themselves in blankets and drank beer and hot coffee while they waited.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing a sunset, or woken early enough to catch it as it rises, then you will understand the meaning of a ‘fleeting moment’. But where the twilight lasts only a few seconds in most places, the sun here reaches its lowest point at around 1:00 am; suspended in an orange glow for about an hour, only then to go right back up again.
We had planned on hiking to the top of a nearby mountain, simply for an epic vantage point. But with the weeklong forecast of clouds and the sun’s final days approaching, my housemates and I took our chances and finally drove to Eggum, an old fishing village just North of Borg.
I had only one other memory of the midnight-sun. It was from my last summer when Terje Boe, the skipper of the museum’s replica Viking ship had organised a crew of around thirteen sailors, including me, to take part in a regatta. The evening before the race, we anchored outside the harbour of Nordskott. We turned our sail into a tent, lay sleeping bags out on the deck and I fell asleep to the sounds of the water; ‘gluck’, ‘gluck’, ‘gluck’, slapping against the belly of the ship beneath our heads. Right before drifting off, I noticed the glow of a slow, dipping sun, bouncing a light show of bright and orange ripples from the water’s surface up onto the underneath of our sail.
“But the sun that night was nothing like this”.
I handed Tom my camera, and before making my way back down the inside of the stone tower, I took one last look up, wondering when I’de ever see it like this again; our grand disk of copper; wobbling over the ocean like a bright, round mango.
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Stephen Fox
The Lofotr Viking Museum’s conservator and I stood back and inspected the new bow-making station; an assortment of wooden benches and iron tools displayed in the far corner of a long and wide room at the farthest end of chieftains’s longhouse. “Do you think it will hold?” he asked as I drove my last nail through the leg of a workbench and into the wooden floor. “Should do”, I said, giving it a sturdy wiggle. “Good, because its staying there,” he said with a grin; “indefinitely”. Not a year has passed since that conversation and already my entire workshop is being moved, along with all its fixtures, to the entire opposite end of the Chieftain’s Longhouse; to the room where an excavation in the 1980’s revealed around a large deposit of charcoal, several signs of domestic work, cooking, eating and sleeping; to the room we call the ‘Living Quarter’. Change is often inevitable. With every new season, there comes an invasion of new interns and employees, and with them, a wave of new ideas and skills. One girl in particular this year; a french student of Museology, is constructing in 360 degrees, a celebration of Viking Age sailing in oil on canvas. On my first day she approached me and asked quite apologetically, if I would be so kind as to, well; “Move?”, she said, “I’m really sorry”, she continued; “But i’de like to start as soon as possible”. “No, that’s fantastic!” I returned, “It makes much more sense to be in the living quarter, that’s where all the activity is; where it all was too, by all accounts”.
And so with a wrench and twist of a hammer, the final nail that sealed my last workshop became the first to go.
And so with a wrench and twist of a hammer, the final nail that sealed my last workshop became the first to go. I first carried my chopping-block from the back of the house through the feast-hall; a splendid room lined with tables and chairs for banquets. Ornately carved pillars support the roof with almost the splendour of a cathedral, while an open hearth burns away at the centre of the hall; an iron cauldron of stew swings above it; blackened and bubbling. Leaving the feast hall, I came to the door of the Living Room, and with a foot, opened it with a long and crawling creak, revealing from the smokey shadow, a wide and dark room; the contents of which, either living or material, all appear to revolve around yet another central hearth and fire.
The living Quarter is somewhat darker than the other rooms and even with the aid of some artificial light, the glow of the fire still illuminates with a flicker, the faces of anything that stands in its line of light. To both sides of the room there are laid out some everyday objects; what one may find in a such a house; some baskets of dyed wool and string, loom-swords, spinning weights and spindle whirls. Two beautifully carved beds lie at the end of the room; copies form the Oseberg and Gokstad ships. They stand firmly beside a few tables and benches that are strewn with small objects and curiosities of an ancient time: bowls of dried meats and vegetables, glass beakers and Viking cutlery. Some gaming boards with clay pieces, sit on a table in the middle of the room. Tafl games they are called; not so different to the game that was found at the Ballinderry crannog. Directly over these, many grey and white reindeer pelts are draped majestically over a wooden cross-beam, such hides we believe would have been most likely hunted by the Sami and traded during the Viking Age in Northern Norway. These share a post with the dried stock fish, the pride of Lofoten. Usually found headless and hanging upside-down outside people’s houses or on large wooden racks along every harbour, they too may have been a common site in a Viking-Age longhouse, particularly if that house in Borg, with dried stock-fish supposedly being one of the major sources if income to Borg and Lofoten in the Viking-Age.
Plan of the ‘Living Quarter’ from the excavations of Borg 1, showing charcoal deposits and post-holes where the supporting beams were (Munch et al 2003)
When working here solidly everyday, the mind does on occasion drift off on a wordless thought, where in the briefest of moments it might as well be a thousand years ago; until you are immediately pulled back again by the flash of a camera, the rustle of Gore-tex or the odd chirping of a mobile phone. I dropped the chop-block on the wooden floor in front of me, in an unused corner of the room and contemplated; ’The bench can go by the bed..;’ I thought, ‘I can fit a shelf there… and that post would be perfect for a tiller..;”. ‘But why do I always choose the same layout?’ I thought to myself. We have paintings and laws from the later middle ages that describe the workshops of bowyers, but no such station has ever been excavated from a Viking context; at least none that resembles mine. My layout rather reflects some of the tricks (and habits) I have personally picked up since I first started bow-making. My tools tend to lie about and rest close at hand while all my benches and contraptions; the wall-tiller, shave horse, tools and shave-brake like the hearth, all seem to rotate around the chop-block. This is because the block is where all the hard work really begins. With an axe in one hand and a thick bow stave in the other, I will start by hewing and cleaving the stave’s sides until I have thinned the trunk into a billet; like the ingot of a blacksmith, the billet is the raw wooden stave from which a bow will be attempted.
I took a fresh nail from the box and began once again, fixing my faithful shave-brake to the ground. Such a thing is usually used in traditional ‘green carpentry’ for controlling the ‘splitting’ of a log, though at waist height and at a flatter angle I find it holds a stave really well. I picked it up from a man called Mike Henderson, an Irish bow maker with whom I lived for several weeks in the Burren, County Clare while writing my Masters thesis on Viking Age archery and Bow production. Not something one would typically find at the head of a Chieftain’s bed in a longhouse, the brake works by driving three posts into the ground in a triangle. On the two back posts there are attached a couple of angled cross-beams. A bow stave can be wedged between these two beams and lifted over to rest on the third post; firmly securing it while leaving both hands free to work the wood on all sides.
I don’t believe bow-making would be something one would carry out in a Chieftain’s longhouse. Normally this would be done outside, possibly closer to woodland, so that the posts may be driven into the ground and not nailed to a floor. I built it here, so that I might turn my usual workshop into a living exhibition. Something a bit more familiar to bow-makers however, is the bench that stands just above the chop-block. Commonly referred to as a traditional ‘English Shave-Horse’, it shares a similar function to the shave-brake, with the added ingenuity of one being able to sit down. The stave rests on a panel that rises and falls by a sliding wedge. The stave can then be held in place by applying force with both feet to the two pedals or ‘stirrups’, beneath. Hence the name; shave-‘Horse’.
I then reached into my bag for a large wooden wheel. It was a hand made pully that Terje had given me; made for the ropes of a small fishing boat, but absolutely perfect as a ‘wall-tiller’. As I removed the wheel from the bag it caught the eye of one visitor, an elderly gentleman with a thick Bavarian accent and around his eyes, the creases of a man who is fond of laughing. “What is that for?” he asked, seeming to enjoy the puzzle. “Well, actually, it was made for a fishing boat” I answered as I handed it to him. “Ah! I thought so” he said, turning it over in his hands. “But I will use it to make a bow”, I continued. “A bow?!” he exclaimed; with a chin to his chest, peering over his spectacles. “Yes” I said, “I am the bow-maker here”; drawing an arrow of air to my ear. “Ah!” he said, “Pfeil und Bogen!”; nodding again. “And so, the wheel is for?” He asked handing it back to me. I took a step back; “Do you see behind me? I have a shelf to hold the bow on the wall. The handle sits here. When the bow is strung or ‘braced’, the hook is placed on the bowstring and a strong rope runs through the wheel which is tied to a wooden handle”. “Using the wheel, I can then pull the rope slowly back and forth, watching the bow bend on the wall from a distance; exercising the wood; stretching its fibres”.
“But why don’t you just wet the wood or heat it?”. This is probably the most common question I get, for which by now, I have refined my answer down to two questions: “Why would I wet it?”, I asked him. “To make it into a ‘bow’ shape”, he answered. “And if I permanently shape the bow in an arc, where then would the tension come from when I draw the string?”, “Ah!”, He said smiling. “Logisch!” – I Love that part.
“There must be something pushing against you as you pull the bowstring”. “You never try to force a bow to bend” I continued, “You want to follow its natural shape, incorporate any lumps, bumps or twists into its final shape; you ‘teach it to bend’”. “A well made bow” I continued, “is straight when unstrung, takes the shape when braced, arcs evenly when fully drawn but returns straight again when taken off the string”.
“You never try to force a bow to bend, but read and follow its natural shape…”
“Incorporate its lumps, bumps or twists…”
“You teach it to bend…”
This is one of the ‘bits’ I have learned. With thousands of tourists and visitors a week, every guide here has his or her own bag of tricks; answers, phrases and facts. “But we cannot forget the other half of the weapon!” I sometimes say, moving over to the fletching station. Here I have a small table and chair. A ceramic jug filled with turkey feathers sits beside a wooden bowl of beeswax and linen thread. I have a stick of pine resin glue and beside me a bucket of pre-made poplar and pine arrow-shafts. But sometimes more important to them than the fletching is the question of who made arrowhead.
I tell them; “If you go on after the longhouse and make your way past the white building at the administration, you will come to a small pine forrest”. When you pass through to the other side, you will hear the pinging and clanging of our smithy before you see him; Brage Stenson, a friend of mine and a talented blacksmith in training. He will spend his summer down here, forging iron and organising archery and axe throwing for the kids and other guests.
The smithy is where my arrowheads come from. Some days I will receive a couple of new ones from a blackened hand over my morning coffee. Some are forged barbed for hunting; and some long and pointed for penetrating chain-mail. Bending a strong bow on the wall and explaining it is one thing, but handing a tourist a fully fletched arrow, bound in linen, sealed with rabbit glue and tipped with iron really gives them something to think about; and me, something to smile about, with every wince as I describe what kind of damage each one is designed for.
The block lay at the centre of the workshop, the horse was standing proud while the tiller and brake were stuck firmly to wall and floor; it all looked very Medieval and busy. Manfred, a tall German guide and one of my coordinators, caught me as I was packing up for the evening, “You are hear now?” he said with a look of surprise. “Yeah”, I answered, “But I think its going to better here”. “Yes I think so too”, he added, “This is where all the activity is. In the back you were so far away form everyone, but here, the people can see it better for themselves, when everybody is together and busy doing something”. “And I no longer have to run between rooms with hot pot of wax and a bow in my hands whenever I need to use the fire” I added, “I just need to find the rest of my tools and materials and then I am good to go”. “Well,” he said, “Now that you are no longer on the edge of the universe, your tools won’t go so often for a walk as you say”.
But tools always walk, that’s what keeps archaeologists in business.
RECIPE FOR AN ANCIENT CRAFT: BUILDING A VIKING BOWYER’S WORKSHOP PART II
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References:
Munch, G. S., Johansen, O. S., & Roesdahl, E. (eds) (2003) Borg in Lofoten: A Chieftain’s Farm in North Norway. Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press.
Stephen Fox 2015
I wonder how many Vikings marched off to war in a shirt and trousers their mammies made for them? Last year the museum provided me with an outfit. This year however, I came prepared with an outfit made entirely by my own mother. Personal dress can often be the defining aspect of one’s culture or one’s own status. To Dickens’ musing, even poor Oliver Twist, in that single moment when newly born and wrapped in just a blanket, might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar. But no stranger could have determined his role in society until he was enveloped in a pair of old calico robes, which had yellowed in the same service – badging and ticketing him as a parish child; a pauper; to be despised by all and pitied by none.
“I wonder how many Vikings marched off to war in a shirt and trousers their mammies made for them?”
The artefacts that once dressed and shaped the atmospheres of the past, are no longer in their original contexts. They have become darkened with age, time has removed them from the bustlings of daily life and they are left in places to stand, untouched and deadly silent. In the Longhouse however, atmosphere is everything, and if the atmosphere created here is anything similar to that of the original family’s in the 8th century, then it must have truly been a magnificent one. The dynamic here would not strictly be considered reenactment, neither is it the same as living history. But, by the time each visitor has reached the reconstructed longhouse, they have seen already the original objects from the excavations at Borg; now suspended in time behind glass. They have also seen the excavation site; a rather cold and windy excuse to see a large pockmarked crater of postholes.
Ancient objects are given a new life as tourists pass through the house – This photo by Kjell Ove Stork
But as you turn to enter the longhouse, which slowly looms over a hill of sheep and goats, your nose is first met by the aromas of burning firewood and a bubbling lamb stew; you begin to hear the sharp, staggered banging and scrapes of wood as you cross the threshold into the main entrance of the house. Almost immediately you are greeted by a guide dressed in the finery of a chieftain or a lady of some importance, while many bodies clothed in slacks and shirts of white linens or dresses and tunics of wool wrapped in cloaks, hurry about the place chatting to tourists and going about their daily duties.
“so too do the vibrant bright blues and yellows and the deep greens and reds pull you farther away from the black and brown leathers that Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings have left us used to”.
Most of the clothing worn by the staff is produced on site by the museum. Aside from woodworking and leather crafting, tablet weaving is a common site in the longhouse. Usually some of the girls can be seen weaving by our two looms; where often, many visitors will amusingly take one of the whale bone loom-swords and poise themselves with a shield and helmet for a photograph. Authentic clothing is what really makes the difference here. We of course learned about clothing in University, but my interests tended to sway towards the shinier, sharper things of the past. But the the mixed image of bright colours and textures tends to remove your thoughts from their usual comfort zones; much like how a multicoloured Roman column or statue tends to hurt the brain, so too do the vibrant bright blues and yellows and the deep greens and reds pull you farther away from the black and brown leathers that Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings have left us used to.
Guides of every language are placed around the house to answer questions and talk about the history and archaeology of the site.
This year however, I came with my own outfit. I certainly don’t feel of ‘higher status’ in the traditional sense, but having a dressmaker for a mother certainly made a few of my fellow Vikings quite jealous. Having usually worked on wedding and debutant dresses, my she was quite excited at trying something so old and so different. The first question was that of colour. Some colours in the past were of course more expensive than others and available to only those who had the means to wear them. Though I figured as I am ‘the Chieftain’s bow-maker’, I should probably dress more like a hunter; I therefore chose more earthy colours that would blend a bit more into the surrounding light green and boggy brown landscapes of Borg.
Last year I wore a pair of woollen trousers, but they proved far too heavy and hot for work. We chose then a lighter linen of dark brown. From the same material we then made a pare of leg ties that would hold in the looser ends of the trousers; keeping them from snagging on any low jutting branches in the woods.
The undershirt however, is of a really nice white linen. In keeping with the period, it has no collar, it is worn by pulling it over the head and reaches down to just above the knees. The tunic, my mother’s favourite article, was made from a really nice light brown wool. More or less the same design as the undershirt, it was made from 100% wool and is extremely warm, a detail I would easily have made use of when sailing on the longship last year. Sewn around the edge of the neck is a thin tablet woven trimming. Tablet weaving is another activity often practiced by the fire in the longhouse; several rocks hold in place the ends of many different coloured strings which pass through tiny holes at the four corners of each small square tablet; the tablets they then turn almost rhythmically like an ancient rubix cube, transforming a complicated algorithm into a simple and beautifully patterned strip of colour. With no idea where to even start, we preordered a thin handmade strip one on eBay, made with yellow edging and red specks; which when attached to the tunic really made the neck pop.
“it was made from 100% wool and is extremely warm, a detail I would easily have made use of when sailing on the longship last year”.
My own favourite piece, is the dark brown woollen hood. This I remember, was excellent for keeping my chest and neck warm at sea, although the tedious wind tends to flip the bottom half up onto my face; often when saying good morning to a visitor. Commonly referred to as an ‘archer’s hood’, you really do look the part of the hunter when its warn with a bow in your hand. Although, I imagine such hoods were not exclusive to archers.
A similar one was found with the Skjoldeham outfit, worn by the 12th Century bog-body that was discovered on the island of Andoya just North of Lofoten. An exact replica of the outfit can be seen standing to attention amid all the original objects in the museum’s main exhibition. Mine is made from a square of brown wool and has a hole in the middle around which a hood is attached. lLike every other article of clothing, it is simply pulled over the head to snuggly cover the neck, chest and back. When seen wearing it with a longbow in my hand I am usually asked whether I am Ragnar, Robin Hood, or Legolas; I think of how Tolkien may have answered and say to them; “perhaps all three at once.”
The shoes are a simple Iron Age design. Custom shaped for the individual, each shoe is a single oval of leather, which wraps around each foot. Around the toes, the leather is cut into a semicircular throng of strips, through which a string is run; which, when pulled tightly, basically creates a comfortable yet fashionable ‘bag’ for each foot. I found a blog tutorial to help make mine from: http://www.instructables.com/id/Viking-shoes/ , though a really nice example can be seen in the National Museum of Ireland; as delicate as a pharaoh but almost unnoticed in a corner of the Egyptology section, is a single shoe from the Roman 4th Century.
In a brown leather pouch I carry a few trinkets that I use often to talk to visitors about the small objects people once lost; only to pop up again during an excavation. Tourists love the little trinkets. They are often thought provoking, and help to reflect on some of the beads, pins and coins they only just saw in the exhibition below. They often find it amusing, the similarities there are between ourselves and those of the past; the idea of someone cursing themselves for losing a brand new comb or brooch; our conversation often ending in a story of a lost iPhone or camera. On my arm I wear a silver bracelet with two ravens while holding up my blue cloak, is a Hiberno-Norse thistle brooch. I was surprised to hear that these kinds of penannular brooches did not appear in Viking contexts until after they made contact with Ireland. I now use it to show how Viking traders did not just bring to new places their own styles and traditions, but how they also borrowed and even adopted some of the styles and traditions from the places they migrated to. I carry with me a steel striker and a piece of flint which I use for firelighting demonstrations; a small pouch of replica gold and silver coins and a comb to show how I keep my beard and moustache so full and majestic.
Some early Danish Viking laws required every freeman on the battlefield to bring with him to battle at least two spears, a shield and a sword or axe. Having a full time job as a bow-maker in the Chieftain’s house, I figured a man of means was entitled to a sword. However, the rounded ‘safe edge’ of my own, would have left a warrior in the past at a distinct disadvantage. The edges of our swords are rounded so that we may actually fight and practise with them. Last year as a branch of UCD’s Combat Archaeology module, I set up a fighting group in the Lofoten. Here the staff were able to learn a little bit more through direct experience, the dynamics of close combat, by actually using a sword and shield. My sword, has the pommel of a typical ‘Peterson Type S’. This was what really influenced my purchase. Type S swords have these three very distinctive and rounded knuckles on the pommel. These were mostly common to Southern Norway and thus, also quite popular in Ireland; one of which can be found in the National Museum of Ireland.
The atmosphere in the longhouse now, is mostly designed to create a visual and dynamic experience. The clothes, activities and objects used in the house, help awaken each of the senses and bring to life the objects that now rest too quietly in the exhibition below. However, the guides and crafters dressed as Vikings are often asked about the original site and objects; which they then try effectively, to put put these things into a living context for the visitors.
Unlike other museums which purely uses reenactment, we do not strictly use characters or roleplaying. However, recently it has been suggested. A question was raised at the 9th Experimental Archaeology Conference in Dublin this year; whether or not taking the role of a Viking character and pretending to be a person in the past, might actually have the opposite effect, and actually limit the archaeological discussion; with ‘early medieval characters’ unable to discuss modern things such as archaeology, excavation; unable to draw comparisons to later/earlier cultures. It is true in many museums that a character can enhance the atmosphere, however, this being an archaeological site with the original remains right outside the door we perhaps have a responsibility to the site first. However, I am determined to test that for myself.
Either way, there is no doubt that getting dressed up and looking the part certainly does provide a living exhibition, where active thinking can truly begin to take over where the mind left off in the museum below. Coming straight from the silence of the finds-room, past the original excavation site and then into a smoky longhouse, each visitor can see both colleagues and friends making noise and working around an open fire. It stretches the imagination and brings to the surface that all too blurry area where artefact ends – and interpretation begins. It is a living exhibition that reminds us again how experimental archaeology can be used as a way to enter any subject that questions the route of all our archaeological interests; ‘people’, and their dynamic interactions with the things around them.
Stephen Fox 2015