Tag: antler

ORP: Double-Sided Comb

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About Object 1402

A double-sided bone comb found at the West Stow Settlement.

Object 1402 was described in the archeological records as a “double-sided bone comb in very fine condition.” The comb was found during the archeological excavations at the West Stow settlement that were undertaken by the British Department of the Environment beginning in 1965. During the excavation process, the department uncovered the remains of around 75 buildings and thousands of artifacts that served to add greatly to the known material culture of these people. The comb was found in Sunken Feature Building 51 (SFB 51), one of the most northern structures present at West Stow. This small building, about thirteen feet by seven feet, had a pit dug into the ground (it was estimated to have originally been about two feet deep) over which the building was situated. SFB 51 had two central support posts, as was fairly typical of the other buildings found on site, with straight walls and rounded corners. Interestingly, despite the comb being considered one of the better examples found at West Stow, there was very little else discovered in this building, only a single hook, and a few broken pieces of pottery. The small size of the building and the artifacts that were found suggest that SFB 51 was originally a domestic area that probably housed relatively few people, as would be expected in a single-family settlement.

 

Combs in Anglo-Saxon England

Bone and antler combs are by no means rare finds in excavations of Anglo-Saxon settlements, and at West Stow, they were one of the most commonly uncovered items. These included single- sided, double-sided, and triangular combs that were found scattered throughout many of the roughly 75 buildings uncovered on the site. While it is clear that these items were prevalent throughout England during this time, it remains uncertain of their cultural significance as they do not appear in textual sources from the era. Object 1402, for instance, though it is an unusually good specimen, but it still leaves many questions about its uses and those of many combs found throughout Britain. Were the broken teeth the result of the last 1,500 years underground, or were they teeth that snapped off before it was discarded? Who would have used it? Were combs primarily used by women, or would they have been seen as ungendered during the period? What does this comb tell us about the values of the Anglo-Saxons, does the level of detail put into the comb suggest vanity or merely a concern for hygiene?  Many of these questions will never be answered, and certainly will not be will not be derived from a single artifact, but if observing an object will not bring us to understand the lives of the people who owned it centuries ago, attempting to recreate its production and use will at least serve to bring us closer to the headspace of those who produced these objects and interacted with them years ago.

 

Recreation Process

I attempted to make a 3D model of the comb using the process of photogrammetry. Much of the process did involve mind-numbing struggles with the computer program or merely setting the computer system to run while I sat and read a book, but I also found that some of the process did give me a greater insight into the original making process. Through the process I had the ability to look at the object from many angles greatly improved my understanding of how the comb was put together, and allowed me to view the sides of the comb in much greater detail than I would have seen in a side-view photograph of so thin an object.

Top of the comb during the photogrammetry process.

Bottom of comb during the photogrammetry process.

In addition to this, I believe that part of the photogrammetry process gave me a taste of the actual process of cutting the teeth of the comb. I spent many hours laboriously cutting away the excess material that the computer had produced from the background, carefully shaving it away from the teeth of the comb.

Cutting excess material away from the teeth of the comb.

This long and intricate process (one that would have been made infinitely harder in the Anglo-Saxon period by the absence of an undo button) gave me an appreciation for the delicacy of the work. A bone worker would almost certainly have failed many times before he was able to create a comb so intricate with nearly uniform teeth. It would assuredly have been an arduous and often frustrating process, which led me to wonder, how these combs could have been so common throughout the West Stow settlement.

 

Insight Gained

While a digital recreation of the comb found at West Stow did not necessarily shed great insight into the physical process of bone carving during the early medieval period, it did add give a greater appreciation for the time and energy that would have gone in to such a creation and the delicacy of much of the work involved. I discovered this in the process of cutting the excess material from the model, as described above but also through time spent examining the object and trying to place it within its larger context. This is one of the benefits of the field of digital humanities and the possibilities it presents for the wider exploration of history. It certainly should not replace physical models or other forms of recreation, but as an added tool, it offers the chance to produce a greater number of models of items and helps us to integrate interdisciplinary fields to better our understanding of archeological sights such as West Stow. Through the process of photogrammetry, I was able to take pictures of an item on the other side of the Atlantic and produce a physical, printed model that gives us a good idea of the original. It may not be an exact replica, but I have a much better idea of the complexity involved in the original object, and it can now be seen by a wider audience.

A 3-D reproduction of the West Stow comb.

As is often the case, the greater understanding of the piece does not necessarily offer a greater simplicity to its historical narrative, but it does serve to enrich it and to give a more wholistic view of its place in history. Perhaps the recreation and reclamation of ancient objects and crafting techniques will not serve to answer all our outstanding historical questions, but it will, without a doubt serve to enrich our historical understanding. It is a journey of self-discovery that may vastly complicate our ideas, but it will also, overtime, allow for a greater exploration of Anglo-Saxon Britain through personal experience and immersion in many different avenues of historical exploration.

 

Further Reading

Ingold, Tim. Making. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Leahy, Kevin. Anglo-Saxon Crafts. Brimscombe Port Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2003.

West, Stanley. West Stow: The Anglo-Saxon Village. Ipswich, UK: Suffolk County Council, 1985.

ORP: Cruciform Antler Stamp

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Cruciform Stamp, West Stow

 

Background

Over the course of this term, both individually and as a class, we have learned a good deal about both the benefits and limitations of historic recreation as a method for exploring the past and the objects that survive from it. The following project is my personal effort to learn about a cruciform pottery stamp fashioned from antler from West Stow, a small Anglo-Saxon settlement that likely flourished in the early 5th to early 7th centuries. I researched the stamp and its context, and attempted to craft a replica using modern tools and my very limited (read: literally no) experience.

 

  

 

The original stamp was found not in one of the many excavated buildings at West Stow, but was rather one of the numerous artifacts found around the buildings, indicated that it was at one point lost or discarded. Pottery stamps were sometimes used on ceramics such as everyday cookware or storage vessels, but more often on funerary urns, pots that contained the cremated remains of a deceased member of the community.

Antler was a commonly used material in the Anglo-Saxon world. Though more difficult to find than horn or bone, it has more tensile strength, and was usually used for objects that would be under stress regularly, such as combs, or in this case, stamps.

It is unclear whether the shape the stamp forms has any spiritual or religious significance. At the time of its creation, Christianity had long gone from that area of the British Isles, and had not yet returned, so the cross shape it makes was probably not intended as a Christian sign. Perhaps the shape was influenced by designs from the continent– specifically from the Franks, who often traded with the Isles and who had remained Christianized. Maybe it was just aesthetically pleasing. Or perhaps it was informed by some error during the carving, as my own copy was. Whatever the truth is, however, it remains a mystery.

 

Process

  

(Sorry about the bad picture quality for these, but I don’t know how to fix it.)

 

To start, I was given a piece of deer antler and a box of assorted tools, including metal files/rasps, saws, chisels, and clamps for securing the piece. I also ended up borrowing a knife from a friend, which was helpful in refining the stamp design towards the end of my work. All of these tools, with the exception of the clamps, are the recommended toolset of “Halldor the Viking,” a dedicated boneworker and Medieval re-enactor. 

Halldor had some other pearls of wisdom to share apart from the components of a perfect toolkit, like steering clear of roe deer antler and recommending that the horn be soaked for the 48 hours prior to carving to soften it, but I decided to dive right in. I took the tools outside with me to work in the spring sunshine and wind, as an Anglo-Saxon craftsman might have done when the weather was good. I realized fairly quickly, however, that working outside, though pleasant, was difficult without any kind of infrastructure for antler carving, such as a workbench to place my work on. In the end, I split the difference and moved to sit on a cement and rock feature that I could use as a hard and stable surface.

I was very hesitant in making the first cut, not wanting to squander my precious single piece of antler by breaking it right off the bat. Instead, I sawed and chiseled off the very tip of the horn as practice before getting to work on the much thicker area towards its middle. That cut took some time, and I had to use a variety of saws and chisels accomplish it. As soon as I had finished, however, I realized that there was an odd slant to the cut and I was forced to take another slice off of my future stamp, which took equally as long and was just as difficult as the first time. Additionally, in the process, I accidentally chipped the top of the future stamp, which later informed my decision on how I would position the cross design.

Because the bottom half of the antler would become the true stamp, I used the other half of the antler to practice my method for forming the cross. The natural taper and smooth finish of the fragment made it exceedingly difficult to secure in such a way that would let me carve it, and so I quickly moved on to the real piece after deducing that the file shaped like a triangular prism would be my best bet for roughly forming the arms of the cross.

I had more success stabilizing the bottom half of the antler, so I knew that creating the rough shape of the cross would be relatively easier. However, I wasn’t sure if the beveling that appeared on the original stamp was created before or after the cross itself. Did it somehow facilitate the shaping of the cross, or was it added later as an design feature? How was I to even go about carving it, given the toughness of the cortical exterior of the horn? Eventually, I decided that since I had been able to create the shapes that I needed with the triangular file on my trial piece, I would forgo the beveling for the moment and carry on forming the cross.

As planned, I used the file for the cross shape and a chisel to carve the furrows in the center of the cross. I chose the site of the accidental chip to begin and worked from there to create four approximately even furrows as the spaces between the arms of the cross. With that, I had finished the rough stamp– all that remained was to refine it a bit, as much as I could.

For refining my work, I went to a ceramics studio to get a bit of a taste of the environment in which the stamp would have been used. With a knife and file, I once again tried to tackle the beveling problem, but no luck. I resigned myself to a completely rounded stamp with none of the carved planes that give the West Stow stamp its intriguing prismatic character. I spent a good hour whittling away at the arms of the cross with a knife, narrowing them down bit by bit, though they never reached the desired narrowness. I also took a stab at widening the grooves in the center of the cross, but the awkward angle of the knife seemed unsafe, so I abandoned the attempt. A few more shavings carved off here and there, and I had my stamp. I tested it on some wet clay (not leather hard, unfortunately, which is when the design would have been implemented), and it left a satisfying impression of a cross with thin ridges down the center, just as the original would have. Even if my stamp looks nothing like something the Anglo-Saxons produced, at least it works the same.

 

Insights

Overall, I enjoyed the process of creating this stamp, though it was more difficult than I had anticipated. Having worked with wood before, I was expecting the horn to be easier to carve and mold into a shape that I wanted. From the start, however, there were indicators that my copy could not be identical to the original. Firstly, the antler was shaped differently: mine was much thinner and less tapered from the get-go, and in order to achieve the appropriate proportions I had to make it shorter as well. Additionally, I believe that the spongy cancellous tissue at the center of the antler extended farther up the horn, and as a result the cross shape and grooves were muddied and rough, rather than clearly defined. Otherwise, the best explanation for the difference would be that I am a college undergraduate with no experience working with bone but armed with modern tools, whereas the original maker was presumably an experienced Anglo-Saxon craftsman using tools that may have been prone to warping or breaking. The unpredictability of his tools would have almost certainly informed how he went about carving his piece.

In my own attempts to carve a stamp from antler, I was able to feel and manipulate the material myself, giving me a greater appreciation for the craftsmanship and the purpose of the object. If a person was willing to spend the time and effort to gather the antler, soak it, and spend hours carving and refining it, then using the stamp must have been important. Recreation, though relatively novel and sometimes difficult to accomplish, is a fascinating and engaging way of understanding the past, one that we should continue exploring alongside more traditional techniques.

 

For Further Reading

Fleming, Robin. Britain after Rome: The Fall and Rise. London: Penguin Group, 2011.

 

Leahy, Kevin. “Animal Skeletal Materials.” In Anglo-Saxon Crafts, 53-60. N.p.: Tempus, 2003.

 

Magnusson, Halldor. “Basic Boneworking 101: The Toolkit.” Halldor the Viking: The Adventures of an Early Medieval Re-enactor (blog). Entry posted March 20, 2014. Accessed May 12, 2018. https://halldorviking.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/basic-bone-working-101-the-toolkit/.

 

———“How to Make a Composite Antler Comb.” Halldor the Viking: The Adventures of an Early Medieval Re-enactor (blog). Entry posted April 4, 2014. Accessed May 12, 2018. https://halldorviking.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/how-to-make-a-composite-antler-comb/.

 

Welton, Andrew J. “Encounters with Iron: An Archaeometallurgical Reassessment of Early Anglo-Saxon Spearheads and Knives.” The Archaeological Journal, 2016, 1-39. doi:10.1080/00665983.2016.1175891.

 

West, Stanley, ed. West Stow: The Anglo-Saxon Village. Research report no. 24. East Anglian Archaeology. Ipswich, United Kingdom: Suffolk County Planning Department, 1985.