Tag: bronze

Craft Fair: Metalworking

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Metalwork during the European medieval times was generally considered to be crude and warlike. Much of media portrays medieval times as violent and barbaric by focusing on weapons and warrior culture. However, these works do not accurately represent the breadth of Anglo-Saxon metallurgy and artistry, and the significant degree of advancement Anglo-Saxon metalsmith possessed. That is why, when constructing stations for the Early Medieval Crafts Fair, we felt it important to try to portray a variety of metalworkings, despite the limitations of appropriate resources. Many of the metalworkings presented give insight on Anglo-Saxon culture and domestic life.  We can better understand their history by examining why their knives are so well built, or why brooches came in such a variety. Metalworking leave a trail of clues that help piece together a history that is not well documented through texts.

Our first idea was to attempt to procure some more authentic materials for people to feel and view; we understood that due to the nature of our station it would be difficult to make an interactive station. We approached both Carleton’s geology department as well as Carleton’s local metalworking staff in the art department to ask about getting a sample of bog iron, the rock used by Anglo-Saxons for most of their iron ore, and a sample piece of jewelry like a brooch or a knife, respectively. The geology department unfortunately did not have a sample of the rock that we needed, and due to safety requirements surrounding the metalworking studio, we were unable to recreate any objects.

So we fell back on an approach that was more functional and didactic in nature. Namely, we created “ingots” from playdough and provided instructions to “hammer” them into shape (See Further Reading, Leahy). The playdough was created by the ceramics group. 

Making the playdough “ingot”

Demonstrating pinching the sides of the playdough to create a sharper shape

A final ingot

Our job was mostly to figure out how to use the playdough that we had and make sure it was ready for each visitor. Each block of playdough would be pounded into a rectangle and pinched into a sharper, squarer shape, to give a better tactile feeling to the substance more like metal as opposed to a non-Newtonian fluid. We then found and printed out a few diagrams of Anglo-Saxon metalworking, and fairgoers could follow along with them while we would talk about various misconceptions and practices in early Medieval smithing.

The diagram given to fairgoers for spearhead making.

Unfortunately, we only could find good visual instructions for the making of a spearhead in this manner, which could have enforced the aforementioned stereotype of early medieval times and Anglo-Saxon metalworking. However, images of various finished metalworkings, such as brooches and other non-ferrous items, were presented so that participants could recreate their general shapes.

To aid in our teaching, we undertook the creation of a piece of “bog iron”, which was a rock repainted to give the orange/red appearance of actual bog iron. We took a rock, spray painted it with the appropriate color, and then to give it the appearance that it had been set in a bog, we tossed it in a garbage bag with some dirt. While its impact may have been small, it certainly helped as both a visual tool for describing the nature of Anglo-Saxon metalworking.

The rock before being spraypainted.

Spraypainting the rock

The rock, now tossed in dirt to give that out-of-the-ground feeling

The goal of our station was to educate people on Anglo-Saxon metalworking.  Although we were limited with playdough to use as our “ingots” we were able to get visitors to process the idea of molding things against their nature and facing resistance.  Additionally, our station was heavily supplemented with substantial lecture as well as various models of metalworking for participants to use as a visual aid. The most important part of the station was the background provided to the audience on Anglo-Saxon metalworking, which provided a better sense of history that unfortunately could not have been provided through craft, like it had in other stations. 

ORP: Eriswell Girdle-Hangers

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This class focused very closely on material engagement as a way of understanding the culture and people of the past. Individually, we each chose a specific artifact to reconstruct either physically or digitally with the intent that focusing closely on a specific object and performing the steps of making a model would teach us about the process that the original makers of the objects would have experienced. I chose the 6th-century bronze girdle-hangers from the Eriswell cemetery in Suffolk for my reconstruction project. Through the process of researching and recreating the artifact, I learned not only details about how it was originally made but also how it served a wider culture of displaying one’s status and identity on their body in a visible manner.

 

Background

Beginning in the 5th-century, Anglo-Saxons buried their women with accessories and ornamentation to indicate who they were while alive. The growing inequality between the rich graves and poor graves throughout the 6th-century indicated changing power dynamics in society as individual families grew more powerful and wealthier than others. Styles of dress became an important vehicle through which to display one’s status, and regional styles of dress began to develop across Early Medieval England. A shared elite style of dress began to spread as well as contact between the powerful Anglo-Saxon families increased. Girdle-hangers were a part of this growing shared elite culture.

Girdle-hangers were a symbol of status that powerful women would have worn. The distinctive shape of these specific girdle-hangers was meant to resemble that of keys, signifying that the woman who wore them was the keeper of her household. These objects were discovered across England, from Little Eriswell on the eastern side to Cowdery’s Down in the west. It becomes evident through burial archaeology that the women, many of whom wore brooches and other jewelry in death, likely served as walking cultural symbols. Their regional-style dress made it instantly recognizable where they came from, and their level of finery indicated their place within society.

 

Reconstruction

My wooden model girdle-hangers

My reconstruction of the Eriswell girdle-hangers led me on an adventure in which I encountered many of the problems, complications, and limitations that the makers of the original girdle-hangers would have faced. When I began my reconstruction, I had planned to make a digital model with Agisoft Photoscan, but the program was unfortunately unable to orient the photos of the artifacts correctly. Lacking the technological prowess to fix this problem, I decided to make a physical model. Lacking the knowledge and ability to cast things out of bronze, I decided to make my models out of wood. Already I encountered some common problems with which any maker must contend: the limitations of my own set of skills and availability of my materials. These limitations would shape the form that my finished girdle-hangers would take.

Preliminary sketch-plan of my model girdle-hangers. I learned during the creation process that some of the measurements are actually wrong because I am bad at math.

The key shape sketched onto the plywood. Notice the “X” at the end of the key where I continued to modify the design right up until I cut the shapes out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The key shapes and the band saw used to cut them

 

During my initial design process, I attempted to sketch out the exact dimensions of the girdle-hangers when I realized how little this would have mattered to the original makers. Exact measurements did not matter when it came to these objects. What really mattered was their distinctive key shape, since they had no actual functional purpose at all beyond sending a visible message. The designs I had made turned into a rough guide for the creation process, but by no means were they a step-by-step manual. I knew that when I began the process of making the models, I would need to mostly just think on my feet and, as before, allow my particular skill set and the materials available drive the project, which they did indeed. While making the models, I found myself constantly running into problems and reacting to them, adapting always to what my materials and tools would allow me to do.

One of the best insights I gained when making the girdle-hangers was the fact that each key must have been made either from two different pieces or had a transition cast in the metal. Halfway down the shaft of each key, they turn 90-degrees to fit onto the crossbar that holds the two keys together. This transition, either a twist or a seam, occurs on a part of the key that appears to be wrapped with bronze wire. It was my conclusion that the bronze wire served to hide the 90-degree transition from view. I came to this conclusion when attempting to recreate this part of the models; I chose the two-pieces approach, attaching an eye bolt 90-degrees to the broad side of the wooden key and wrapping them with string to strengthen the seam.

The end of the bronze girdle-hangers turned 90-degrees to the broad end of the key shafts, the transition wrapped in wire

The ends of my girdle-hangers, made of eye bolts turned 90-degrees to the broad end of the shafts and wrapped in string

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While my process and the end results of my project were not perfect – from the materials and tools used to the processes that I created in my mind – creating these girdle-hangers helped me engage with the objects made centuries ago and allowed me to step into the shoes of the original makers to experience the limitations and complications that they experienced.

 

Further Reading

Kevin Leahy, Anglo-Saxon Crafts (Stroud: The History Press, 2010).

Robin Fleming, Britain After Rome (New York: Penguin Group, 2011).

Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Dress and Identity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, ed. David A. Hinton, Sally Crawford, Helena Hamerow (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Christopher Scull, “Social Transactions, Gift Exchange, and Power in the Archaeology of the Fifth to Seventh Centuries,” in Hinton, Oxford Handbook.

Patricia Hutchinson, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Little Eriswell, Suffolk (Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1966).

ORP: Square-Headed Brooch

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Context

Pre-conversion (5th-7th centuries) Anglo-Saxon fashion is rather elusive, as there is little to no documented evidence from this period. What evidence we have comes almost entirely from the material record, and much of this evidence comes from burials. However, the predominance of certain buried fashionable items, especially in women’s graves, gives us some idea about what the early Anglo-Saxons wore and what those items may have signified for the wearers.

The square-headed brooch is one such fashionable item. The brooch is a rather common find in women’s graves from the early period, and this suggests that it was a popular ornament, at least in certain social circles. I recreated a square-headed brooch from the cemetery at Little Eriswell, Suffolk, and much of my research on the brooch centered around the cemetery itself and the rest of the grave goods buried with the brooch.

The Little Eriswell cemetery is an early (mid to late 6th century) East Anglian cemetery. It does not seem to have been linked to an inordinately rich cemetery; the only notable markers of exceedingly high status are a high-quality sword and textile. Moreover, the degenerate condition of the brooches and ornaments at the gravesite corroborate this modest picture. This does not mean, however, that there was no social stratification at Eriswell. Certain graves have few or no grave goods, while other graves, like the one I researched, hold more grave goods, many of which appear to be luxury items.

The grave I researched holds a female in her twenties. Along with her brooch, she is buried with two cruciform brooches, a collection of amber, glass, and jet beads, an ivory ring, girdle hangers, and a collection of odd metal trinkets. These trinkets may have had spiritual significance to the owner, since they seem to have had no pragmatic or aesthetic purpose. The gilding on the square-headed brooch, the beads, and the ivory ring all indicate that, while the owner was not excessively wealthy, she had some moderately high status. The ivory ring also indicates that Eriswell was likely connected to some international trade route.

The brooch itself is pretty typical for its time period and location. It is adorned with abstract animal ornamentation, a hallmark of early Anglo-Saxon art. The patterns on the brooch, at first glance, seem purely abstract, but if one looks closely, one can begin to pick out certain anthropomorphic shapes: faces, serpents, horses, etc. As earlier mentioned, the brooch is gilded, indicating some modest wealth. Indeed, square-headed brooches are thought to have been markers of status; they likely held together a gown similar to the peplos-style gown of ancient Greece, which could have been held together by simple pins. That these brooches, then, were used instead indicates that they were likely a marker of status. Gowns themselves may have marked status in Anglo-Saxon England, since the more practical tunic could also have been worn.

                               The square-headed brooch from Eriswell.

 

Process
I modeled my brooch using Agisoft Pro 3-D modeling software. To do this, I uploaded pictures of the brooch from various angles into the computer program. I then “masked” the pictures, essentially cropping out everything in the picture that wasn’t the brooch itself, like the base and black background. I separated the pictures into different “chunks”; since different groups of pictures showed the brooch in different positions (right-side up, upside down, for example), the program would have meshed different positions together in the model if I had made one model alone. I then generated my sparse point cloud, the first layer of modeling, and then the dense point cloud, the second layer. I then manually trimmed away and combined my different chunks to form one cohesive model (sort of like photoshopping different images together, but with models). I finally created the mesh, so that the model became a 3-D shape, not a collection of dots, and textured it. At that point, my model was complete.

                                     Front and back sides of my model.
The process above seems rather smooth and streamlined, but many problems came up in the modeling of the brooch. Most of these stemmed from my ignorance of the software. I hadn’t used Agisoft before and was having to learn the system as I was modeling. For example, I didn’t realize I had to mask and was very confused when my model incorporated the black background. To troubleshoot, I consulted video tutorials, Dr. Mason, and a classmate, Brittany Johnson. I did not make my model in one go. My process was riddled with restarts and editing.

I also made a rough sketch of the front of the brooch. My goal in sketching was not to get a good 3-D image of the brooch, since that was what my computer model did. Rather, it was to get a better idea of the animal ornamentation on the front of the brooch. That ornamentation was extremely rather abstract, and my hope was that by drawing it out, I could notice more patterns and forms in the brooch.
                                                                               My sketch.

Insights
I found that both models, 3-D and sketch, offered different insights into the brooch and its making. I found that while my finished sketch was little help, the process of drawing helped me to understand the brooch much better. As I had presumed, I was able to pick up more and more patterns in the ornamentation. While I had already noticed the faces on different poles of the brooch, I hadn’t noticed, for example, the parallel serpentine designs on opposite sides of the “square head” of the brooch. I also thought that drawing the brooch gave me a better idea of what making the brooch may have been like. While Anglo-Saxon metalworkers would not have been sketching their designs using pencil and paper, they did carve it into the clay mold for the brooch, a process very much akin to my sketching. This in turn made the brooch-making process more human in my head; sketching the designs felt rather improvisational, and I could imagine myself as the brooch-maker, carving what designs I thought looked fitting into the brooch.

Whereas the process of sketching the brooch gave me an insight into the brooch-making process, I found that modeling the brooch did not help me at all, but my finished product certainly did. The abstract, distanced nature of running a program distanced me from the brooch. Copying and pasting images and commanding the program to run various, abstract tasks did not bring me closer to understanding the nature of brooch-making. However, my finished 3-D model, which I could turn around and look at from all sides, like I would a physical object, was exceedingly helpful. First of all, it was the most natural possible way for me to understand my object. I could look at different pictures of my brooch, but the 2-D nature of these images kept the brooch disjointed in my mind—I found that that spatial incoherence made it harder for me to retain an idea of the brooch’s form while I was researching. Having a coherent, 3-D image greatly helped me subconsciously fit together the brooch in my head while I was researching.

On a more fundamental level, though, having a 3-D model allowed me to have a semi-tactile connection with the brooch. A common argument against technological developments is that they distance the maker with the made. If I write with a computer, for example, I am not having the touch-based connection with writing that I would have if I were writing with pencil and paper. I am not actually crafting the letters. Yet if I hadn’t 3-D modeled my brooch, I would have had even less tactile avenues for understanding my brooch. The only other resources at my disposal were pictures, which only offered a visual connection with the brooch. Even if I traveled to the museum where the brooch is held, the brooch would be behind a glass case. I wouldn’t be able to turn it around and inspect it on my own terms. My 3-D model, however, does give me that experience, even if it is virtual. I can turn around my brooch at will and zoom in where I want. This is a much more natural process than the others at my disposal. Furthermore, if I wanted a physical connection with the brooch, I could 3-D print my model, and that way I could have a true physical, tactile connection with the brooch. Technology, then, can make archaeological work more natural, not necessarily less. This is an important insight for the future of the digitalization of archaeological work. If it is prioritized, we can use technology to make archaeological work more natural for more people, not just those that have the resources to go on digs and have tactile connections with artefacts. This furthermore can be used to make historical education more natural, and indeed, museums are increasingly creating accessible 3-D models to supplement their exhibits.

Bibliography

Hutchinson, Patricia. “The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Little Eriswell, Suffolk.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 59 (1966).

Ingold, Tim. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, and Architecture. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.

Leahy, Kevin. Anglo-Saxon Crafts. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2003; reprinted Stroud: History Press, 2010.

Meaney, Aubrey L. “Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones.” BAR British Series 96 (Oxford, 1981).

Owen-Crocker, Gale R. Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988; reprint, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004.

 

ORP: Wrist Clasps

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For my object reconstruction project, I focused on re-creating a pair of Anglo-Saxon wrist clasps, which were found in grave 28 at the Little Eriswell cemetery in Suffolk.

 

Background

Wrist clasps were a fairly ubiquitous item in the kingdom of East Anglia and showed up in many of their inhumation cemeteries. They are often made of bronze, are rectangular, and have a hook and hole closure system that allowed them to be linked together. They would have been used to hold together the sleeves of a woman’s dress in a manner similar to that of modern cufflinks.

 The hook on the back of one clasp

The clasps found in grave 28 were fairly nondescript compared to the the more embellished ones cast in silver or covered in intricate patterns found elsewhere, but when considered alongside the other items in the grave (such as a waist bag and girdle hangers) on can infer that the woman in the grave was of high status, or had relatives who wanted her to appear that way in death.

The metalworking needed to produce the clasps would have been accomplished by a trained craftsperson, who could have used one of two casting methods. The first would involve carving a mold out of clay block and then pouring the molten metal in. The second, known as lost wax casting, would involve making a wax blank of the clasps, forming a mold around it, melting out the wax while firing the clay mold, and then casting the piece. Irregardless of the methods used, the time, materials and expertise needed to make them meant that even the most basic wrist clasps conferred an image of material wealth.

Reconstruction

Through the process of trying to make models of the clasps I encountered what Tim Ingold, a scholar of material objects, refers to as “material resistance” or what might colloquially be referred to as problems. Photoscan is an interesting program because while it does create something, the user inputs are almost the direct antithesis of making by hand. Ingold describes making as the process of “a correspondence between mindful attention and lively materials” and in the case of Photoscan, there is very little material to work with. Throughout the process of modeling the clasps, I didn’t feel like I was taking part in the process of creating, but rather I was troubleshooting the creations of the computer when something odd happened. I didn’t sequence the photos, find matching points, or generate polygons (all steps in the generation of a 3D model), the computer did all those things, and I was left to scratch my head and consult YouTube tutorials to find out why the model looked more like an angry swarm of bees than a wrist clasp.

 Wrist clasp or pointillist art?

Another interesting aspect of Photoscan is how it takes away time as a variable in the practice of making. Where metal cools and pottery dries, all the data in my model sat in perfect stasis until I had figured out what the next step in the process was.

Insights

Despite the issues I encountered, the process of modeling the wrist clasps yielded valuable insights about material correspondence and the analogous similarities between making by hand and making digitally.

Zooming in and out from the model the same way one would step back from the table when making a pot made me feel more connected to what I was making and I was able to view it as an object rather that a cloud of points that the computer spat out for me. Masking out the putty in the source images to keep the gray color out of the final texture also has elements of metalworking mixed in. When a cast piece of metalwork was removed from a mold, it would likely have some remnants of the mold attached to it, such as clay dust or sand, and I saw the process of masking out the gray color to be the same as cleaning up a cast to finish the making process.

 Masking out the putty

Similarly, the time spent waiting to see if the last input create a workable model or a formless blob was similar to the process of waiting for the metal within a mold to cool. Every time I launched a new step, I felt similarly to how a metalsmith may have as they waited to see if their cast turned out correctly.

Even in the failures of the model, I saw mirror images of how physical making could have failed, further interlocking the physical and the digital as I worked through the modeling process. After creating blobs that followed the general contours of the wrist clasps, I was a little disheartened. But after a while, I noticed how the way that one end of a clasp looked like a description Kevin Leahy, a modern craftsperson, provided when explaning the danger of metal cooling and solidifying before it reached the bottom of the casting mold.The incomplete end of my model looked as if the same problem had occurred in the casting of my clasp.

 The “incomplete” end

While I was examining the class, I noticed one had extra texture that wasn’t on the clasps themselves. I understood that it existed because I hadn’t cut all of dark background points away from the clasps, but it also looked like what would happen if a ceramic mold cracked and metal had pooled outside of the shape the clasp was supposed to be in.

 The “pooled” metal behind a clasp

The idea that two completely different methods of creation could result in the same visual effect, even across hundreds of years, really shifted my opinion on digital model making.

In the end the result were not perfect, or frankly even that good, but through the process of making the clasps I learned more about the way Anglo-Saxon metalworkers may have felt and got a better sense of the benefits and limitations of making digitally compared to physically.

 

The finished models: a valiant effort, but not quite the genuine article.

Further Reading

Hutchinson, Patricia. “The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Little Eriswell, Suffolk,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 59 (1966): 1–32.

Ingold, Tim. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London:Routledge, 2013.

Leahy, Kevin. “Anglo-Saxon Crafts.” Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010.

Owen-Crocker, Gale R. “Dress and Identity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Anglo Saxon Archaeology, edited by Helena Hamerow, David A. Hinton, and Sally Crawford. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.