Learning about willow

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There are some really interesting wooden artefacts from the Flag Fen excavations, preserved in the fenny waterlogged deposits.   One of these is a scoop, find reference A8458, carved from a piece of willow.   It was found in one of the lowest levels of the main excavated area of wooden timbers that make up the post alignment and platform of this major prehistoric site.   Associated with Phase 1 structures, it probably dates from around the thirteenth-century BC and is now in the British Museum.

Maisie Taylor analysed the wood from the excavations.    When describing the scoop she wrote, “The bowl of the scoop was shaped across the grain and so well finished that no clues survive as to the method of fabrication” (Pryor 2001:226).

Willow is a fibrous wood with a very open texture.   There are many British varieties and it hybridizes very easily.   The wood can be cut cleanly, but there is a risk that the fibres will tear out; apart from cricket bats, the most common use of willow is its withies for basketry.

With half an eye on the Flag Fen scoop, I’ve been trying out some unseasoned willow that came from a fallen tree in the River Kennet at Lockeridge.   The tree fell across the river and was affecting its course, so the landowner cut it up and I was given a few pieces.

This bowl was very easy to carve, using my small adze and a wide, shallow swept chisel designed for just this work.   However, the long, coarse fibres caused problems in the bowl bottom and where the bottom and sides meet as the chisel’s cutting edge went parallel to the grain rather than across it.   It will be interesting to compare with the behaviour of seasoned wood.   The bowl base is at the centre of the log and the oval form runs parallel with the log.

willow bowl

Willow bowl, March 2013

 

Pryor, F. (2001)   The Flag Fen Basin   Swindon: English Heritage

My cannibal fork

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I recently visited the newly-redisplayed Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.   Unfortunately I could see only the ground-floor space because of ongoing works upstairs, but it was really impressive nonetheless with some wonderful objects and interesting ideas presented with clarity.   Although the old archaeology galleries in this room showed off a great range of the museum’s collections, the exhibits had got rather tired.   Now the room is full of natural light and beautifully displayed objects.

A case tucked round the corner behind the new teaching space is filled top to bottom with nineteenth-century Fijian cannibal forks.   I hadn’t come across these before, and was intrigued by the smooth, dark wood, elegant prongs and decorated handles of the anthropological objects.   Alongside these are displayed replicated objects, made by members of the Department during a project lead by Alana Jelinek, AHRC Creative Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts.

The replicated cannibal forks have been carved from white woods including sycamore and ash, so they make a dramatic contrast to the dark, shiny surfaces of the Fijian originals.   The case is illuminated by a video of a making event, with audio of museum staff discussing the forks.   I learnt that cannibal forks are surrounded by controversy, with a rich yet dangerous mythology that has perpetuated barbarous tales of the Fijian people.

A current view is that the forks were nothing to do with cannibalism, but were made to satisfy the curiosity and predilections of collectors who brought them back to European museums.

I took the opportunity to make my cannibal fork, inspired by the beautiful workmanship of the Fijian craftspeople who had carved theirs for the Museum’s Victorian benefactors.   It is made on a piece of cherry from North Farm, West Overton and carved using a hatchet, pushknife and sloyd knife.   Originally I intended to carve beads around the upper handle, but decided to give the fork a face after I saw some footage of the Kingsteignton Idol.   The idol is a wooden Iron Age artefact, excavated in 1867.

wooden cannibal fork

Cannibal Fork in cherry, April 2013

About this blog

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Here are the bowls of two wooden spoons that I made a while back.   They are carved from sweet chestnut.   You can see the front of the bowl of the smaller, heart-shaped spoon and the back of the larger, shield-shaped spoon.

This blog is mostly about objects that I have made.

There are some really interesting blogs written by amazing craftspeople about their products, specialist skills and experiences.   If you want to learn about one specific craft or technology, you will need to find one of those blogs.

This blog is all about a range of objects, material, tools, technology and processes.   You will find that these usually have something to do with the archaeological record, archaeological theory or archaeological interpretation.

If you look carefully at the blog header image, you will recognise that it is a photo of the heart of an open fire that is being used to turn clay pots into ceramic – the firing process which in Britain has helped people from the Neolithic period onwards to live their lives.   The photo is one of a sequence that documents a whole firing process.

Objects are made by people in places, and often this too will be reflected in my blog posts.

The sweet chestnut logs from which I cleft the billets that I carved into the spoons came from the grounds of a primary school.   The elderly tree was causing problems to the school buildings and was also unwell, so it had to be taken down.   Having selected a few lengths, I brought the logs home with some help and put them into storage.  Later on, I started to reduce the large logs into sections for carving different objects in my workshop.

I might have done things differently if I had been carving spoons in the Bronze Age, say.   Interpreting the past is a knotty and contentious practice, as some of my objects will show you.