Month: February 2018

Forging Ahead!

2018 is filling up!

In mid-May I’ll be doing experimental work at the second annual Bronze Casting Festival at the Bronzezeithof in Germany. This year I plan to experiment with finishing techniques, including soldering and enamelling using Bronze Age and Iron Age technology. It should be a challenge. Right now I’m working on how to set up the experiments and locating some of the supplies I’ll need.

In July I’ll be helping out at the SHARP (Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Project) in SE England archaeometallurgy course there. It’s a week-long course in experimental archaeology, plus talks and lectures on the history and science of metalworking.

11-12 August will see me back in Germany for the Kunst- und Handwerkstechniken der Bronzezeit (Art and Craftwork of the Bronze Age) at the Landesmuseum in Brandenburg.

I’ve also been asked to run a workshop in Nova Scotia as part of “Hands-On History” weekend.

It looks like an exciting summer full of casting and experimental work. I am paying my own way for most of this, but am fortunate to have support from contributors to my Patreon project. These are amazing people who make monthly donations to help support the projects I work on. Their generosity not only helps me, but also enables classes and workshops that introduce others to the world of experimental archaeology and ancient crafts. Contributors to the project get various rewards, ranging from monthly postcards to my unpublished diary from the two weeks when I lived on in the Bronze Age farm in Germany. The support of my patrons goes a long way to making so many of these events possible. If you’re interested in finding out more about Patreon or making a contribution (most are small, only $5 per month!) please click on the button below or on the column to the left. Thanks!

If you are interested in having me speak, demonstrate bronze casting, or run a workshop for your organisation or event, please contact me.

 

Now we’re Cooking with Gas! How experimental archaeology challenges modern assumptions about metal recycling.

New article available through EXARC. See the link below for the full article

It is accepted knowledge that when re-melting alloys, some of the metal with a lower melting temperature is lost through oxidation, and more metal must be added in order to maintain the desired alloy proportions. In order to understand the changes in alloy content when recycling using Bronze Age technology, experiments were undertaken by the author and others, using a charcoal furnace. These experiments included recycling bronze to quantify the loss of tin, and how alloys were affected by co-melting metals. The results were then compared to modern metallurgical practices using electric and gas furnaces. The initial results were presented at the Historical Metallurgy Society’s Research in Progress Conference in November of 2009. However, this paper includes further experiments that build on the earlier work. The conclusions indicate that knowledge of earlier practices was lost with the advance of technology, and that broad assumptions cannot be made about earlier technological practice based on work done with modern equipment.

Read the full article here