Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Same but with a twist - Ep 14
552 Plays1 year ago
In this fourteenth episode of Tea-Break Time Travel, Matilda talks all about torcs with expert archaeologist Dr Tess Machling. You might be familiar with these twisted pieces of jewellery, but do you know what they were used for? Who made them? How they developed over time? If the answer is “no”, then don’t worry you’re not alone! But listen in to this episode to hear all about the current theories surrounding these beautifully shiny objects, as well as the pros and cons of working as an independent researcher, and why some artefacts are surprisingly tasty.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/teabreak/14
Links
- Prehistory society Prehistory Society homepage
- Big book of torcs Big book of torcs homepage
Guest Contact
- Name: Tess Machling
- email: [email protected]
- insta: @thebigbookoftorcs
- twitter: @Tess_Machling
Contact the Host
- Email: [email protected]
- https://www.thearchaeologiststeacup.com
- insta: @the_archaeologists_teacup
- fb: /TheArchaeologistsTeacup
- twitter: @ArchaeoTeacup
ArchPodNet
- APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com
- APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet
- APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet
- APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet
- Tee Public Store
Affiliates
- Motion
- Motley Fool
Save $110 off the full list price of Stock Advisor for your first year, go to https://zen.ai/teafool and start your investing journey today!
*$110 discount off of $199 per year list price. Membership will renew annually at the then current list price. - Laird Superfood
Are you ready to feel more energized, focused, and supported? Go to https://zen.ai/teabreaktimetravel1 and add nourishing, plant-based foods to fuel you from sunrise to sunset. - Liquid I.V.
Ready to shop better hydration, use my special link https://zen.ai/teabreaktimetravel to save 20% off anything you order.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to Tea Break Time Travel, where every month we look at a different archaeological object and take you on a journey into their past.
Tea and Coffee Chat
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 14 of Tea Break Time Travel. I am your host, Matilda Ziebrecht, and today I am savoring a new tea, actually. It was given to me last week, and it's sort of a hubbly, greeny, minty, lavender-y one. If I list all the ingredients, it'll just take us forever, so I won't go in that. And joining me on my tea break today is Dr. Tess Matling. And are you also on tea today?
Dr. Matling's Archaeology Journey
00:00:39
Speaker
I have to admit, I'm on coffee. But I love the sound of your tea. I think that sounds wonderful.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's one of those, I mean, why have just a normal standard tea when you can have one that has 20 different ingredients in it, right? Exactly. I have a cupboard full of them. Yeah.
00:00:54
Speaker
And are you a sort of hard black coffee in the morning kind of drinker or a latte or? No, it's just an instant a lot of the time or proper coffee if I can be bothered making it. But yes, I'm quite lazy. I admit, now that we've had our second child, there are some more coffees being drunk in the teacup town. Yes, I remember it well. I am feeling your pain. Even though neither of us drink coffee, we only have coffee for guests, but there's been a few mornings where we've gone, should we have a coffee? Yeah, let's have a coffee.
00:01:24
Speaker
That will get me through today. Exactly. But tea today, tea today. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. And I have sort of the standard questions that I ask all my guests so that we can get
Diverse Career in Archaeology
00:01:36
Speaker
to know them. And of course, the first one is, how did you first get involved in archaeology? And we'll go into your sort of specialisation a bit later. But in terms of sort of archaeology in general, what first piqued your interest?
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, I realised suddenly I've been doing archaeology in some form or another for 40 years. It makes me sound terrible. Very experienced. Why is an experience... Something like that, yes. Yeah, I think...
00:02:00
Speaker
I mean, my mom and dad were always into history, so we did lots of museums and stuff when I was a kid, when I was very small. And then I had a wonderful primary school teacher, Mr. Colgate, and he used to take us around. I lived in a little village in Sussex, and he used to take us around on these little walks, saying, this is where the poor house was, and there was a girl called so-and-so who lived here, and people used to walk all the way to here to go mind flint and everything.
00:02:27
Speaker
And it absolutely fascinated me. And then you do that thing that so many of us do, that you get into fossils. And then when I was about 12, I wasn't actually a member of the Young Archaeologist Club, but I got hold of one of their newsletters from somewhere.
00:02:43
Speaker
and there was a dig advertised in Sussex, so I went off to this dig, sliced my finger on a lovely flint flake, first day there, ended up in a hospital with stitches, and then went back. You paid the blood toll. Absolutely, the blood sacrifice, the scar on my finger that I have to this day. And yeah, from that point onwards,
00:03:08
Speaker
I was just basically, I just loved it. I can't, I'm always someone who's like being outside. You obviously get to meet loads of people. This was back in the day when kids could go and volunteer on sites. I mean, understandably now there are health and safety implications that we didn't really pay attention to back then sadly. But yeah, I started working most of my holidays
Beyond Specialization in Archaeology
00:03:32
Speaker
volunteering, went to university, UCL, got an archaeology degree, started working as a field archaeologist, went into being a prehistoric pottery specialist, then ended up in the 17th century Caribbean looking at fortifications. And now I'm back in the Iron Age looking at gold. So yeah, I've kind of always done it. It's in my blood, I think.
00:03:56
Speaker
I'm curious, you mentioned, so you started with pottery and then went to fortifications, was there, what links? How did you go? There is actually a link. Strangely enough, Dr Elaine Morris, who's a fantastic pottery specialist down in Southampton,
00:04:12
Speaker
has connections to the island of Nevis in the Caribbean and asked me, because literally I was living in London at the time, close to the British Library, if I wouldn't mind going and doing a bit of archive or research for her. So I said, yeah, fine, where's Nevis, not a clue, little island in the Caribbean. Oh, and it's a 17th century fortification, no idea about them either. And Wynton did this bit of research and discovered that not only was there one fortification out in the Caribbean, but there were actually 30.
00:04:42
Speaker
that nobody knew about these little kind of coastal batteries and again a bit like how I got into talks kind of found a research problem thought oh that's really interesting and just carried on researching it and then someone said to me oh because we started with the research project out there started going out there a couple of times a year to dig these things and so I said do you realize you've probably got enough to do a PhD so I ended up doing a PhD so yes it's
00:05:07
Speaker
Yes, I think a friend called it a mosaic archaeology career. I think that just sums it up. But I think that's fantastic. So I have recently been to a wedding and where I was the only archaeologist there. And of course, everyone's saying, you know, the little small talk and saying, oh, so what do you do, you know? Yes, archaeologist. And it's inevitably the whole all right, so which
00:05:28
Speaker
culture do you specialise in? Or, you know, which region do you specialise in? And I mean, I'm sort of similar, I've been all over the place in all my research. And it's, yeah, I think it's always great to hear that people are indeed jumping around, because that's the whole point, right?
Time Travel to Iron Age Gold Workshop
00:05:41
Speaker
Archaeology, I don't know, I always say at least archaeology is not a topic, it's a frame of mind, because it's sort of more about how you approach a situation. Definitely. And I know so many archaeologists that are similar. I mean, even ones that are working in a particular field, most people have got an interest
00:05:56
Speaker
in something else outside of work. And like you say, it all informs, you know, we get so kind of stuck in our period bunkers, don't we? I'm a Bronze Age person, or I'm a so and so. When none of that actually means anything, you know, they weren't walking around in the Bronze Age thinking, right, 3pm on Tuesday, we're in the Iron Age, that's it now.
00:06:16
Speaker
abandon everything we had before. So, no, I think it's good. Yeah, it helps. It helps us be a bit more broad, I think, if we've got lots of different interests. Definitely. No, I can't agree more. Well, and I'll talk to you about this later a bit, Ashley, in the third section, because I think that'll be interesting to go into in more detail. But second question, of course, as this is tea break time travel, we are travelling back in time. But if you could travel back in time, especially as you have such a wide range of interests, where would you
Definition and Types of Talks
00:06:45
Speaker
go and why?
00:06:45
Speaker
I would go back to the Iron Age and I would go back to a gold workshop, wherever that might be, and that would be half of it landing up somewhere and going, oh, that's where you were making these things. Yeah, and I would love to see who was making what, how many of them there were, whether there were women involved. I'm convinced there probably were women involved.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, the tools they were using, particularly how they were managing to do without blow torches. That's what I would love to know, be a fly on a wall in an Iron Age gold workshop.
00:07:24
Speaker
I admit, and we'll probably get into this later, but I have absolutely no idea how gold has worked. So I'm very curious indeed to hear more from your experience on that. But excellent. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's absolutely fair enough. I love indeed how I think I've said this on every episode, but every single guest I've said, no one's ever said like, oh, I want to go back to this coronation of this king or, you know, something like that. We all know about the ordinary people, don't we?
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. So it's great. Well, indeed, thank you very much for joining me on my tea break today. And before we look in today's objects, there's been some hints speckled throughout so far. So you might have already guessed what we're looking at. But let us first journey back to the first century BC to the northwest coast of Norfolk in the east of what we now call England.
00:08:11
Speaker
It's a beautiful sunny day, the low scrub and the marshes of the field merging into the distance into the dunes and the sandy shore. Out in the field, the wind carries the scent of the sea, rustling the long grasses, but here, in the shade of the trees, it is sheltered. Only the smallest breeze moves the hair of the man standing in the clearing.
00:08:28
Speaker
He's richly dressed, a finely woven tunic and trousers held together with a belt, metal glinting at his wrists and neck. In his hands, however, is the brightest glint of all, as the sunlight reflects off the golden surface of what appears at first sight to be a thick, twisted ring. As he lowers the item towards a hole dug deep into the ground, we see that it's not actually a complete ring, it has an opening, marked by two hollowed circles decorated with intricate detail.
00:08:54
Speaker
And that is what we are looking at today, which is the talk, spelled T-O-R-C. And we'll get into the details soon. But first, I always like to have a look to see what the majority of the world wants to know about talks. So the most asked questions on the internet, courtesy of Google Search Autocomplete. So first question, fairly simple. What is a talk? And it was talk necklace and talk bracelet both came up. So I'm curious, in fact, what does a talk represent? Is it a necklace or a bracelet?
Symbolic vs Practical Talks
00:09:24
Speaker
Right.
00:09:24
Speaker
I think it's both. I mean, the word talk comes from twist as in, you know, talk twist. So generally, if we're talking about talks, we're talking about twisted wires, bit like the Snettisham great talk, if anyone knows what that looks like, if you Google it, you'll get a picture. But more generally,
00:09:48
Speaker
Within Britain, they tend to be twisted wires. Whereas if you're looking in Europe, you've got a number of different designs. So you actually have some that have these locking mechanisms. So they look like a complete circle. They don't have the gap in the front. And they actually have sections with a mortise and tenon joint on it that click out and then click back in. They come in all kinds of sizes. You do get ones that kind of have
00:10:16
Speaker
a 10 centimeter diameter, so they're potentially arm rings or they could be for children. You also get some, there's an incredible one from Germany called the Trichtingen, I think it's Germany, I'm panicking now, it might be Switzerland, but anyway.
00:10:33
Speaker
It's enormous. This thing is like kilograms of silver with these bulls heads at the end and the bulls heads terminals touch. And there's no way you could have got this necklace on. They've also got the Romans talk about them being put on statues. So
00:10:52
Speaker
Are they symbolic? Are they worn? I mean, some of them are definitely worn because we've actually got the Newark talk, which is another one, is actually worn on the basis of the terminal. So it's obviously been on something, whether that's a statue or a person. But yeah, it's complicated things.
00:11:12
Speaker
indeed, that sort of answers our next question, which was, who war talks? So I guess we don't know is the answer. No, we don't. I mean, there's potential that they were only occasionally worn, but may have been carried in cemeteries, in cemeteries, ceremonies. I mean, you see,
00:11:32
Speaker
in later towards the Roman period, you suddenly see a lot of iconography that has people holding talks. And you think of the Gundistrup cauldron on one of the panels, there's coronas holding a talk up. So whether they are partly to be worn, partly symbolic, I mean, I always think of them a bit like mares necklaces.
00:11:54
Speaker
that maybe when they're not being worn, they're displayed or revered or we don't know, I think is a short answer. I mean, that seems to be the most standard answer in archaeology in general. Yeah, I think we can get close to some ideas. You know, that's the thing, isn't it? So often people want definitive answers and there aren't definitive answers about the past because, you know, like you say, we can't time travel back to see what they were actually doing.
00:12:21
Speaker
Well, I guess that also then answers the next question, which is why people, why did people wear talks? So yeah, we don't know. No, I mean, again, are they individual? Are they symbolic of a group?
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm doing some work at the moment on the Snettisham talks, which is the biggest hoard we've got in the UK. In fact, I think it's probably the biggest hoard we've got full stop in Europe. Okay. But there it almost looks as if each talk represented a person or a period of time. Cool.
00:12:58
Speaker
I'm almost wondering if they identify ancestry so that people would have had names for these, because every single talk is different. There's not one that's the same as another. They might be slightly similar, but they're never the same. So I do wonder if they were something that was given or produced at a certain time in somebody's life or to identify something happening within a tribe.
00:13:25
Speaker
Oh, that's fascinating. I didn't realise that they were also individual. I thought that maybe there was... Oh, that's amazing. That's really interesting. Yeah, there's a couple of very simple ones. These kind of very simple where you've just got two bars that have been twisted together and then the ends have been looped.
00:13:41
Speaker
And they are literally just made out of wire, thick wire, you know, rods, that are similar. But even then you get a difference quite often in the way the wires have been twisted. Are they loose twisted or tight twisted? The shape of the terminals? They really are very unique pieces.
00:14:02
Speaker
Okay. The twisting is what sort of connects them all, as in... Yeah, and then you've got some that aren't, or you've got some that... Yeah, and it is, again, what is a talk? Exactly. Well, that's what I'm curious, and indeed how one defines a talk then. Yeah. I think it basically comes down to period, to be honest with you, because
00:14:28
Speaker
You've got things that people are wearing around their necks from very early on. I think we were going to talk about that later.
00:14:36
Speaker
But they are all made slightly differently. So you can get some that are literally
Discovery and Significance of Talks
00:14:40
Speaker
two rods twisted together. You'll get some that are multiple rods twisted together. You'll get some where they've created these kind of springs of twisted wires that they then twist those together. That's like the great talk. There's a lot of different technological skills and a lot of artistic showing off.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I think that's what it is. I think it is craftspeople and there is no reason this was men. It's a very important point to make. It's as likely to have been women who are almost showing off what they can do and trying out new things to make each talk something special.
00:15:21
Speaker
Oh, fascinating. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll save my questions for later because I'll go into section will be 40 minutes long. Yeah. The final question we had was how do you wear a talk?
00:15:34
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, as I say, the ones with the gap in the thing that most people ask us the whole time is, oh my goodness, how would you get that on the neck? Exactly. The gap between the terminals is really small. But actually, most of them, it's about three inches, something like that gap. And if you actually feel your neck, I'm imagining all of these people feeling their neck.
00:15:58
Speaker
The amount that is actually solid in your neck is quite small. And if you actually pull on something that's got a three inch gap, it will go around your neck quite easily. You don't actually have to bend it or manipulate it too much.
00:16:14
Speaker
The other thing about these talks which no one realises is they're really springy. Because of course no one gets to pick them up. We all see them in cases and they look very solid. But the ones with the multiple wire springs like the Snesham Great Torque or the Newark Torque, when you lift them up, the terminals want to bang together. And they are very
00:16:36
Speaker
They're firm, but they have a lot of give in them. Interesting. So, I mean, there's all these theories a lot of people have said about how you lift one torque terminal up to get it round your neck.
00:16:49
Speaker
most of the time you really don't need to and you're putting excessive pressure on it which is never a good idea. You're going to start damaging things if you keep bending them out of shape. It's true, I had a very nice snake bracelet at some point which went on and it was sort of supposed to be put on and off like that so they kind of overlapped a little bit but you sort of bent them slightly out of shape and then put them on and indeed eventually after a while the head fell off.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing we did. We did some work done at the National Physical Laboratory where they have this ultra high speed camera and we opened the Newark talk literally by only about five millimeters and then let it close naturally while it was filmed. And you look at where moves, this camera can pick up where moves on the talk.
00:17:40
Speaker
And we were really surprised in actually the back of the talk, which is where everyone says, oh, they opened to close them and the back eventually wore out and they broke. That wasn't when the movement was occurring. Your movement was occurring around the edges. And then when you look at a lot of these talks that are broken, that everyone says, ah, these broke at the back because they were open and closed. Actually, when you look at them, most of them have been cut or something else has gone on. So again, that's another one of those kind of bits of
00:18:10
Speaker
law in inverted commas that we've managed to show probably isn't what was going on. Interesting. But they would likely have at least all the pictures I've seen is that you have the if there is an opening or if there is something that you have the opening at the front. Yeah. Interesting. So because obviously the terminals are the really decorated bit.
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah it seems to be most of the time indeed. Yeah but on some of the European ones like Waldaugesheim or Erstfield, Waldaugesheim from Germany, Erstfield from Switzerland, they're actually kind of decorated on the back as well. Oh okay. So they may have been seen in the round either on a person or again like I say maybe they are when they're not on a person, maybe they're being looked at somewhere.
00:18:54
Speaker
Mm, yeah. Or indeed that could also tell us a little bit about the hairs, you know, hair was... Well, yeah, exactly. Suggest you have your hair up. Yeah, because otherwise, oh, I could imagine you have this bit, at least my hair is so thick and curly, you wear a talk, it'll be hidden. Yes. Talk would disappear. Yeah, interesting. Come on, no, fascinating. Okay, well, those were sort of Google's most searched questions. There was actually a surprisingly little
00:19:19
Speaker
about it. Those were the only ones that came up really. So there were a lot about talks with Vikings and things, which I think we'll talk about a little bit later because I was curious about that. But for now, that's that for Google's most such questions. We're going to have a very quick break and then we will be back soon.
00:19:36
Speaker
Welcome back. So now we know a little bit more about the sort of basic knowledge of talks, but perhaps Tess you could tell us even more about it as you are an expert on the topic, as many other topics it sounds like. So we spoke about it a little bit briefly, you mentioned gold and silver, but so what kinds of material were talks made from? Was it always these precious metals?
00:19:57
Speaker
I mean, generally gold, silver and bronze. But there are, there's a talk from Spettisbury down in Dorset on the south coast, which is actually iron. And there's one that came up from Northampton, Great Lawton, I think is the site, that was actually led. Oh, wow.
00:20:17
Speaker
And of course, all we have is the non-organics. So there's possibility, because a lot of the twists, Julia Farley has talked about this curator at the British Museum, are a lot of these twists based on fabric, on yarn, things like that. So are we missing? Were there leather talks? I don't know. There is zero evidence.
00:20:41
Speaker
it might just be there. That's really interesting. Now I'm trying to think. Yeah, because you have also those sort of twisted leather. Well, that's the sort of platted leather. Yeah, exactly. They would they would be perfectly makeable out of leather, particularly if you've got if you're stiffening your leather, and these people know how to make saddles, they you know, they know how to work different things. So it is possible. Okay.
00:21:05
Speaker
And do you know if any research has been done on the experiments? No, I've never seen anything like that. And the problem that we have, of course, is these torques seem to be very symbolic. So and they do just occur in hordes. And the majority of hordes are found by metal detectors and things like that. So unless you could find someone a waterlogged site or nice anaerobic conditions, I'm not sure we'd ever know.
00:21:35
Speaker
And indeed, so that was actually another question I had. So from what I, from my very, very brief, shallow, quick looking up of talks, it seemed that indeed most of them had been found in hordes. So there hasn't been any kind of found just in general settlement types or anything, or just very rare. Yeah, there haven't been. This is the bane of my existence that the majority I think we've got from this country
00:22:04
Speaker
we have got about 400 talks represented from the UK. Now of those, about 300 and actually it would be about 450 from the whole of the UK. And of those, we've got about 300 represented from Snettisham. So that's not necessarily complete talks. That could be pieces of wire that we can identify as unique to a certain talk.
00:22:32
Speaker
of the Snetisham 300, only about 60 of them are complete. And when you look at the rest of the country, we've only got about 90 talks represented outside of Snetisham and only about 30 of those are complete.
00:22:47
Speaker
We're very much skewed towards what's going on at Snettisham. But unfortunately, Snettisham still hasn't been published. It's due out any time now. But the majority of other talks that we've got are either antiquarian finds, so they were dug up 19th century, early 20th century, often by shepherd boys. Shepherd boys seem to be able to find talks better than anybody else.
00:23:12
Speaker
And unfortunately, a lot of them, they tended to keep the nice ones and the rest of the hoard went to goldsmiths to be melted down. The other problem that we've got recently is that most of them are detected fines.
00:23:27
Speaker
And although some of the sites of detection have been examined and with Blair Drummond actually in Scotland, we have actually got talks associated with a site Fraser Hunter dug it and there does seem to be a building that the hordes were associated with.
00:23:46
Speaker
We have no other contextual information. You get coins. So we've got coins that's necessary. But of course, all of those are deposition dates rather than making dates that we know that these talks are hanging around sometimes for a couple of hundred years before they go in the ground.
Material and Evolution of Talks
00:24:04
Speaker
It's very tricky. Probably just quickly, for those who are listening in who don't know what a hoard is, perhaps you could just... Yeah, I mean, it's the traditional view. I probably shouldn't use the word hoard. I should probably talk about deposition because hoard is a very loaded term.
00:24:22
Speaker
But traditionally hordes were always seen as, you know, in the days of invasion and everything being seen as invasion and trouble and blah, blah, blah. Hordes were very much seen as the panicking locals burying all their goodies before running away and then being murdered and never coming back to collect them.
00:24:42
Speaker
Whereas nowadays we tend to understand that although there are a few hordes that are like that, the majority of hordes seem to be kind of, I'm going to use the word, ritual. I don't have a problem with ritual. The way you get dressed in the morning is ritual, you know, we put our socks on first or whatever else. But they are definitely associated with ceremony, with
00:25:10
Speaker
with things that we can't explain readily, they don't have a practical inverted commas purpose. And in the case of talks, as I say, snettishum is this ridiculous anomaly of a huge number of talks, which all went in the ground, we think very, very rapidly, potentially within a couple of weeks, even.
00:25:35
Speaker
If you want to know more about this, there's a lot. We have a website called the Big Book of Talks and you can go and read. Everything's open access on there and you can go and read all about it. It's perfect. I'll provide the link in there. But outside of Snettisham, the normal picture is kind of three or four talks being buried in a discreet little group. They're usually away from settlements. They're quite often on raised ground or slopes. Yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker
offerings, I think. Okay. Yeah, my feeling is a lot of them are to do with offerings against the Romans coming. It's almost like the talk is so symbolic of the Iron Age. And do you know, I mean, obviously, I know you focus more on UK British talks or those aspects, but do you know if it's similar in other places? Are talks found in other places, for example? Yeah, they are.
00:26:33
Speaker
I mean, all across Europe, you find talks of some form or another. The UK, we seem to like them a lot more. But on the other hand, we also have a lot more detecting going on. So there is recovery bias going on.
00:26:49
Speaker
particularly in the UK, we have forms that are very specific to here. So the kind of ring terminal talks, which can either be just simple rings or these big expanded kind of donut shapes like the great talk. They are very British, very UK. Whereas if you look in France and Germany, they tend to do different things. Like I say, you have the kind of
00:27:13
Speaker
complete circle, or you have different designs. I mean, in Spain, in Iberia, they have these almost kind of teardrop shaped terminals or these strange kind of apple core shapes. But again, similar theme, you know, two terminals on something.
00:27:34
Speaker
But the specific design of it seems to be quite unique to whichever area of Europe you're in. Oh, interesting. That's good to know. It's like all things Iron Age, they kind of have a general theme. But then regionally and locally, they go off and do their own thing. Yeah, which I mean, I guess, similar today as well. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And do you know if they're also found in hordes or in shall we say, ritual deposition?
00:28:02
Speaker
No, there are hordes, definitely. I mean, things like the Catillon hordes, with that huge number of coins from Germany, also has a lot of talks. There's the Erstfield horde, the Waldau Gesheim. Yeah, similar themes, again, but not necessarily the same reasons, I don't think.
00:28:23
Speaker
Okay, that's so fascinating though because I mean I'm sure there are plenty but just that's the first time I'm hearing of an artifact that has only been found in these kind of depositions because generally it's sort of oh they're mainly found but then you have a few scattered here or you know it's half and half or something so that is very... Yeah and also Europe they have the tradition of because earlier they tend to put talks in graves so like the Vicks
00:28:50
Speaker
talk, which if you look it up is absolutely one of the most stunning pieces of gold work. And that's actually within a grave. Whereas over here, they never put them in graves. It just doesn't happen.
00:29:03
Speaker
So it's almost like, again, you've got changing traditions going on. So yeah, it's fascinating, but I just wish we could find some talks with some really solid dating evidence. That would help me immensely. Which, because indeed it seems you're sort of mentioning Iron Age, and from what I've seen in sort of popular culture, talks are generally associated with the sort of Celtic
00:29:28
Speaker
I hate to use that word, but Celtic cultures, shall we say. And that sort of you would agree with that situation? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you've got the complication that, of course, we have the Romans over here in the UK, but in places like Scandinavia, they don't. So the long Iron Age. What would we would be talking about early medieval? They're still talking about Iron Age. So it's all about dates. Yeah.
00:29:56
Speaker
Interesting, because indeed another question I wanted to ask, because when I was looking it up, like I said, a lot of things came up about Viking talks, and I feel like indeed when you look up replicas of things to get, I quite enjoy gathering replicas, so I have one of the apple call ones from the Iberian Peninsula. There were a lot of Viking references made. There's lots of things with wolves as terminals.
00:30:21
Speaker
I'm not sure those were ever viking. They definitely have neck rings. Obviously, this isn't my period so much. But from what I've seen, I've been doing a bit of research on various things recently. They're more to do with bullion and things like that.
00:30:41
Speaker
The Vikings have this whole thing of giving rings. And these rings are these kind of neck rings and arm rings, which are very controlled weights. But yeah, there's an interesting bit of research. I can't say anything about it now, but watch this space in a couple of months because it could get fun.
00:31:01
Speaker
Actually, funny story, that was one of the reasons that I first got into artifact analysis as a specialization was because I did a Viking archaeology course at Aberdeen Uni, my undergraduate, with Karen Millik, and we were talking about these, what were they called, silver, yeah, silver bullion, I guess, which is just like a ring with lots of other bits of silver attached to it that seemingly
00:31:28
Speaker
the objects themselves aren't what's important it's the weight of the silver and I found that so fascinating so that's what yeah and also now they're starting to recognize as well as I say I've been reading a lot about this because it was always assumed it was silver whereas they're now recognizing that actually the Vikings were using gold as well and
00:31:46
Speaker
they seem to be treating it similarly and differently. So although it had a kind of bullion wealth, it may also have had an artistic creative value as well. Interesting.
00:32:02
Speaker
yeah fascinating oh oh i look forward to hearing about what it is watch this face yeah well i'll definitely have all your information in the show notes so people can keep checking on you see what's coming out very curious interesting and but they do only then emerge because i mean you mentioned that there was one or two that were made from sort of iron but the rest were from silver and gold when
00:32:24
Speaker
I mean, gosh, I should know this, I'm a prehistorian, but I never did metal. When does that start to be used more regularly? Can you already see them in the Bronze Age sort of emerging? Yeah, in Bronze Age you've got, because again, you've got these neck rings, so you've got lunula, those kind of crescent moon shaped flat.
Crafting Talks and Sharing Techniques
00:32:42
Speaker
neck rings, breastplates, whatever they are. Yes, they sort of look like a collar almost. Yeah. And then you also get the gorgets, which are more elaborate. But you've also got within the Bronze Age, these kind of twisted, what they actually do is they get a, if you think of it in cross section, it looks like a cross piece of wire. And then if you twist that, you get these kind of flanged. It's very cleverly done. Huh?
00:33:09
Speaker
If you go and look up Bronze Age Talk and then they have these kind of very simple long terminals, but some of these could be over a meter long and no one's quite sure because they quite often oil them up for burial. Again, in hordes. How are they being worn? Because over a meter long, they're too big for a neck. Maybe they're to go around the stomach. I've seen people suggest they may be actually for pregnant women.
00:33:36
Speaker
That would be uncomfortable. We've got gold being used quite a lot and it's very pure, very good quality stuff going right up to the late Bronze Age. But then there's kind of a gap and it seems that
00:33:52
Speaker
I don't tend to believe this because at the moment, since we've been doing talks, every single find that comes up changes the picture. So just about every couple of years, it goes back 100 years as something else here.
00:34:08
Speaker
The last time this happened was in 2016, where the Leakrith Hoard came up and suddenly the whole dating for talks went back 150 years. So it is possible it's not a real gap. My feeling is the craft that they're showing
00:34:25
Speaker
suggest that they've been doing it for a bit longer, that when we see it, it's already a very well developed craft. Because I indeed I was going to ask, because surely, yeah, whether whether you see, you know, random twisted bits of metal kind of in in earlier context, but I suppose they wouldn't necessarily have been identified as something to do with talks from from earlier. No, I mean,
00:34:48
Speaker
And there's all sorts of odd things. There's something called ribbon talks, which you get a very plain simple form of in the Bronze Age. But then that reappears potentially from about 300 BC onwards as this very elaborate. But unless you look very carefully, they look quite similar. So
00:35:07
Speaker
have the people making the Iron Age ribbon talk seen the earlier ones? Because they all seem to be occurring in Scotland and Ireland and Wales. So, yeah, is it a continuation that we haven't recognised the kind of middle bit yet? Or is it that someone has gone back and found something or seen something and gone, ah, I know what I can do with that? Yeah. And I guess that's also something really interesting, the fact that you said they're sort of similar
00:35:37
Speaker
it's similar enough, but slightly different styles, whether it was something that just kind of naturally happened, you know, everywhere. I mean, we work with a lot of goldsmiths, and goldsmiths like to play around with ideas. And they would look at some person that at one in goldsmiths work, and kind of take something from it and then make something of themselves about it. So it doesn't surprise me, we forget we think of people in the past as being these kind of, I don't know, nameless faceless, characterless people.
00:36:06
Speaker
But craftspeople, I think, have always been craftspeople. You know, to develop these incredible skills and ideas and designs and creativity means you've got to... We actually wrote a paper working with some goldsmiths, and they were saying, you need to be talking to people. You need to be seeing other people's work. You can't just do this in isolation.
00:36:31
Speaker
So yeah, I like to think they're all kind of, because I think it is a very skilled craft.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, gosh, just looking at some of these pieces, I'm thinking, wow. We've worked with a team of about 10 goldsmiths and some of the goldsmiths we'd worked with are quite old now and they were trained under the apprentice system where they were using less machines, things were all being done by hand. And they looked at the talks and said, yeah, I could do that, wouldn't be a problem.
00:37:03
Speaker
Some of the younger goldsmiths who hadn't had so much of the traditional training were saying, I don't know about that. There were some other people who said, no, I really, I really wouldn't feel confident about doing this. I mean, it really is a high end craft. You would have to know what you were doing. But of course, the other aspect of this is it's likely that they were starting training very, very early. OK.
00:37:30
Speaker
There's a wonderful image by Tom Bjorklund who does those fantastic kind of portraits of people in prehistory. And it's of a woman who's working bronze. And around her are her little children. And I'm sure, I mean, my dad was an incredible craft person. He was a carpenter. He used to make all kinds of things, guitars and whatever.
00:37:55
Speaker
And all the while I was little, I was kind of hanging around the garage when he was working. And it drip, drip, drips into you. You kind of start watching and learning and watching and learning. And it's not necessarily that you're being trained as such.
00:38:09
Speaker
But from a very young age, this was part of life, I'm sure. And then as they get older, and by six or seven, kids are quite capable of doing quite complex things. So potentially we've got people that are trained hugely longer than they are now.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah, but do you think indeed it was sort of like a training you sort of specialised in making talks or was it general jewellers or was it just everyone, like anyone could twist some wires together, like you say? Yeah, I mean, it is very specialised. And this is a problem as well, because we tend to in archaeology talk about metal workers.
00:38:47
Speaker
And metalwork can involve so much that the skill of a blacksmith working iron is completely different. The workshop is different. You need fire, you need noise, you need big tools. You don't actually need light because you need to be able to see the changing color of things.
00:39:07
Speaker
If you're talking about casting, so casting bronze and things like that, you're talking again, different skill set. And then once you get onto bronze sheetwork, where you're actually hammering things, you've got to know about the metal very specifically, how it's going to behave, it all starts to become different. And then gold is the extra step on from that.
00:39:31
Speaker
Then in the later period, silver, but we tend to lump metal workers in together, but their skills and where they work and what we're going to see in the archaeological record is very, very different. I mean, for gold, my feeling is they probably were trained in working bronze sheet. We have various similarities between thicknesses and things like thicknesses of the metal and things like that.
00:39:57
Speaker
But I don't think there were that many goldsmiths around. I mean, there were a lot of bronze workers because if you're thinking about villages or communities, you've got tools, you've got axes, you've got all sorts of things, chisels, and they need sharpening, they need remaking, casting. That's a very local level. I'm sure every community had one. But with gold, there's not that much gold around.
00:40:24
Speaker
and learning to work it the way they do, they have to have been working with it quite often, I think.
Path as an Independent Researcher
00:40:31
Speaker
Okay, so it really was a precious metal. Yeah, and I think also they are, because gold is about the one material that doesn't tarnish, it's very ductile, it does all kinds of weird things, it's like butter when you work it, it's a beautiful material.
00:40:46
Speaker
And I think these guys would have been seen as separate or something special or, and also who are they working for? Are you having people coming to them or are they traveling? Is the gold moving? Are the craftspeople moving? Again, all answers we, I think craftspeople are moving because I think then that fits in with the thing of them seeing lots of other people's work. Yeah.
00:41:10
Speaker
And that could well explain why in Europe we have kind of similar but different things going on. Yeah, because there's sort of a limit to how far you will travel maybe, but you travel enough to meet someone else who's traveled far. And also when you read, I mean, if you look at the account of Pythias or you look at what the Romans were up to once they come to the UK in 55 BC, they are constantly talking about travel.
00:41:34
Speaker
You know, they are travelling backwards and forwards from Rome the whole time. I mean, Pythias is off all over the place. And I don't see there's any problem with Goldsmiths doing that as well. Yeah. It would explain a lot of the things that are happening where you've got these kind of ideas being picked up in different places. You mentioned earlier about, you know, that it's not necessarily men doing it. And you talked about the depiction of a woman working around and her children there. So this is, I guess, also something we don't know is
00:42:03
Speaker
No, I mean, we work with female goldsmiths as well who are as capable of making these. And my feeling is you've got, I mean, the apprenticeship systems in this country starts at about 1300, I think. But there's always been
00:42:19
Speaker
ways of passing on craft. And that has to be shown. You know, you can't kind of draw it or watch a video or whatever, like we can do now. You've got to actually sit with somebody who is making something who says, right, this is what you do. No, don't do it like that. And if we're thinking about that, traditionally,
00:42:40
Speaker
Apprentices have gone from father to son or down the male line. But like I say, the only records we've got are from about 1300 onwards. I think we're 1100 onwards. But we do have female goldsmiths recorded in London in the early medieval period.
00:42:57
Speaker
And also, I mean, my family line is quite, I've kind of destined to do this, because my family were all Huguenot goldsmiths. And came over in the early 1700s and then in a direct line from 1722, I think it is. And that's just as far as we know, when they came over, they were probably doing this for years before in France.
00:43:24
Speaker
direct line from that period to my great grandfather in 1936, and the line only broke because he died early. All of them were goldsmiths, father to son, father to son, father to son, and diamond setters. So that's kind of 300 years. I don't think it's inconceivable that in prehistory, we were looking at a similar thing. And it would have been within families or
00:43:53
Speaker
groups, you know, connected groups. So the child would learn from the adult. The logical thing of that is potentially families, families of goldsmiths in the same way that you have trades now where you had trades before. And if you've got that scenario,
00:44:12
Speaker
If you had a girl, I don't think you're gonna, oh no, you can't make these. We finish now. Yeah, because it would effectively kill off your line if you do that. And you've got all these hundred years of experience and knowledge and because that's all held by people. It's not held in books at that point.
00:44:35
Speaker
Yes, true. Yeah. Like you say, it makes sense if you're just if that's what you see on a day to day. Yeah. From your father or mother. Yeah. And particularly also the association early on. And then even in the later period, because you know, they talk about Boudica wearing the gold necklace. There is an association with women and gold. Yeah. There's nothing to say that they were women, but there is equally absolutely nothing to say that they weren't. Oh,
00:45:04
Speaker
I think, yes, that's a good concluding sign. I think we're going to have another quick break now so that people listening can have an opportunity to top up their tea, but we will be back soon.
00:45:17
Speaker
So welcome back, everyone. I hope that the teacups are now full and the biscuit jar is empty. And Tess, of course, we did already introduce you in the first section of this episode very briefly, but perhaps we can go into a little more detail now. So I think actually what we did is that you are an independent researcher as opposed to being sort of affiliated with a university or a museum. Was this always the case?
00:45:40
Speaker
I am. Yes, I guess. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how I ended up there. How do any of us end up anywhere? But after I finished my PhD, when was that? Back in 2004, I then had my daughter in 2005. And I carried on working for the Prehistoric Society, which I think we'll talk about a bit later.
00:46:06
Speaker
And then when I started researching talks in the same way as when I'd started researching fortifications, it was just because I was enjoying it. And I was lucky enough to have the prehistoric society as an income and doing admin. So it was more, you know, not a lesser task, but I wasn't using my brain in the same way. So I could do research as well on top of that. And then I started thinking about
00:46:34
Speaker
kind of formalizing things and maybe going into academia but then decided that actually it's quite nice staying as an independent researcher and when I look at what so many of my lovely colleagues in the UK are going through currently, solidarity to all of them,
00:46:51
Speaker
It just, yeah, it just seemed an easier way of doing things. But you've got to be quite strict with yourself. Definitely. I can imagine. Especially, I mean, I only did it very briefly, and I'm not sure I'd really have classified myself as an independent researcher. It was more I was trying to find a position and I couldn't, so I just kept going because I enjoyed it and wasn't getting
00:47:13
Speaker
unfortunately paid for anything, but I can imagine you have the extra freedom and the flexibility, but I suppose the financial security, shall we say, is a little less than... Yeah, I mean, I'm the classic position of female archaeologists that... I'm a non-divorce now, but it was my partner that was funding a lot of my lifestyle, as is so sadly the case for so many archaeologists, male and female, that a partner who's got a proper and inverted job.
00:47:41
Speaker
ends up sorting out a lot of different things. Luckily, I've always been self-employed because from being a prehistoric pottery specialist, working with the prehistoric society, picking up bits of research, actually paid research at things like the National Archives and the British Library. And now doing this, we kind of get the occasional paid lectures, bit of paid teaching,
00:48:07
Speaker
bits and bobs that you can then plough into the next museum visit you want to do, things like that. But yeah, it's not a living. Unfortunately, well, because I get a lot of questions through my various channels asking, you know, how do you get into archaeology? Or like, is archaeology a proper job indeed? And so I thought it was really interesting. Indeed, so far, we've had on this show, we've had some crafters, but also academics. And so I thought it was interesting to have
00:48:36
Speaker
someone who's doing the research but from an independent standpoint. So I was wondering if you could perhaps elaborate a little on the kind of advantages, the disadvantages. What advice do you wish you had given yourself, shall we say, when you first decided to go this way? Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky. Obviously, I'm older. I'm 52 now. It makes life easier because you're more established. My daughter's now 17. I don't have those issues to deal with. She's kind of her only independent person, really.
00:49:06
Speaker
And as I say, I've been lucky in that when I came through, you could get a job in archaeology. You know, I've never been unemployed. I've never earned a lot of money, but I've never been unemployed. The prehistoric society job is the kind of constant that has meant that my rent or my mortgage has always been paid. And as I say, you can pick up bits and pieces. In terms of academically,
00:49:32
Speaker
I'm lucky in that working for the Prehistoric Society gives me library access at UCL.
00:49:39
Speaker
which is the big thing that I think most independent researchers struggle with because obviously paywalls and things like that, if you don't have library access. The way we've tried to do it, I firmly believe in open access, 100%. So as we've talked about before, the big book of talks, you will find everything on there. You don't have to pay for any of it. We've tried to do
00:50:08
Speaker
at least one peer review paper a year so that that keeps us academically credible. But we also publish various bits and pieces on our website. We've also independently peer reviewed, had a marvellous friend who acted as editor in inverted commas and then found two peer reviewers in inverted commas.
00:50:32
Speaker
And it was actually a superb process because both peer reviewers anonymized themselves very quickly and said, if we're going to do this differently, let's do it properly. And we had some wonderful conversations about the paper and the paper, which is on the grotesque talk from Snettersham, was all the better for it.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah. But it is open access and it's up on our website and anybody can download it and read it. And I mean, that's all the peer review is, right? Exactly. These people were peer reviewing for journals. It's not that they're not qualified to be peer reviewers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have fundamental issues about a lot of the way we do academia, because I'm seeing more and more
00:51:13
Speaker
There are people who, it depends how high you are up the tree a lot of the time. We've had papers in PPS, but a lot of that's to do with the fact I've got a doctor in front of my name. I'm known within the community. Had I been an independent researcher with no background in inverted commas, would we have been able to do what we do? I don't know. And I think that's quite sad.
00:51:40
Speaker
And indeed, a lot of the, at least so I recently finished my, well, almost finished my PhD, still need to defend, but I did an article based one. So you had to publish 45 academic articles. And a lot of them were open access, which was great and also free to publish. So you didn't have to pay anything to actually publish it, which I was very appreciative of and didn't realize that that's not the norm until I then did the last two papers and both of them I had to
00:52:09
Speaker
pay to publish a ridiculous amount of money, but also pay to make it open access. So, I mean, yeah, full disclosure, I'll say the amount, I had to pay $2,000 to publish a 36 page paper, and then you have to pay the same amount on top of that, which I think a lot of people don't realise when they're complaining that things aren't open access as well. But also that is a really bad thing. Well, anyway, I won't mention it. I know image rights, I mean, any artefacts
00:52:36
Speaker
person who is publishing an artifact based paper will tell you image rights kill more things than anything else. I mean, that was part of the reason that we set up the Big Book of Talks because we wanted to show particularly as the research we were doing
00:52:54
Speaker
initially was kind of seemed to be controversial because it disproved a lot of previous research that had been done. Excellent. Yeah, we wanted to show exactly why we were saying what we were saying. And the only way you can do that with artifacts is with images. Yes. And drawn images. Okay, fine. They can show and they are wonderful.
00:53:15
Speaker
but you can always slightly adapt to drawing images to make it look what you show. And especially if it's controversial anyway. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, for that grotesque talk paper that we produced, I think it's got 40 images in it. Now, all of those in the British Museum, all of those would have been at least £90 each. Yes. By the time you've got 40 images, you are looking at an awful lot of money. Yeah.
00:53:42
Speaker
Or, again, journal publications, you can't have that number of images. Yes, yeah, a lot of times. Or they have to be in black and white or... Yeah, exactly. So we've found it's really useful. I don't know. We've yet to see... I don't think we've been doing this long enough. We are starting to get sighted now in various different things.
00:54:02
Speaker
It'll be interesting to see whether people start citing. I know we're on various university reading lists, the website is, but it will be interesting to see whether the website articles start getting cited. I suspect they won't because they're not officially peer reviewed.
00:54:19
Speaker
But in a way, I don't care. I don't have a career to forge. I would rather get the information out there.
Overview of the Prehistoric Society
00:54:26
Speaker
And if we get the information out there, people can judge whether we're telling the truth or not. Have we provided the evidence? So that's kind of the level of I'm at. I've suddenly realized in my older years that we forget about the true meaning of education.
00:54:43
Speaker
I want to educate people in the widest sense, whoever they are, wherever they come from. And I don't think the traditional models of academia necessarily fit that. I could not agree more. I mean, that's one of the main reasons I started this podcast, to be honest. Well, exactly. I mean, we do we do all sorts of things. I mean, you know, I have a big Twitter following where I share information. We do blogs, we do things for the
00:55:09
Speaker
We've done magazines, the British archaeology, the CBA magazine, you know, videos, lectures, all kinds of stuff. It's all on our website. And hopefully there will be something for everyone, be they the kind of diehard academics who want the absolute evidence or members of the public who just want to know about shiny things.
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, well, but it's great that because I think a lot of the time, you know, if I'm looking up things, just small things for the for these podcasts, or for the little reels, I do on Instagram or something, I want to make sure that I have the correct information. And a lot of the time, then I do look at papers, because I think, okay, well, these are academic peer reviewed papers. But then it's great when you do find a resource like this that is provided by people who you know, are researchers, you know, like you say, they
00:55:56
Speaker
don't have to be affiliated with the museum, but it's sort of a difference between someone who's a you know, slight potential potential pseudo archaeologist. Yeah, exactly. I watched a couple of videos. I have actually got the evidence and here it is so you can interrogate it yourself. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think that that's a fantastic resource. I'll definitely be putting the link to all of this in the show notes hopefully.
00:56:17
Speaker
I added last year a further reading page, so there is literally just a page of references. Perfect. Oh, that sounds good. And you mentioned already the prehistoric society, of course, and I think that a lot of people both, even within academia, but also outside of academia, they know that these societies exist. But what are these societies, I guess? Why should people join them? And what's the yeah,
00:56:44
Speaker
Yes, yes, I'm the membership secretary for the Prehistoric Society, and I have been for 28 years. So I don't know about the Prehistoric Society.
Importance of Archaeological Societies
00:56:52
Speaker
Yeah, basically, fundamentally, we are a learned society. So we produce a journal, the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, but we also do a lot of other things besides. So we have a newsletter that comes out three times a year. We run a lot of events, lectures, conferences,
00:57:11
Speaker
We also on our website have educational resources, which will fit in with the England and Wales national curriculum. But we've also got things that can be used for home learning. They can be used for adult learners. We've got signposts, A4 downloads for sites that you can go and visit around the country. We do a lot of different things. We obviously have an active social media presence.
00:57:39
Speaker
A lot of our lectures now are online because we realized how wonderful the possibilities of Zoom were. Yes. And we found it's been so nice because there's so many people we've managed to connect with who either have caring responsibilities, access issues, financial issues, and they can watch things online for free from all over the world as well. So yes, we do a lot and
00:58:06
Speaker
I'm very proud of the prehistoric society because we are constantly moving forward. And do you have to be affiliated with anything in order to join? Do you have to be an archaeologist? Nope, anybody can join at all. We have obviously, that's the other beauty of this because we have most of the professional pre-historians in the world as members, but we also have amateur archaeologists, we have students, we have
00:58:35
Speaker
people who had just got an interest in prehistory and we're trying providing something for all of them but if you come to our lectures you will see we you know we we do have because we were founded in 1935 we are the leading organization for prehistory and it means we can phone people up and say we would like a lecture on this or we would like you to do this that and the other yeah so well worth it yeah and it is not expensive either it is not i can confirm
00:59:03
Speaker
Yes, if you're an individual ordinary member it's £45 but if you're retired it's £35 and if you're a student it's only £20 and that will give you all of our publications, access to lectures, we also provide grants, various different grants for students, research projects, museum collections etc etc etc and all of that includes postage and packing anywhere in the world so there you go.
00:59:29
Speaker
I was lucky enough to get the research fund when I was in between studentships. I was still technically a student, but I didn't have a job yet. That's another possibility for independent researchers. You have to be a member of the society to apply, but you don't have to be in an institution or anything else. If you can make the case, we will fund you.
00:59:54
Speaker
Yeah, which I think a lot of people, I know that a lot of, for example, certainly my friends of my kind of age, and I mean, I've just finished the PhD, and I did the kind of classic, you know, undergrad, master's PhD works a little bit in commercial, but now I'm sort of going, I think, a little more outside academia.
Chocolate Replicas as Educational Outreach
01:00:12
Speaker
And there's a lot of people I know who wanted to continue in academia, but just indeed can't find the job. And so I think it's really
01:00:19
Speaker
great that there's still these communities that you can have. Because I mean, to me, at least that was one of the main pros of working in academia was that you have this network. But I think it's nice that there's these societies that still give you that network outside. Yeah. And I think people are realizing now I'm in the number of
01:00:36
Speaker
very successful, very well-researched books coming out. Things like Becky Ragsykes, Kindred, Cat Jamans, River Kings. I think people are seeing that academia is not the only way. No, definitely. Which I'm very happy for. Yeah, exactly.
01:00:59
Speaker
Now as a final thing, because this was actually something that always pops up whenever I Google you. And I remember seeing the book going, no, surely they're not, surely they're not chocolate. So apparently you make chocolate artifacts. I do make chocolate artifacts, yes. And it's the one thing I'll be at a conference and obviously I have quite a distinctive name. And I'll suddenly notice someone reading my name badge and then the eyes come up and it's like,
01:01:28
Speaker
You're the one who makes the yes. I'm the one who makes the chocolate artifacts. Yeah, I'm not entirely well.
01:01:38
Speaker
What it was that Roland and I, who I work with looking at talks, there's various schemes because at some point we want to make a talk. Because Roland is a, I should say, is a museum standard replica maker and he makes all kinds of gorgeous things. And we were talking about how we would get them up because this is how we got into talks.
01:01:59
Speaker
talking about how they were made and him saying, I don't think they're made the way they say they are and me saying, oh, really? And then going off and doing research and blah, blah, blah. But one of the ideas that we had of how we were going to raise money to make a talk, Rolle suddenly said, I know, we'll make chocolate talks and sell them in the museum and then we can make some money. And it's like, OK, so could you do this? And it was like, I don't know. I've got no background in this whatsoever.
01:02:26
Speaker
And it was thanks to, I made a silly kind of wax copy of the terminal just when I was fiddling about at one point, and then realised you can buy this food grade silicone moulding putty, which basically creates moulds like those ice cube trays that you get.
01:02:45
Speaker
So I covered this wax mold in this silicone putty, cut it all off, stuck it back together again and poured chocolate in it and ta-da I had a torque terminal. Amazing. In chocolate and then it was kind of like when it's chocolate I need to make it look more like and then discovered the wonderful world that is cake making ingredients where you can buy all sorts of paints that are all edible.
01:03:07
Speaker
and gold sprays and goodness those what else and then from there it kind of became a bit of a challenge that once I'd made one thing obviously roll being a replica maker had a lot of things that I could cover in the silicon molding party right yeah
01:03:25
Speaker
and the only rules have ever been there's no internal scaffolding and it's got to be 100% edible so all of the paint and everything the chocolate and then you start getting things like oh there's an antler comb a viking antler comb that's very thin could i do that and so you try it and yeah okay
01:03:46
Speaker
So most things I've only made once or twice. Yeah, and it's very much a hobby. And usually by the time I've finished making something, I'm absolutely sick of chocolate because various people have said to me, oh, you should do it commercially. It's like, no, destroy it. Absolutely destroy. But it's certainly a talking point. And also,
01:04:06
Speaker
again, I don't understand stuff, but another educational thing. Definitely. There's a lot of people who will kind of come for the chocolate and stay for the talk about talks. Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, and I mean, I can imagine also, it does, you yourself will probably get more of an insight into different aspects of the artifacts as well, if you're having trouble. Yeah, it's really interesting, actually, because the
01:04:34
Speaker
nethera terminal, which is this little gold-detached terminal that I made in chocolate. Originally, they were saying that these torques were cast, so, you know, moulded effectively like I was doing in chocolate. And I could never get it to work properly in chocolate, it kept having bubbles in certain places. And sure enough, these torques weren't actually cast, they're made of sheet gold.
01:04:56
Speaker
So it's a research method. It is, as it's various things when I've been making them that I've said to Roll, when I've made a chocolate one, I went, ah, that was a real problem. And he'll go, yeah, I had that problem when I was casting it because this bit's too thin or this bit's too, you know. So you do it bizarrely. It is actually relevant. No, I just I know it's not as necessarily related to the rest of this episode, but I just thought it was too interesting a hobby.
01:05:27
Speaker
But yes, as I say, it's definitely the thing at conferences that you get remembered for. Well, like you say, it's a form of outreach in itself as well, right? It is, definitely. And definitely there have been times with people where, I mean, the actual the nether terminal that I've got, because we were lucky to be able to mould off a plaster cast copy of the terminal, so I actually have an exact copy in each of them.
01:05:55
Speaker
And that one, you know, you give lectures and you talk about it and it immediately breaks the ice. Yeah. If I'm ever a bit panicky about talking about something contentious, you kind of go, here's a chocolate talk and people laugh. And it's fine. It's okay. I can do this now. I don't really need your shreds. I need your chocolate. Yeah, exactly. No, but no, very interesting. I mean, it makes me want to try and...
01:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, literally, if you think that, unfortunately, the food grade stuff that I used to use, they've just stopped making. So I'm not sure because I've tried various other ones and it doesn't work in the same way. But yeah, the basic principle is if you can cover it in silicon molding putty, and manage to get it off, that's half the challenge is then taking off the mold so you can put it back together again. Yeah.
01:06:45
Speaker
and then just fill it with chocolate and you'll be amazed. It's not that difficult. People seem to think, oh my goodness, this woman has some amazing artistic talent. Well, no, you need to keep that going. Yeah. Well, cut that bit, it's fine.
01:07:01
Speaker
No, you do have a go. No, I've got a lot of replicas here. So now I'm looking at them all going. Yeah, it's wonderful is if you can get the kind of the ice cube trays and there's various things now for resin molding that you can get all of those with working chocolate and just have fun. I used to just make tiles little square tiles of chocolate and then people would paint them like medieval tiles and things like that. It's lovely. Someone does that. I'm trying to remember who it is. Someone does biscuits and
01:07:27
Speaker
Yes, they are exquisite. They're beautifully created. And I think she creates them for museums sometimes as well. Yes. Yeah. And they're all hand painted. I mean, they are stunning. Now I know exactly who you mean. They're very beautiful. That is true talent.
01:07:45
Speaker
Your pieces look fantastic. I remember you sharing some pictures of me going back to not chocolate. And then I was going, oh, wait, it is. Wow. Yeah, I actually once I had an American axe that I'd made for a friend and we were at a conference and I gave it to her and I got it all wrapped up in greaseproof paper and I gave it to her and she was just, oh, my goodness. She trotted over to show a curator, prehistoric curator. It's like, yeah, yeah, it's an axe. So what?
01:08:11
Speaker
No, no, no! Look! Look at it! It's an axe! So what? No, smell it!
01:08:19
Speaker
It totally fooled a curator. Excellent. That's the test. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that marks the end of our tea break today. Sounds like you've got a lot of exciting secret projects to be getting on with, so I look forward to hearing about them. Thank you so much for joining me today, Tess, and sharing about talks, but also about your experience as an independent researcher. I very much appreciate you taking the time today.
01:08:46
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me. It's been great. Yeah. And if anyone wants to find out more about Tess's work, of course, we'll be sharing the link to the great book of talks and check the show notes on the podcast homepage. I'll try to share as many things as possible for the Prehistoric Society, etc. as well. So hope that everyone enjoyed our journey today. See you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time.
01:09:08
Speaker
I hope that you enjoyed our journey today. If you did, make sure to like, follow, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and I'll see you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time Travel.
01:09:20
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.