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The issues of uneven eyebrows - Ep 10
377 Plays2 years ago
When is a drum not a drum? When it's a Folkton Drum! In this episode Matilda chats with photographer, videographer, and archaeological replica-maker Emma Jones all about these fascinating objects. How much do we really know about the people who created these drums? What insights can we gain from replicating them ourselves? Why are children always forgotten? And if you think you have difficulty making your eyebrows even, imagine the issues of trying to carve them into chalk...
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Tea Break Time Travel'
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 Choices of Matilda and Emma
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 10 of Tea Break Time Travel. Very exciting. We're into double digits. I'm your host, Matilda Ziebrecht, and today I am savoring a very fragrant lemon lavender rooibos tea. I'm not sure where I got it from, but it's very, very nice. And joining me on my tea break today is Emma Jones. And I don't know if you have anything quite as fragrant as I'm drinking, but are you on tea today as well?
Emma's Journey to Archaeology
00:00:40
Speaker
I am indeed. In true British style, I've sat myself down with a warm mug of builder's tea. Perfect. And for those who may not know, what is a builder's tea?
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, I classify my tea as strong with a dash of milk. No sugar for me, though. Okay, that's always the key. And I'm always really nervous. That's the nice thing, actually. In the Netherlands, where I was living before, it's sort of not sacrilege, but considered very strange to put milk in your tea, unless it's like a chai latte or something.
00:01:11
Speaker
So I was always pretty sure that if someone asked for tea, you know, and I'd offered them the tea and then you could just give it to them black. And that was completely fine. But then every time I'm back in the UK, it's that awkward, like, oh, shoot, OK, do they want milk or do they want sugar? And then they'll say, yes, milk, please. And then you think, OK, do I do it like a strong one with a dash of milk or do I do it with like half a cup of milk? It's always very stressful for me. But yeah, that's probably not enough to drink my English breakfast tea black. That's a push.
00:01:38
Speaker
Oh, all of the, what's it, politics around tea drinking. But anyway, excellent. Good, good. Both on tea. And so, apart from obviously being a long-lost cousin of the great Dr. Indiana Jones, I presume, as you share the last name, was there any other reason that got you into archaeology or an interest in the past?
00:01:59
Speaker
Well, I guess probably like so many people in archaeology, my story loosely starts when I was around seven and I was asked, you know, like most people ask seven year olds, what would you like to do when you grow up? And I kind of, you know, defiantly replied to them, well, I'm going to be an archaeologist.
00:02:14
Speaker
Nice. So, you know, as a fellow Jones, I only felt right that I should follow in these steps. And yeah, when I wasn't watching time team, you can tell I'm a nineties kid. My parents would find me digging in the garden and I think small fragments of porcelain and whatever else was, you know, there that I'd, you know, definitely decided must have come from an ancient Roman pot or something similar. So, yeah, I actually had this hilarious notebook that I'd made myself where I'd like record my finds and draw fragments of white. Amazing.
00:02:44
Speaker
And have like a, you know, a picture next to it of what, you know, amphora or Samian where that that piece had certainly, you know, come from. Wow, that is dedicated. Needless to say, my seven year old self wasn't immediately true in becoming an archaeologist. I did actually end up going into photography and videography. But I guess as times moved on, my kind of interest and passion has circled background. And here I am kind of immersed in the world of archaeology again. So that's pretty cool.
00:03:14
Speaker
Well, welcome back. I actually was the opposite almost. I started doing film. I always wanted, well, I went, yeah, long story. I wanted to be a vet, then I wanted to be a primatologist. There were all sorts of things going on when I was younger. But by the time I was actually thinking seriously about what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a film director. So I started getting into media studies and that side of thing. And then while I was at uni, discovered archaeology and went, huh, actually.
00:03:39
Speaker
This is pretty fascinating. But it's always fascinating to hear the different ways that people get into it, because I always get the question, oh, but how does how does one become an archaeologist? Or, you know, why does it why does it start? And some people indeed, like you, since they were
00:03:56
Speaker
tiny, they wanted to be an archaeologist and for some people it came a lot later so I'm always interested to hear the different paths that people take.
Pandemic Productivity and Archaeology
00:04:03
Speaker
So you did the photography and videography but did you kind of actively choose archaeological topics to document or was it just sort of luck that you fell back into archaeology?
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's kind of luck. I'd probably consider myself a bit of a jack of all trades in that, yeah, this kind of just happened upon what I'm doing now. So when I graduated from uni photography and I actually spent eight years working as a yacht photographer. So through the pandemic, clearly
00:04:34
Speaker
running around the world and photographing boats out sailing wasn't really an option and so I kind of yeah I found myself back in the UK and I ended up making a website for ancient craft which is where that journey began into prehistory I guess.
00:04:51
Speaker
Well, yeah, I know. That's indeed a very strange connection between yachts and prehistory, but I suppose, you know, had old craft. Nice. And we'll talk about this a little bit more later. But one of the things that at least I know you for, and I'm sure a lot of people know you for as well, are your fantastic replicas that you create alongside your partner at ancient craft. And how did that interest that? Were you also always very crafty? Or did that also come with the kind of more media aspect of it?
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, I guess a pandemic, ancient craft website after the initial kind of period of isolation. I remember James dropped off a big box of prehistoric replicas for me to photograph for the replica shop. So I had to learn pretty quickly what the difference was between a Meldreth socketed axe and a group one shield, Palstov axe. So it was a lot of time on my hands and not much else I could do. I, yeah, I guess I could, yeah, trying to avoid a
00:05:49
Speaker
temptation to join the nation with a month long of Netflix until I just started researching and reading and getting really interested in prehistory.
00:06:02
Speaker
So you were one of the productive ones during the pandemic. Yeah, I don't want to, you know, name and shame anyone for, you know, yeah, making them feel bad. But I guess we all know who we are. It's fine. Yeah, I really, really worked hard to try and keep that TV off.
00:06:20
Speaker
Although it is, I mean, it's amazing how many things people picked up during the pandemic. There was that phase where everyone was doing sourdough bread and everyone did. I was chatting to Ashley Airy, who's the founder of Ashwood Candles, and she was saying, oh, and loads of people started doing candles in the pandemic and, you know, all of this kind of thing. So I guess the difference is you continued afterwards.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that was what was, I don't know, I think that was obviously there were lots of difficult times for everyone and probably in the grand scheme of things. I was fairly fortunate in my experience of that time, but it was really nice to sort of sit back and see some of those things like start to evolve and yeah, come into fruition. I know Ash's candles are incredible. So yeah, really cool business to have that time period.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, yeah, indeed, like you say, obviously, it was, well, it still is a terrible time in that respect. And a lot of people had a really bad experience with it. But I think that if you if you try to focus on the the positive aspects, there's a lot of things actually, that I wonder if without the pandemic would have even happened. I mean, for I'm just thinking of, for example, like online conferences and, and that size of thing as well, you know, you have this a different way of
00:07:34
Speaker
experiencing international interaction. And I don't know, I think that that's also quite a nice thing that has started that has now become more normalized, you know, more accessible then to a wider group of people in some respects. Yeah, totally. And maybe it was a kind of important transition. I mean, I clearly can't speak of the archaeological kind of community much pre my sort of more serious involvement with it. But
00:07:56
Speaker
It seems like it's provided a really good push in a direction that actually makes archaeology a lot more accessible for a wider community, like you say. So that's pretty cool too. Yeah, definitely. Well, because I was one of the ones, while others were making sourdough bread and lovely prehistoric bread, because I made a baby in the pandemic, I was one of that lot.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, so then attending conferences, obviously afterwards was that extra bit trickier. And then it was fantastic that they were all online, because I could just sit there with her on my lap, or you know, with her sleeping in the next room, and it was completely fine. So I think, yeah, there's definitely been a lot of positive changes as well that have happened, I think, as a cause of the pandemic. So which, you know, trying to put a positive spin on a terrible situation.
Time Travel to the Bronze Age
00:08:43
Speaker
And, of course, one of the standard questions that I ask all of my guests on here is, as it is, called tea break time travel. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why? I'm very curious to hear this one, considering your wide range of expertise and interest.
00:09:00
Speaker
So the best thing about this question and being asked it now is that I get to give this answer before James does. And I think when he realizes what I'm about to say, he'll probably have a laugh because we get asked this a lot and we've talked about it a lot conceptually. I'm sure plenty of people have. It's quite an exciting thought to be able to time travel back and
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, what would you see smell? Usually smell is the first thing I think of. What on earth would it smell like compared to what we're used to now? But yeah, I'm totally stealing his answer now.
00:09:42
Speaker
We won't tell him and then he'll say the same thing in the next recording. So yeah, I mean, we kind of laugh at the fact that, you know, imagine if you used your one time, your one opportunity to go back and see how Stonehenge was built. And it either turns out that it's exactly the same as what we believe it would be today, or actually it's just, you know, made by aliens and then you'd have to come back.
00:10:08
Speaker
Nobody would believe you. So what would be the use in that anyway? I don't know. But okay, on a more serious note, I'd probably have to choose, yeah, like jumping back in time to the Bronze Age, because from a completely selfish and personal point of view, I just really want to know how those guys were making those jet necklaces that have been found in Scotland. So that would be my moment.
00:10:35
Speaker
It's that similar to my one, actually, I really want to go back and see what on earth the carved stone balls were all about in Scotland, because yeah, it's one of those things that you can only know by going back and actually chatting to the people who are making. What is possibly be driving you to spend this much time smashing a ball?
00:10:56
Speaker
What's going on? And because indeed you made that fantastic replica of the, what was that one that you made again, the necklace? Yeah, it was actually the Pultalloch jet necklace just from nearby Kilmartin. Yeah, flip, took a long time. And I'm just totally in awe of them, really. Yeah, some big mysteries still to be solved with just how they actually
00:11:22
Speaker
how they drilled a lot of the, like, spacer plates. It's insane. It's real precision work that, yeah, I think I've only just started to scratch the surface on. Hey, good part.
00:11:37
Speaker
Well, thank you very much for joining me on my tea break today, and before we look at today's object, let's first journey back to around 2500 BC, to the north of England. The rolling hills stretch out in all directions, covered with closely packed bushes, clusters of trees, scattered standing stones, the occasional low mound in various stages of construction or being overcome by nature.
00:11:59
Speaker
Looking around further we see a figure bent over their work, a carving tool in one hand and a large rounded piece of white stone or chalk in the other, and as we watch this shape takes further form carved into an almost drum-like shape with geometric lines and circles decorating its surface. Later it will be placed alongside a small bent body within a tomb to be covered up and
The Folkton Drums Discovery
00:12:20
Speaker
join the other mounds in the area.
00:12:22
Speaker
So today we are looking at something that I was actually unfamiliar with, and I only was introduced to it when I visited the World of Stonehenge exhibit at the British Museum, and that is the Falkton Drums, which we'll get into the details soon. But first, I always like to have a look at the most asked questions on the internet, courtesy of Google Search Autofill.
00:12:41
Speaker
weren't that many about them. It seems that other people are also as ignorant as I am. So the first question though was, what were the folkton drums, folkton drums? How do you, I don't know how you would pronounce it actually. I'm going to go with folkton. I'm not sure if that's right either. But I guess we're just going to have to run with it. That sounds good. To be fair, we can rest safe in the knowledge that they probably didn't call them that. So it's okay. Sure. And next time I'm in Yorkshire, maybe I'll have to have to ask what
00:13:08
Speaker
what someone in Yorkshire would say. So the Folkton Drums are a set of three solid chalk cylinders that were found in 1889, I believe, in a child's grave near the village of Folkton in Yorkshire. Like he said, what's incredible about the Drums is that they are highly decorated with these amazing geometric patterns and what is thought to be stylised human faces.
00:13:31
Speaker
This is something I'm going to ask you about later, actually. Because indeed, I found that very curious. I think that was what was nice about this exhibition was that they had all of these different objects from different parts of the world or different regions of the UK as well from this time period together. And there's so many patterns that overlap between all of the objects. So I just looked at something which had what looked like a face on it. And then I saw this drama and went, well, it's also a face.
00:13:58
Speaker
I'm curious, I mean, we'll also get into this later, but are they called drums just because of the shape of them? Yes, it's kind of one of the funny things that we, you know, when I've put these replicas in people's hands, members of the public, and told them that they are, you know, a drum, they've kind of first been really surprised at the weight of the things because they're so flipping heavy. The second question that usually comes quickly after is, you know, accompanied with a puzzled look on their face of
00:14:26
Speaker
Why are they called drums? Because you try to play them like a drum. Firstly, I'm sure the decoration wouldn't last that long. Yeah, they really don't make much noise. So I'm guessing that's archaeologists deciding that they're drum shaped and not necessarily for their musical abilities. Fair enough. Disappointing, but OK.
00:14:46
Speaker
And the second question that came up was, how are the folkden drums made?
Creation Methods of Folkton Drums
00:14:51
Speaker
So I kept it intentionally vague in my little time travel description, because the time period that it is, I mean, I'm assuming it's stone tools, or do we have any evidence that they might have been using something else?
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So it's a great question. I guess to some extent we may never know how these objects were made exactly, like so many other things from this time period. And I guess that's where experimental archaeology starts to play a role in our understanding of the past. In terms of how I made the replicas, it was a process of looking at what materials and tools would have been available to the original makers in the Neolithic.
00:15:27
Speaker
and starting to experiment with different tools and techniques to figure out how they could have achieved the finished result. So through my process, I'd kind of theorise that the drums were made in a couple of phases. The first phase would probably be a rough out phase using different ways of napping, or in other words, a glorified way of saying they'd have hit it roughly into shape. Nice. Simple words, always good.
00:15:52
Speaker
and then potentially they could have used like a hafted axe head to do some of the finer shaping you know they would have been doing a lot of familiar processes like that for the woodworking that was going on at the time so i mean it seems i would say from kind of trial trying it out it would be
00:16:11
Speaker
maybe axes would have come into the process more in the cutting out phase of actually extracting the rock, or maybe they are just finding opportunistic sort of lumps that they're then working down from there. But yeah, to an extent, it sort of seems, you know, potentially overkill that the sort of somebody, you know, really going at a piece of chalk with an axe, but you know, you never know. And then kind of second phase would be more refining. So
00:16:36
Speaker
In terms of my application of the tools at the time that would have been maybe flint flakes or blades and then the task of finally decorating the drums could have been achieved by either a flint blade or an awl. But from my understanding of the objects there aren't
00:16:54
Speaker
any use for analysis that can be obviously seen, I guess, because there is a degree of wear on the surfaces of the drums. That is interesting what you said with the use wear indeed, because I mentioned the Carvester and Balls earlier, they've been a sort of pet love of mine since I discovered them. And I do use wear analysis, that's my speciality. That sounds so weird. My specialisation, I think is the better word.
00:17:18
Speaker
to use within archaeological analysis. And I really wanted to do some kind of USW study on the balls, but it's a similar issue, I guess, to what the drums must be and that they're sort of so worn already on the outside. And you mentioned the drums were found in 1889, is that correct?
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, so who knows what they've done with them between now? Right. Especially, my gosh, the early 1900s, like the things that people were doing to archaeological artifacts, I was looking at some things from 1950, even, I think, and they were so obviously polished with something afterwards. And like someone had just glued on the bottom with this really thick, sticky glue that just obscured all traces. And I was going, you know,
00:18:02
Speaker
So, yes, I can imagine, unfortunately, it's probably difficult to do any sort of music on the vocal drums. Oh, totally. And I think they've actually done some, is it reflectance transformation imaging and like photogrammetry of the drums, but as far as I'm aware,
00:18:20
Speaker
that sort of showed sort of evidence of erasure and reworking but not necessarily come out with any kind of solid answers for what they were using to actually make them sound corrected you know i'm happy to hear from someone that would tell me otherwise because yeah definitely yeah if anyone's listening and needs a project please do we will read it come on guys yes
00:18:46
Speaker
Right? Although it's one of those issues, right? That's what they always say. They say, surely if we'd have invented time machines at any point in the future, we would know about it right now. Which is just so, so disappointing. But anyway, I'm also happy, by the way, that I haven't had a single guest on yet, which who's said, if you could travel, where would you go and why and have said, actually, I'd go to the future.
Replicating the Folkton Drums
00:19:05
Speaker
So waiting for that day.
00:19:09
Speaker
But related to that question, this was actually one of the most common things that came up and I thought, I have the perfect guest to talk about this was just the phrase kind of folk and drums British Museum or folk and drums replica. So you are the one to correct who made that replica.
00:19:26
Speaker
Oh, is that what came in the Google search? That came up in the Google search. It was one of the most... Oh, amazing. Well, I mean, I am one of maybe a couple of people that have made a replica of the folk control. And I did then sort of
00:19:43
Speaker
put it in my bag and go into the exhibition and I've got a funny little picture of me standing next to the the originals and you know meanwhile wondering who was going to take me down out of the security. Was there a security guard in the background of the picture going huh? So I didn't get arrested on that occasion thankfully but yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
And indeed, the photo jumps were part of the British Museum, the exhibition World of Stonehenge. And I'm not actually sure where they are now. Are they still in the British Museum? Do you know where they're housed, where they're on display? I believe they were on loan to Stonehenge for a while. I don't know if that's where they've gone back to now or if they've returned somewhere further north. Oh, OK. OK, good to know. Well, so if anyone wants to see them, just do a little tour around the UK. I'm sure you'll find them somewhere on your tour.
00:20:35
Speaker
Hopefully they will be on display, otherwise we'll send you on a wild goose chase and you'll never find them. They'll be buried away in the store somewhere. But you'll have a lovely time, you'll have a wonderful adventure, you'll see the countryside, it'll be great.
00:20:50
Speaker
So we do know a little bit more about the folkton drums but perhaps we could go into a little more detail about them. So we mentioned before that they're sort of called drums just because of potentially their shape and that's what antiquarian and archaeologists decided to call
Other Similar Drums
00:21:04
Speaker
them. Are there any other similar objects or are there other kinds of inverted comma drums?
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, so to my knowledge, there are two other examples of drums that have been found. The first was found in Sussex and it's known as the Levant Drum. And I believe that was found in 1993. That drum is undecorated, although I guess there could have been earlier markings, but have just worn away in time. And then in 2015, another drum was found, which was the Burton Agnes Drum, which funnily enough was found in Burton Agnes. What do you think of that? Yeah.
00:21:40
Speaker
Oh, you can sell inventive. I was about to say we're an imaginative lot. So yeah, that's about 14 miles away from south of Folkton. And like the Folkton drums, the Burton Agnes drum also has a high level of carving and similar motifs. But interestingly, it also features three holes that have been drilled down from the top face of the drum in kind of like a tripod formation. Oh, interesting.
00:22:07
Speaker
And were those two other drums or the most recent drum even, were they found in a similar context or also in a tune? Yeah, so I believe the Burton Agnes drum was actually found in a group of three children and it was also found with a chalk ball and a bone pin that was also on display at the at the British Museum, which
00:22:31
Speaker
That's really interesting that they're always found, because you mentioned that the folkton drums were also found with a child? Yeah, exactly. And in quite a lovely arrangement around the child's body for the folkton drums, there was sort of the first drum by the top of the child's head, and then the second, third,
00:22:50
Speaker
kind of arcing around the crouched position of the child around the spine. So it kind of paints a really nice picture of this sort of child being surrounded by these drums.
00:23:02
Speaker
Interesting. I'd be so curious. And now I'm just really curious to see whether because indeed, we've talked about the fact that they're probably not drums in the musical sense. Are there any theories about whether they could have been used for something or whether they had a particular meaning? Or do you have a favourite theory?
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean there are a couple of theories about what the drums were used for. One of them being whether used as a divination device or as a protective talisman of the child or children that they were buried with.
00:23:33
Speaker
I personally like the theory that was a recent study in the, I think it was a British journal for the history of mathematics published. Yeah, they basically have theorized that they could have, the drums could have been used in the construction of monuments such as Stonehenge. So they found that by winding a chord of a
00:23:52
Speaker
a fixed number of times around the drums, you could obtain like a standard unit of length, which I believe would be 3.22 meters. And that length of 3.22 meters appears to have been used in the construction of large stone and timber circles, including Stonehenge, Derring to Moors in Wiltshire. And yeah, I guess that's kind of
00:24:13
Speaker
to me is could potentially, you know, is potentially a really fascinating thing. I'm not sure it answers the questions of why they would then go to the extent of burying them with the children. So it's kind of my favorite theory, but I feel like it doesn't quite give me all the answers that, yeah, for the context of how they were found. Which I mean, you know, maybe they just really liked visiting Stonehenge, that child.
00:24:40
Speaker
And maybe they did. Maybe they were the son of the maker or
Stonehenge and Folkton Drums Speculation
00:24:45
Speaker
something. Yeah, maybe they commissioned it. Maybe it was just a really, you know, like those children that the parents just give them everything, you know? So it was like, I want a stone circle that's just mine, but we can't make you a stone circle. I want a stone circle. Okay, we'll make you a big stone circle and, you know, Stonehenge. Please don't cry anymore. Exactly. You're making a scene.
00:25:08
Speaker
I mean, there's another theory as to why Stonehenge was built. You're welcome. Are people listening? Sure, that's the right one. Back to the time travelling point, you know, if we went back and realised that actually Stonehenge was just built to calm down a small child, it's not quite as exciting as anything that we're thinking now, so maybe it's best it remains a mystery. I think, yeah, indeed, that might be one thing that I'll come back and then go, so did you see anything?
00:25:33
Speaker
No, no. Shame, yeah. Oh, such a shame. Such a waste of a time travel journey. But I like this, indeed, that the folks drums are almost as perfect that encapsulation of the fact that there can be so many different theories. And I mean, each one technically works, you know, like there's never going to be
00:25:55
Speaker
a theory which can be absolutely proven false. I mean, for example, this mathematical idea, you know, you can't say, well, no, they're not that standard because they are that measurement, but then that doesn't necessarily mean they were used as that. But yeah, I love this idea in archaeology that, you know, as long as you base it on solid evidence and you use kind of scientific reasoning that you can create basically any hypothesis on what sort of things happened in the past. And I think that these are really nice encapsulation of that idea almost.
00:26:24
Speaker
Oh, totally. And there are definitely a divide in people's opinions of if you, you know, so I've had people come and ask us, like, so what are they used for? And same as the Carve Stone Balls, like, well, we just don't know. And they're like, well, how do you sleep at night? How are you ever going to sleep at night until you found the answer? And I was like, but maybe there's something lovely in the fact that we're not always going to have the answers for everything. Like, what's a world without mystery? I don't know. Exactly.
00:26:53
Speaker
Also, I mean, how could we find the answer? Well, the time travel machine, I guess, but apart from that, you know, you'll never know the answer. And almost trying to find it is then just, I mean, gosh, you could wither away trying to find the answer to these things. So many sleepless nights. Exactly. To be fair, I probably, I mean, not sleepless nights, because I'm worrying about what the carved stone balls were used for, but just, you know,
00:27:18
Speaker
pondering, dreaming. It's a lovely thing. Anyway, sorry. That and the small child to wake you up. Yeah, well, that too. Waiting for the next feed. But sorry, I seem to be talking more about the capstone balls in this episode than the folkton drums. Let's get back to the folkton drums and apologies. And we talked about this a little bit before, the fact that the design on the drums
00:27:39
Speaker
has sort of been likened to a human face and this is very similar to other rock art that I think is in Orkney. They have very similar and you have like little Orkney Venus, the so-called Western wifey, who also has that kind of very dominant eyebrow in sort of a frowning shape almost and then the little eyes and all of that kind of thing. I mean, do you think it's a face? Do you agree with that interpretation?
00:28:04
Speaker
Oh, I'm definitely inclined to think it's a face. And of course, like we as humans are predisposed to find faces in everyday objects. You know, I think it's, is it face peridolayer or something that, you know, the phenomenon that, that, yeah, one of those other words that we cannot pronounce. I was about to say, I'll just smile and nod again. Yes, yes.
00:28:28
Speaker
That phenomenon uses the same brain processes that we use to recognise and interpret other real human faces. So there's always a chance that we're going to want to find a face when there might not be a face. But what I kind of circle back to is the fact that
00:28:47
Speaker
the design of those parts of the drums are just so different to the geometry that's sort of featured on the rest of them. Oh, interesting. Those are kind of crossover. The geometry and the patterns are, you know, have really good links and ties to other parts of prehistory, but the face is just so unique to those pieces that
00:29:12
Speaker
Ah, yeah. They're definitely little eyebrows, aren't they? Why else would you do that? Little frown. And I'm just obviously, I mean, this is a podcast, so unfortunately we don't have any visuals of the drums. I'll put some links in the show notes so that people can follow a link and have a look at them. But in terms of the, for example, the geometric designs, are they, I can't remember, are they sort of straight lines, like almost zigzaggy things? Are they lots of curved lines or are they a bit of a mixture of everything?
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah, a bit of a mix. So on the tops of the drums, which are the circular kind of face, there is rings and marks that you would more typically associate with the sort of cup and ring mark lines, I guess. And then on the side faces of the drums, you've got all sorts of zigzaggy patterns. You've got little lozenge shapes that are very heavily featured later on when we're getting into
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, gold lozenges found in Wiltshire in the Bronze Age. Yeah, so it's kind of a bit of a mix. There's kind of beaker pots.
00:30:18
Speaker
references. So yeah. Yeah, so proper kind of conglomeration, I guess, of everything. It was sort of that general artistic style, I suppose, then that happens. No, that's really interesting. And I mean, as we've mentioned, you have replicated one of the drums because there's three drums, correct? Yeah, so three for the folkton drums. And then I guess you could add in the Burton Agnes drum as a fourth. With the decoration. For the stylised and decorated.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah. And when you were creating your replica, did you replicate one of the folkton drums or did you kind of do an amalgamation, should we say, of all three and one kind of thing?
00:30:56
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah. So actually I started on one of the folkton drums. The second that I've been working on is the Bert and Agnes drum. Oh, okay. And at some point I'll probably endeavor to have a collection of all four, but very much kind of taking a lot of... So one of the things that I...
00:31:16
Speaker
maybe we'll get into this a bit later, but really focus on us trying to get the drums and any replica that we make as accurate as possible. So I've spent a lot of time looking at, you know, photographing, drawing, mapping out dimensions and sizes to try and create this sort of as close as you can get without having them in front of you to copy them version of, of the real thing itself.
00:31:40
Speaker
Oh, amazing. I'm a big believer in experimental archaeology being a fantastic way of better understanding the past and creating replicas such as these are one of the aspects of experimental archaeology. For you personally, the experience of replicating this drum or these drums, if you're working on the second one, helped you to understand them better, or did it help?
00:32:05
Speaker
So I'd probably say that it helped so far as working out how they could have been made. In terms of why they were made, I don't think I really gained much from the process other than, you know, kind of what's
00:32:22
Speaker
Potentially obvious but maybe not immediately obvious if you haven't worked as kind of a creative maker yourself is that they took a lot of time and there was a lot of skill behind carving them so whoever was making these whoever was.
00:32:38
Speaker
Kind of dreaming up and planning these patterns had to really thought about it before they just went at it because there's spacing between sections and the way it all comes together. I just, I can't believe that it was somebody that just sat down with a lump of chalk one day and started going.
00:32:57
Speaker
Oh, I think I'll just do some patterns. Interesting. That would be fascinating to find the kind of artist sketchbook almost of the planning process of how to create all of these different objects, which would be really interesting. And did you make like a sort of rough mock-up before or did you just indeed plan a lot and then get straight into it with the kind of raw material?
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, I would say I just got straight into it after doing the initial mapping and I had plenty of printouts of, you know, that I'd kind of scaled to size. So I had as close as I could get to, you know, having that object next to you and, and working from that when it came down to it, I just had to kind of cross my fingers, hope and start scraping.
00:33:47
Speaker
The biggest difference between me making it and them making it was that I was trying to make it as accurate as possible to what they did. So there was probably more that went on in terms of spending the time to get the sizing and shaping perfectly right. But if they were using them as measuring tools, maybe they were spending just as much time as I was. And that's just the big assumption I've made.
00:34:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that's fair enough. And I mean, can they, we've sort of spoken about how we don't really know what they were used for. We don't really know necessarily how they were made. We can kind of imply it and try and create replicants. But I mean, can they tell us anything about almost the sort of broader context of Neolithic life? I know this is a very big question, so feel free to just say, I don't know. And we can move on. But I'm just curious if you had any thoughts on that about what clues they can give us about the people who were making or using them.
00:34:37
Speaker
So yeah, they're being created at a time when there is like clear artistic and symbolic changes that are reflected in a lot of the similarities in the artwork. So they are with the crossover and the pattern seen in late Neolithic passage tombs and some of the decoration resembling later beak pottery and then into the Bronze Age and some of the early metalwork.
00:34:57
Speaker
So there's some sort of sharing or understanding or importance of these symbols that are being repeated and you know whether you can go so far as to say there's sort of trends that are developing at that time within artistic representations or you know just just basically that there was a lot more going on than we can ever kind of imagine and these objects clearly held you know
00:35:25
Speaker
Big value in the amount of you know skills that their maker put into them or had to make them and the time investment that they were Choosing to spend on making them don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, no definitely I mean as well as I could
00:35:41
Speaker
No, I was just curious what your take on it was. But indeed, I remember the Neolithic is just such a bizarre period as well sometimes. I mean, I think it's quite often oversimplified in the minds of people in terms of, oh, yes, and that's when they started farming, and that's when they produce pottery and things. But actually, there's so many, like you say, kind of very symbolic and artistic apparently. I mean, we say that, I should say, you know, caveat
00:36:06
Speaker
I don't like using the term ritual, but that's used a lot in the Neolithic time because there are just so many things that are so random and just so kind of
Symbolic Changes During the Neolithic
00:36:14
Speaker
harsh. Okay, there can't have been a practical, you know, functional reason for doing this. It must have had something else. I can remember doing a course about sort of death and burial and everything. And in the Neolithic, there's so many bizarre burials and oh, it's yeah, it's very
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very fascinating time period. And I mean, obviously, the Neolithic is also so full of objects like carved stone balls and like the folk to drums, that we still don't really know anything about, you know, I mean, we've just discussed this now for sort of just over half an hour, we still don't really know anything about the drums, but not because, you know, obviously, you're very, you're an expert in these as anyone else's, but like, it's,
00:36:54
Speaker
just something that the wider academic community doesn't know that much about as well, which I think is so fascinating. Out of curiosity, what are your favorite kind of objects from this period, so from the Neolithic?
00:37:05
Speaker
Well, I feel like a cop-out answer would to say, you know, for me to say the, the folkton drum. So, um, yeah, I guess I've got a soft spot for Jadatai Axes. I think they are just fantastic objects. Hearthstone Balls would have to be another one, but one of my favorite objects is the Maismar Flintmace head from North Wales. I don't know if you saw that in the exhibition or if you're familiar with it.
00:37:31
Speaker
The one, I don't know, this is the Northmace head I've got here. I've got a bunch of replicas on the shelf behind me, so I'm just looking at them. No, but that's, is it similar to the Northmace head or is it more? Yeah. So in the sense of a sort of shape and, you know, polish, but it's got those kind of diagonal cutouts all the way around it.
00:37:51
Speaker
It's kind of a whitish flint and yeah, not quite as, uh, is more uniformly decorated than the now, uh, mace head, which has kind of got that little funny face in the middle talking about. Also has a face I was about to say, another face. Spotting faces and things. That is a great example. But yeah, it's, it's just as such, like the, yeah, Maismar flint mace head is just such an incredible piece of art. And it is unbelievably mind blowing to think about the amount of time
00:38:19
Speaker
that would have had to have been invested to grinding out the decoration because yeah, Flip, if you've ever polished Flint, it takes a while. So yeah, to do it to that degree of accuracy and yeah, detail. It's just, I don't think even James can get his head around it yet. At some point we'll have to, we'll have to try and make our own replica, but I don't even think we know where we would begin with that one.
00:38:44
Speaker
Ooh, I look forward to seeing that. But yeah, indeed. I mean, those, at least with the folkton drums, they're made from chalk, so it's sort of fairly easy to carve, I guess. But yeah, something like a flint object would be... I've had the easy job, really. It's a good choice, good choice.
00:39:01
Speaker
I'll do this object. But actually, so that relates a little bit to a question that I had because you mentioned slightly earlier that they were potentially just using sort of bits of chalk that they found or they were actually cutting chalk out. Where does the the chalk that they were using to create these objects, where does that come from? Or what do we know about the raw material? Yeah, so the chalk that was used for the Fulton and Burton Agnes drums conveniently was formed quite close by in Yorkshire. So it's
00:39:31
Speaker
from the flambra chalk formation and interestingly the chalk that they've happened to use whether it was through convenience or you know some higher understanding of chalk across the UK it just is a harder chalk than most of the other talk that we do get in the UK. So while I'm no geologist and I definitely don't specialise in chalk formation
00:39:52
Speaker
From my understanding, and again, if anyone's out there that can verify this, that would be fantastic. The formation isn't necessarily older than some of the other chalk formations across the UK. So I'd imagine the hardness that you're getting in that region is coming down to potentially just harder, like more compression over the time that it was forming.
00:40:11
Speaker
And because of the hard nature of the chalk, it just lends itself really well to being carved. So it's one of the likely reasons that the drums were able to maintain their carving for the past 5,000 years. So who knows if there were more drums across the UK that were either being created out of softer chalk, they might not have been found yet, or they might just not have lasted. So yeah. There's so much potential. Maybe there's more.
00:40:38
Speaker
I'm actually then curious, I'm just thinking about it, considering that even if it's this harder level of chalk, it's sort of, I guess, then the hardest chalk possible, but chalk itself is still a lot easier to carve than some of the other objects and art objects that were being carved, such as this one that you mentioned, the mace head made of flint. And the fact that they were found in children's graves
00:41:00
Speaker
I mean, are there any theories around whether they could have been made by children or they could have been almost like apprentice pieces, so to speak?
00:41:09
Speaker
are is actually a topic that I really love thinking about because and I think actually I've listened to one of your earlier podcasts and when I was hearing you say kind of the theory about children creating some of the objects that we're founding or apprentice pieces I was just thinking yes because if you you know undoubtedly children in prehistory were growing up
00:41:33
Speaker
around these processes so it's not a leap of the imagination that they would have
00:41:40
Speaker
you know, been sitting beside, you know, maybe their experienced flint knapper and copying what they're seeing and making themselves little scrapers. So then if you've got a potter sitting with his young kid who's messing around with a lump of clay, what's to say? Some of these objects aren't being made by small kids. And actually what we are interpreting as ritual today is just the kind of wandering mind of small kids. The foibles of children.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I would say in the case of the folkton drums, I think there would be, because of the nature of relief carving, I'd be impressed if a small child managed to do it to the degree of detail that we do see on the drums, but it's not out of the question for a younger person to be practising.
00:42:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's a very fascinating topic as well to me, this idea of, you know, children in prehistory as well, because it's something that's been overlooked so much. I mean, it's getting a lot better now, but yeah, no, it's sort of an interesting idea. Oh, maybe, oh, that would be so lovely, wouldn't it? Just to, you know, they were buried with them because they had spent their whole summer, you know, carefully creating these objects. Yeah, that would be great.
00:42:56
Speaker
And actually, just to jump back to the flintknapping scene, when we were filming for the Attenborough's graveyard, I actually had a little five-year-old girl sitting next to me pretending to be my Neanderthal daughter. And it was unbelievably remarkable how quickly this little girl picked up the basics of flintknapping. It was like I didn't, you know, she had some innate ability that
00:43:24
Speaker
she just I put a piece of mint in her hand and a pebble and she just started whacking it and hey presto five minutes later there's a scraper and I just was like well that's like with language learning as well right small children can just absorb so much information and so much knowledge and I guess the difference is they don't overthink things like they just
00:43:47
Speaker
you know, oh, this is how you do it. Okay. And then they do it. Whereas for an adult, it's always like, wait, but how does this function? And what does this do? And indeed, you know, I have to map it all out perfectly. But maybe for a small child, it would just been, oh, this has to kind of look like a face. Okay. And then, you know, yeah, totally. That's my new theory. Oh, I'll keep that one. I know that it's as unlikely as more unlikely than the others probably. But still, I like that theory.
00:44:15
Speaker
So, Emma, we did already introduce you, obviously, in the first section of this episode, and we have talked a lot about your work with replicas, but perhaps we could go into a bit more detail of that
Replicas for Exhibitions and Public Events
00:44:24
Speaker
now. So, as we've mentioned, you made several replicas for the British museums, including, well, I suppose this wasn't specifically made for this British museum, but you did also make, along with James, as part of Ancient Craft, all of these different replicas, how did this sort of reputation for creating prehistoric replicas come to pass?
00:44:44
Speaker
Well, we were approached by the BM in 2021. Trying to get my timeline straight now.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, to ask if we could provide replicas for the exhibition, some of which, yeah, went on sale in the exhibition shop. It's actually difficult to say if their research team just did some like internet sleuthing or, you know, in the build up to the exhibition or if someone pointed them in our direction. But I guess James has worked with me several times and actually has some of his replicas on permanent display in the Joseph Fertong Gallery.
00:45:19
Speaker
So it's likely they were already familiar with ancient crafts work and then subsequently while the exhibition was on we were part of a couple of the members evening and then we were on the front lawn for the opening of the festival of archaeology so yeah that was a great opportunity for us to hand
00:45:38
Speaker
over some of our replicas that were on display in the exhibition like the Nebra sky disk and say, well, if you go inside, you can see the real thing in a minute. Yeah. Oh gosh, that must have been so, I don't know, I would just be so stressed out. If something like the British Museum came to me, it was like, could you make some replicas for us? Or were you guys just unfazed? You've just done it too often now. It's not a big deal.
00:46:03
Speaker
Well, I have to say, thankfully they gave us enough time because one of our, one of our biggest problems at the moment is trying to keep up. So I'm sure you'll hear all about that from James. He likes to, you know, tell everyone that he's world weary and, and busy, but we've definitely got into this swing of things now, I think.
00:46:27
Speaker
making for various people. And I mean, what is the process? So, you know, if you decide, right, we're going to make a replica of this, what is the kind of planning process involved? You've already given, I guess, a bit of a taster with the folk to drums, but is there kind of a general scheme that you use?
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess my process is fairly organic in the sense that it just sort of unfolds over time. In many respects, I can be really organized and plan and I've had financial spreadsheets and organizing logistics. But actually, when it comes to a creative process, I'm not very good at just researching and reading heavily for days on end. I don't sit down and just sketch and
00:47:07
Speaker
Labor over that process it's more likely that over the course of a year as ancient craft where we've been fortunate to visit a wide range of museums and heritage venues across the UK and see lots of different collections and have conversations with archaeologists and professionals that those things are the things that are influencing me towards.
00:47:29
Speaker
an inevitable kind of creation of an artifact. So yeah, sometimes it's just a case of sitting down and having a go at things after I've kind of gone through that like vague process. And yeah, it definitely helps to have like a flint knapper working beside me. So I could just round and say, oh, can you make me a couple more blades?
00:47:52
Speaker
I'm experimenting with this today. I have to say, I find that very useful as well. My husband definitely not as talented a flint leper as James is, but better than me. And so I can say, look, I need this drill bit, and I have this bit, and it's kind of worked, but I can't do this bit. Can you just do it for me? And I'll go, yeah, sure.
00:48:09
Speaker
Yeah, very, very convenient. Yeah, with Nebra Skydisc, for example, that was something that took a lot of planning in the sense, kind of similar to the photon drums with mapping out and trying to get everything in the right places. But that was like next level, photoshopping and printing and, yeah, layering things over and trying to make sure that everything was, you know, within a millimeter of being
00:48:34
Speaker
in the place that it needed to be in. And I mean, do you now find because you've made so many different things with different designs from across the time periods, do you find that you look at archaeological objects as well in a different way? Almost you look at them and you're like, oh, well, that's the same sort of style as this, or that's the same kind of shape that this would have been?
00:48:54
Speaker
Oh, a hundred percent. And there are things that, you know, going around the World of Stonehenge exhibition, which we kind of keep on referencing. I just walk up to cases and stand there for probably an abnormal amount of time, thinking to myself, well, how have you done this? Some of the gold work, I was just looking at like, I don't get it. Wow.
00:49:20
Speaker
If anyone could make this time machine, it would be really useful for everyone. No, interesting. And now that you have this then sort of experience with making a range of replicas, I mean, the sky disk, these drums, all sorts of other things, what advice would you have for others who want to kind of try making themselves, you know, making these sort of objects or who look at an object in a museum and think, well, you know, let's give it a shot.
00:49:48
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question. I would probably say almost don't overthink it and just give it a go. The beauty with prehistoric replicas is that they're rarely perfect. And we see loads of examples in the replicas that we make where the original makers do get it wrong.
00:50:04
Speaker
Even in the production of the drums, there are actually sections which have been misplaced and there have been attempts to erase a mistake that was made. And something, I think actually in one of, I think it's a second folkton drum where some of the eyebrows, like the eyebrows been drawn in the wrong place and they've tried to erase it and then redrawn it on underneath.
00:50:25
Speaker
Hey, we've all had that issue. God, that guy looks way too surprised that's lower those eyebrows. So yeah, it's really fun to incorporate those mistakes into the replicas that we make. And, you know, like we made a point to purposefully add the stars from the sky disk that had later been covered by the gold crescents on either side of the disk, because otherwise, yeah, otherwise it can just be too perfect. So yeah, don't be afraid to get it wrong.
00:50:54
Speaker
practice. Yes, yeah, releasing in a childhood, I guess would be a nice way. Yeah, nice. Because you're not going to throw a paddy because Stonehenge wasn't built for you. Yes, exactly. I want Stonehenge. And of course, as well as now being heavily involved with more kind of archaeological replicas and the ancient history of things, as we mentioned right at the beginning, you're also very talented in visual media.
Communicating Archaeological Insights
00:51:19
Speaker
And
00:51:19
Speaker
And how does that tie into your archaeological work? Do you see the archaeological side of things differently because of that experience that you have? Or how does your interpretation of the past, how is that affected by your expertise in that side of things?
00:51:37
Speaker
Oh boy. Well, yeah, I guess my background in photography and videography really helps, obviously now I say it out loud, but helps to communicate the aspects of archaeology to a broader kind of audience that may be interested in prehistory. So I really enjoy playing that role as the visual communicator between what could just sort of be stuck in the realms of research papers and
00:52:02
Speaker
kind of the academic experts and finding a medium that is more accessible to a wider audience. And I guess over the past few years, I've worked with Ancient Craft to build our YouTube channel. So our Naptime series is a really satisfying way to help
00:52:21
Speaker
flintnappers like budding flintnappers enthusiasts and equally archaeology students themselves to understand the principles of flintnapping and encourage them to nap along with the episodes so yeah we've we've yeah had a lot of pleasure working with various museums and heritage sites to create learning resources that can show what life was like in prehistory and yeah i guess it feeds back into what we were saying earlier about yeah kind of breaking into
00:52:46
Speaker
the modern day ways of communicating and communicating across platforms that transcend region with online resources. Yeah. And do you find that you have to kind of compromise in, I don't know, the authenticity, shall we say, of kind of the interpretation or of how you're visualising things in order to communicate with that modern audience?
00:53:08
Speaker
Fortunately, I work with someone who's a realistic love and details. And I don't think there's any way if I was filming with James, for example, that I could possibly dumb it down for an audience in terms of what we're representing. Yeah. I mean, there's obviously always going to be an element of like film TV magic that happens behind the scenes. You know, if we're casting bronze axes, everything you're seeing on camera is
00:53:36
Speaker
fully authentic, tried and tested by James himself, but when you've only got a short window to film that, it's likely that there's been a couple of, you know, and here's one we've made earlier moments just to help that process along. Yes, time lapse and then cut. Oh look, oh it's finished. Ta-da!
00:53:57
Speaker
I remember chatting with someone who is a professional photographer and indeed had that interest in archaeology and history and everything, but never necessarily did it from a sort of educational standpoint, if that makes sense. So he didn't do degrees in archaeology. I guess he focused instead on photography and visual media. So I'm always curious to hear how people who come from that side of things or who have a combination of both, as in your case,
00:54:23
Speaker
sort of approach it, if that makes sense. Yeah, totally. And it is like with the work I did before this, I was a sailor and it helped massively being a yacht photographer and happening to understand what sailing was all about. It works in the same way for this. The understanding I have of the archaeology and the replica making processes definitely inform, like help inform the shots that I want to kind of portray over to
00:54:51
Speaker
you know, through the media projects I work with. And yeah, just knowing what, what's happening with the flintknapping when I'm filming James, helps me to know where I need to be at what time and yeah, how it's coming across to, to people who actually are also experienced flintknappers themselves and are interested in specific parts of what he's doing. Yeah. No, and I like the deed that you were mentioning your sort of the focus seems to be indeed on education rather than purely entertainment, if that makes sense.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, you know, they're both important, right? Yeah, we've got to find ways of enticing younger generations in and hoping that they'll be interested enough to continue in.
00:55:36
Speaker
become the next generation of people that are going to be finding these drums and discovering their true purposes. Yes, yeah, all the answers will be discovered at some point in the future. And I'm just, final question on this topic, but I'm curious, so we sort of talked about how, you know, the positives of having that sort of angle, shall we say, or kind of that level of experience, but are there any kind of difficulties or disadvantages? I mean, what would you say is sort of the most difficult part of
00:56:04
Speaker
the work that you're doing, be it the visual media side of things, the replica side of things, the interpretation of the past, shall we say, visualization of the past, I guess might be a better way of saying.
00:56:15
Speaker
Well, so like fair visual representation of the people, I would probably say is something that is quite difficult. I know there are definitely times over the past couple of years where actually it would be really helpful if I wasn't the one behind the lens. And if James could pick up the camera and get on with doing some filming, you know, we'd start to
00:56:35
Speaker
be able to produce a fairer representation of what was actually happening in the past because we are still unfortunately supporting the kind of portrayal of man does work, you know, the male flint knapper and among every other thing that we seem to be doing and something that we
00:56:59
Speaker
would really like to start doing more of is breaking down some of those misconceptions of gender roles, for example, in the past. But also, you know, we don't look like Neanderthals. So invariably, when we come to film for any project, there's always going to be a difficulty in and just our, you know, our appearance and the color of our skin. Yeah.
00:57:20
Speaker
So that's kind of, yeah, it's fighting that Hollywood caveman representation of prehistory and trying to positively replace it with something that's, yeah, a bit more encompassing and accurate. Yeah, which I guess is a problem because I mean, on the one hand, yes, there are probably ways to show that, but indeed it can never be a completely authentic view of the past because I actually spoke to someone if people are listening who are interested in hearing more about interpretation and visualisation of the past. There's a whole episode on the Exarch show.
00:57:50
Speaker
which focuses on this very topic. And one of the guests on there was talking about how he had done a whole photo shoot, but using, for example, white actors because that was just who was available and who he was using. And at some point he decided, no, this is just wrong because there was a recent scientific study that showed that actually the population that was living in this time would have had blue eyes indeed, but would have had darker skin.
00:58:12
Speaker
But then he had the issue of trying to find actors that fit that physical description because it's just very, very rare in the modern day. And then you have the whole slightly moral aspect of, okay, do I then Photoshop darker skin on people with blue eyes or Photoshop blue eyes on people with darker skin? There's a lot of issues I can imagine around how to approach that side of things.
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And something that is really encouraging is the fact that larger media organizations, and some of which we've been working with recently, are really starting to value that as a principle. So, you know, looking at different ways that you can use CGI techniques to kind of take actors that are perhaps
00:58:59
Speaker
that naturally fits the criteria more and then in using them to enhance to a point that is a fairer portrayal of what we believe, you know, based on reconstructions prehistoric people would have looked like. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. That's nice because that means that then the sort of more popular media sources or the what people will see more of is then a fairer representation and not just James Flinn epic.
00:59:28
Speaker
Completely. And I was very honored that for most of the mammoth graveyard, I was blurry. And that was the biggest compliment I could possibly receive, because what it meant was I just didn't look Neanderthal enough. And they knew it.
00:59:43
Speaker
They knew that they were never going to get around the people that they'd happen to be able to bring together for that filming project. And as a result, we've got some really kind of moody, suggestive, kind of blurry shots of some people and silhouettes in a cave rather than, yeah, some bunch of...
01:00:03
Speaker
which then yeah then gets into the whole thing of sort of photography versus illustration because that's easier to get around if you're illustrating or if you're you know doing animation I guess is because you can just sort of create everything yourself. It always comes down to a budget and time restrictions unfortunately.
01:00:20
Speaker
Exactly. Oh, no, fascinating. Oh, well, thank you for giving a little more of an insight into that. I thought as we had someone on who had that level of expertise, I thought it would be interesting to chat a bit about that. But that unfortunately marks the end of our tea break today. Sounds like you guys have so much to do. I don't want to keep you for too long. So probably we need to get back to work. But thank you so, so much for joining me today, Emma. It was really interesting. I had a really great time.
01:00:43
Speaker
You're welcome. Yeah, thank you so much for having me and enjoy. Yeah, and if anyone wants to find out more about Emma's work, for example with ancient craft, or wants to know more about the Fulton Drums, you can check the show notes on the podcast homepage. I'll try to post some links there. Other than that, I hope that you enjoyed our journey today and see you next month for another episode of Tea Break Time Travel.
01:01:06
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.
01:01:19
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.