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The Arrow of Ambivalence (Part 2) - Trowel 38
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Romance is decidedly still the air! Ugh!
In part two, Tilly and Ash are still on the hunt for the Arrow of Ambivalence. Joined by experimental archaeologists, Emma Jones and Dr. James Dilley, the gang get to work on figuring out how to locate the mysterious arrow that might banish Cupid’s love spell from the realm, and maybe figure out how to craft one themselves…
Books Mentioned
- Stonehenge (Bernard Cornwell)
- The Witcher series (Andrzej Sapkowski)
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Contact
- Email: andmytrowel@gmail.com
- Instagram: @and.my.trowel
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/trowel/38
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Transcript
Introduction: Archaeology Meets Fantasy
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You have my sword. And you have my bow. And my trowel.
00:00:12
Speaker
ah you're listening to episode 38 of Am My Trial, where we look at the fantastic side of archaeology and the archaeological side of fantasy.
Chaos and Cupid: A Valentine's Adventure
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm Ash. And I'm Tilly. And this is the second part of our discussion with experimental archaeologists Emma Jones and Dr. James Dilly chatting all about arrows.
00:00:30
Speaker
So let's quickly remind ourselves where we were before Cupid sent us all those blasted enchanted Valentine's Day cards. Oh my gosh. Cupid is wreaking havoc on the kingdom, showering all our neighbours with love, sickly, sweet, nauseating love. yeah And we're determined to stop him. and Not because we hate love. No, no, no. not no But, you know, you can only see so much of it before it starts to, you know, sour.
Arrowhead Materials: Stone, Bone, Metal
00:00:55
Speaker
So, well, Cupid can be a bit of a tyrant this time of year, and so we've tasked ourselves with finding the arrow of ambivalence. The which will restore the good citizens back to their rational selves.
00:01:07
Speaker
We've enlisted Emma Jones and Dr. James Dilley, experimental archaeologists, to help us find this arrow through archaeological means. So we've looked at the representation of arrows and love through the world of fantasy.
00:01:18
Speaker
But what if we look at the archaeological evidence? Can you tell us a little bit more, guys, about maybe arrows in the archaeological record? ah So ah guess through prehistory, prehistory covers much of the world.
00:01:33
Speaker
And generally people used the materials that suited the task and were available to not necessarily always in the immediate area, but in some way would but perhaps be accessible after a journey or to be tradable, I suppose.
00:01:52
Speaker
But generally...
Archaeological Anecdotes and Experiments
00:01:53
Speaker
The first kinds of arrows or projectile tips are made of stone, and typically of a stone that can be flaked like flint or obsidian ah to produce a really, really sharp edge.
00:02:04
Speaker
But we get arrowheads made of osseous materials like bone or antler, or even metals like copper or bronze. ah We've even got some shell arrows cool from Norway.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, they're unusual. But generally, people appear to have used a whole variety of arrows. And I suppose in relation to Eros's blunt arrows or his anti-love arrows, there are wooden tipped arrows from but some of the Scandinavian late Mesolithic Urtabola sites that have of thicker...
00:02:41
Speaker
front ends to them where a sharp arrowhead would be. It's just a thicker piece of wood, which are thought to be for knocking birds out the sky, but they are most definitely blunt. Oh, interesting.
00:02:53
Speaker
Or just a really mean game of like tag. Yeah, quite possibly. Yeah. yeah yes What was it called? Archeotag or something, right? You know, does anyone play the archery tag?
00:03:04
Speaker
It's great fun. And they basically have a big, you have it's basically, you have two teams, sorry, slight digression. You have two teams um on sort of either side of a pitch and you can't cross the line. It's kind of like Dodgers in that respect that you can't cross the line in the middle.
00:03:18
Speaker
Dodgeball, sorry, not Dodgers. I was like, what? You know, dodges. And then you have, but the arrows have like big fuzzy things on the end. So they don't hurt when they hit you, but you basically are shooting each other. Sorry, you're just hunting people now. It's dodgeball, but with arrows.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah. but Like, so that's basically, that's probably what they were doing in Scandinavia at this time as well. Absolutely. Only a one round game. Yeah. high snakes that's the best type of sport like the prehistoric version of squid games oh my god yeah what squid games oh tell you come on seriously i feel like keep in mind i've spent most of my childhood outside of the uk yes tell me this was on like netflix about two years ago you don't have an excuse to nice try
00:04:07
Speaker
But and I don't know if it's their first task because essentially a group of people are collected for a game. At the end, if they survive, they win a pot of money. But each round or each game is essentially a game to the deaths or, you know, proportionate people
Durability and Preservation of Arrowheads
00:04:23
Speaker
are going to die. And it's essentially like a musical chairs, isn't it? They play, they have to get from one side of a pitch to the other. And if somebody moves, they get shot.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah. but yeah I assume this is like a fictional show not yeah no they live stream it I was just thinking is this like I'm a celebrity get me out of here style of thing like it's sort of they did float the idea doing a live stream version of the show and not obviously yeah they did yeah yeah they did yeah but it was it was so abhorrent because people were no not to the death like fictional death i think we haven't seen the contestants is this the hunger games like i mean things are quite dystopian at the moment but don't know if that dystopian yet don't know this episode's going to be released in a couple of months from when we're recording so who knows what we'll it might not ever be released maybe maybe the world will have collapsed by that point until he will truly know what Squid Games is there we go and James will be making lots of flint arrows yes we're coming you James oh yeah we're definitely coming to you're going to our weaponsmith but indeed going back to the materials right honestly this is the episodes that we're diverting the most from our original topic which is great I'm enjoying these discussions but right let's come back on track it's only because you don't know TV shows yes sorry true yeah all of our all of our diversions have been due to that haven't So in terms of the material, you mentioned that the majority are from stone, but they're also from other materials. Is that just because,
Arrowheads as Artifacts and Grave Goods
00:05:50
Speaker
do you think that it would have mainly been from stone? Are there a lot of kind of practical advantages to stone as a material for an arrowhead? Or do you think that maybe there would have been more organic arrowheads in the past, we just don't find them?
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, and you're right to identify that representation is important here, that stone is generally pretty indestructible in comparison to even hard organic materials.
00:06:14
Speaker
But I suppose on the other hand, but well, I guess on sort of the same hand, but to broaden that side of things, that... osseous material may well wear down quicker or or become damaged quicker because although flint when it's thin is quite fragile um brittle having loosed many replica arrows into a variety of target mediums from of very hard surfaces to ballistics gel and that sort of thing flint arrows are really really durable
00:06:45
Speaker
but it's usually the arrow shaft that will become damaged first. It's really impressive how durable they are. And we see that in the record when arrows have been found in bones, that they're still generally in one piece, whereas testing osseous arrowheads, they generally break first. But if there's no access to sharp, workable stone, then that's what you've got to work with.
00:07:07
Speaker
Fair enough, yeah. And in terms of where you kind of find these objects in the archaeological record, I mean, I'm just picturing archery, you know, times when I was younger, my we had bows and arrows at home and things, but also like for school, you have your fun sport day and you get to try archery sometimes and all these kinds of things.
00:07:27
Speaker
And they go everywhere, right? there The arrows and the things just go all over the place. Do you just find them randomly lying in the ground? do you kind of, is is there always particular spots that you have to look for arrowheads in the archaeological record?
Finding vs. Making Arrowheads: Personal Stories
00:07:40
Speaker
I know it can be pretty random. In fact, last weekend, i was running a bronze casting workshop at Worthing Museum. And on the Sunday, we usually end up going for a walk to a nearby site and someone picked up a Flint Arrowhead just on the walk. So it does just happen.
00:07:58
Speaker
You will get a great concentration at particular sites. But yeah, that they can appear as people just lose arrows. And you also get them deposited as grave goods, though, don't you? Along with, you know, archers, wrist guards.
00:08:11
Speaker
But definitely, I guess the nature of them means that they are going to be everywhere, potentially, if you're lucky enough to find one. This doesn't bode well for us trying to find this arrow of ambivalence, because that means it could be anywhere.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah. But if we can't find one, like, how does one make an arrow? Oh, you're going that route. Yeah, I'm going that route.
00:08:39
Speaker
You don't make an arrow. Okay, cool. James, you're supposed to answer the questions that are relating to you. I don't make them. I find them. I guess part of...
00:08:52
Speaker
What could tie into that conversation is that I was lucky enough to find an arrowhead in a field just by where I grew up. And this was one of the first times that James and I went field walking.
00:09:04
Speaker
So I'm there like completely ignorant, have no idea what lithics look like, you know, just picking up any bit of bet flint here and there going, is this something? And James was like, no, sorry, chucked it over his shoulder, death carry on.
00:09:18
Speaker
um And um we must have been out for about an hour or so. And I probably was at the point where I was thinking, yeah, maybe maybe we should go get like a nice cup of tea to warm up or something.
00:09:33
Speaker
Anyway, I reached down and I pick up this thing. And I mean, even though I didn't know what the hell I was looking for, I still had the feeling of maybe this is actually something rather than just a bit of, you know, knobbly old flint. um So I hold up this.
00:09:48
Speaker
thing and go, this something to James? And he comes over and he's like, yes, yes, it is. You've just found a chisel arrowhead. I've only ever found three arrowheads as an archaeologist and they were all on archaeological digs. And I was like,
00:10:04
Speaker
I must just have the gift. The lovely tie-in to that is that James then very sweetly made it into a silver arrowhead pendant and gave it to me for Valentine's Day for our first Valentine's. Oh no, it's spreading out. Oh my god, I
Crafting the Arrow of Ambivalence
00:10:20
Speaker
think yeah, we need to find an arrow immediately.
00:10:24
Speaker
I don't know if I was supposed to do that. I just... you know so many came through the letterbox i thought i should stop sniffing letters ass charted oh they're getting soppy okay but then okay so emma's the finding the arrows and was definitely the making yeah i feel that i'm very much uh cursed to make but shall never find it's just the way the world works james so james how do you make an arrow please every people let's move this conversation on so how do you make an arrow well i suppose this is where we can go into the ancient craft armory and at some point i need to develop a button that i can press to go to the ancient craft armory yeah exactly
00:11:17
Speaker
And so you've selected arrows and projectiles, and now you have a selection of options. Would you like your arrowhead to be stone tipped, blunt, wood, perhaps slate tipped, or bone, antler, or you name it. They all have their own stats, I suppose. But flint is sharp.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. And it's pretty durable. The downside is they're expensive to make because flint doesn't occur everywhere. And you need a specialist to actually make a good arrowhead. But fortunately, you've got me on hand. So and I've got plenty of flint. So we can go for flint.
00:11:55
Speaker
And I would need to take a flake of flint from when I'm making something like an axe head and pressure flake the edges using a piece of antler or a copper tipped tool for an early Bronze Age arrowhead quite quite literally push off the flakes rather than hitting the flakes off using bodily pressure to detach them which takes years of practice and is really hard work but can be done it's really hard work you found that part if you want to see the videos of James doing this, there is a fantastic YouTube channel called ancient craft where you can see, and what was it called? Nap time, right. That you guys did in. that's it I loved it.
00:12:38
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, you can, you
Blending History with Fantasy
00:12:40
Speaker
can learn how to nap your very own arrowhead as well. But what I find really, uh, I mean, obviously, if you put any content out online, you're going to get comments back. and One of the things that always gives me a slight chuckle is the amount of comments James receives about the waste flakes he produces while he's making an object.
00:12:58
Speaker
But what people don't see behind the scenes are the literally the buckets and buckets of um flakes that have been collected that are all going to go to different uses and many of those will then become other objects like arrows. So, um yeah, it's sort of this horror and uproar of people who don't necessarily have the access to flint that we do that, you know, oh gosh, how could you smash up this big rock and then waste it all? And and yeah, no, that is not the key.
00:13:29
Speaker
It's not sustainable flintknapping. It is not, no. I cannot easily recycle the waste. It is, I guess, out of even many of the things and processes and manufacturing styles that are done today, flintknapping is the one that will leave waste that will be there in perpetuity.
00:13:47
Speaker
Which we know as archaeologists. yeah Yes, exactly. However, if you take it back to the quarry and they crush it up for aggregate, that helps. Yes. reduce your impact there you go those listeners you can do it sustainable modern world arrow flint napping eco-friendly yes eco-friendly flint napping there we go and it's good for your mental health there you go yeah it's all the boxes is it it depends on if the flint's behaving
00:14:21
Speaker
And you mentioned already that when, and I love that idea, by the way, you definitely have to make that into some sort of game where you go in and you're like, pick which arrow you need, what do you need it for? And you mentioned that there's so many different typologies and everything. So do you use a different technique depending on the end typology or is the general method kind of the same?
00:14:40
Speaker
Some of the method is ah similar, but for very early arrowheads, they were often made from long laminar blades taken from a blade core that would be trimmed just using two stones, like a little hammer and anvil.
00:14:54
Speaker
And then later they actually used, ah yes, and they're even called petit tranchées.
Experimental Archaeology Insights
00:15:00
Speaker
That's just cute. Little slice, we which sounds cute and they're very small, but but they are intended to go flying past and sever arteries as they go past. Oh, nice. That's why we do it deadly. Yes, yeah indeed. But so for later arrowheads, they were pressure flaked, as I said, and they're invasively flaked across the surface.
00:15:23
Speaker
But whether it be for very early leaf shaped arrowheads or the, I guess, more iconic triangular barbed and tanged arrowheads, the process is much about the same.
00:15:35
Speaker
But interestingly, what you don't get is the same type of arrowhead that occurs at the same time. So you can't say, oh, well, that arrowhead was probably used for hunting this animal, or this arrowhead was used for loosing at people. You see transition from leaf-shaped arrowheads to chisel arrowheads to oblique arrowheads, and then eventually barbed and tanged arrowheads, which suggests that these arrowheads were used for a variety of purposes, including hunting game,
00:16:03
Speaker
hunting people, I suppose, or possibly even as status symbols. Just the fashion changes or the style changes rather than having lots of quite specific purposes. So I guess that doesn't really fit into the armoury particularly well, but we'll ignore that just because I can. This is a fantasy podcast. You can ignore those sort of things.
00:16:21
Speaker
And I guess for anyone who hasn't spent as much time looking at arrows as James might have done, but but You know, leaf arrowhead is and leaf shape, so that's fairly easy into picture. But when you get into the petit tranché and the chisel arrowheads, we naturally think of arrows as being pointy and triangular and hafted with the point facing towards the thing you want to hit.
00:16:44
Speaker
But for petit and chisel arrowheads, they're actually hafted what we would say like the wrong way round. And yeah, There are ethnographic examples of sort of these backwards arrowheads that I think James, they use for hunting birds. Is that right?
00:17:00
Speaker
so That's one suggestion. It's a possible suggestion that there could be a prey choice, but equally, you know we've got a video of James firing a chisel arrowhead into some ballistics shell at the ATC a few years back, and they produce a massive um wound channel, which ah you can imagine if you wanted to take down a large animal quickly, that's going to get embedded into it and leave a big gap where lots of blood can come out. And I'm horribly squeamish, so I'm going to keep it there.
00:17:30
Speaker
But yeah, starting possibly to see those preferences for more effective weapons. And then I guess a tanked arrow would also serve the same purpose, James, to sort of stop it from coming back out as easily and getting lost or broken. or Yeah, and we we don't know exactly...
00:17:49
Speaker
ah exactly how these arrowheads are supposed because often we just find lots and lots of the arrowheads and very rarely are they found I suppose still in the prey.
00:18:05
Speaker
We have to look at how I guess going back to experimental archaeology, making some replicas and testing them as we did on the ballistics gel. and A very good friend of mine that I did my PhD alongside, and Mike Burgess at Southampton, spent a lot of time looking at these chisel arrowheads.
00:18:21
Speaker
and Some of them are so wide and have these massive hooks on the side of them. but I guess the penetration of them, because they're not pointy, they're wide at the front, is...
00:18:33
Speaker
but They're just so different, and they fly really weirdly as well because of their shape. They're not anywhere near as aerodynamically balanced as ah other arrows. But as has been pointed out, but they may be either for just very short shooting or just... ah perhaps for defence, where you don't need such long-range arrows, or just for a fear factor that people are making these oversized arrowheads.
00:19:02
Speaker
So that, I guess you look at that and think, yeah, I wouldn't like to get hit by that, maybe. But um I think the the they're misunderstood. But i suppose, in interestingly, ah in the early Neolithic and When we see these really finely made arrowheads right through to the early Bronze age the frequency of wild hunted animals drops so dramatically.
00:19:23
Speaker
So actually these arrowheads are not being used for intense hunting like they were prior to the Neolithic in the Mesolithic when they were making these these quite, not basic, but very efficient, quickly made arrowheads that were were very effective.
00:19:39
Speaker
Tilly, what are you eating? An apple. Oh, it's so delicious. And it's almost golden. Where did you get them from? Right, put that down. Stop eating it now. Relax, Ash. It's just a little apple. What harm can it do?
00:19:53
Speaker
You better hope no wars break out after eating that. Okay, guys, we'll be right back.
Balancing Historical Accuracy and Fantasy
00:20:00
Speaker
Okay, I've stashed the apples away. Another loving gift from Cupid, I assume. Yeah, but it was so delicious.
00:20:07
Speaker
Anyway, sorry, guys. We cut you off in the middle of a very interesting discussion about the different kinds of arrowheads that have been found archaeologically and what they've been used for. So, yes, sorry. You were saying...
00:20:19
Speaker
Well, um I guess I was just trying to think of examples of arrows that have been found and used in anger. um And James, am I right in thinking that we do have examples of this?
00:20:33
Speaker
Yes, we definitely do, ah both both from cattle skulls um from the Neolithic and Bronze Age, or ah i guess ah more to open it more more widely, more bovid skulls, because they include oracle as well as domestic cattle, um but also people.
00:20:49
Speaker
that have been knocked over with arrows. um There is famously, and you can see them on display in Salisbury Museum, an individual that was found in the Stonehenge landscape with an arrowhead ah still in place in their sternum, which would have hurt, ah I guess would have probably knocked them over permanently.
00:21:10
Speaker
But even from more ah recently well-known sites like the Talents battlefield in northern Germany, and that's from the Middle Bronze Age. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah, that's the one. There are plenty of both flint and bronze arrowheads that were found. And recent research has looked into the bronze arrowheads in particular, which are generally from a typology and style point of view associated with southern Germany. So they've postulated that either a large amount of arrowheads have been moved ready for this ba battle or people from southern Germany are perhaps moving into northern Germany, ah what would be Germany, and were perhaps one side of this battle as all the arrowheads were found concentrated in one area.
00:21:55
Speaker
and So we see plenty of them that were clearly used effectively. And I think that's a nice tie-in to Bernard Conwell's Stonehenge book, because even though it's you a fictitious book, it's ah thoroughly based on the archaeological record.
00:22:13
Speaker
And what I enjoyed a yeah, having having an understanding of some, and but not necessarily all of the archaeology that have been found in the Stonehenge landscape is the amount of details and little details here and there that he's managed to weave and tie into his narrative and definitely the kind of the examples of people being shot with arrows and that being in the archaeological record and tying into that his story.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of his kind of clever tie-ins, I guess. Yeah, which, so, okay, if, if, So we've talked a little bit about already how it's quite difficult to necessarily find random arrows, especially because there might not even be a specific arrow.
00:22:54
Speaker
With Cupid's arrow, there's so many different ones, so many possibilities where it can be. So as Ash kind of alluded to in the last section, maybe it would be better to actually make our own arrow. So if we consider kind of what we need, so this arrow of ambivalence, if we consider its purpose it is to, i don't know, what would you say its purpose is, Ash?
00:23:13
Speaker
Like what would be the aim of the arrow? We need to get people... I see what you did there, Tilly. Very clever, very clever. I think what we need to do is just get people back to their logical selves.
00:23:25
Speaker
Okay. we We just want people to go back to normal, somewhere in between the love arrow and the blunt kind of aversion arrow.
00:23:36
Speaker
We need people to just be... normal again okay and the love arrow is gold and the blunt arrow is lead okay so to our experts if you would need to create an arrow that would be somewhere material wise between gold and lead which so pick your pick your interpretation of that as you will um and would need to kind of the aim would be to insert people with a feeling of ambivalence and normality what would What kind of arrow, what kind of approach would you use?
00:24:08
Speaker
I mean, i'm I'm tempted to go with flint here because it is maybe be perhaps flint or bronze, which I guess archaeologically are well represented. feel like you're just very biased. Well, maybe. I'm sorry. I immediately went to silver, but I feel like that's taken because of the whole vampire thing. I think that's got to be ruled out.
00:24:30
Speaker
yeah I was thinking that in between. Yeah, we do have citizens that are vampires, so we don't want to actually kill them. Yeah, yeah that could be problematic. yeah It does need to be something in between that isn't as you know soft or as heavy as lead.
00:24:47
Speaker
And I suppose it's got to be something that takes away that... completely over the top blind happiness and positivity that uh you know one of those love arrows can can bring in so it's something that
Finalizing the Arrow and Enchanted Quiver
00:25:00
Speaker
causes ah a bit of a thump but doesn't necessarily take someone off their feet so yeah flint bronze that you know if you get hit by one of them that's certainly going to bring a bit of negativity into your life stabby though i think you would cause a lot of damage with those i know arrows are supposed to you know kill people but I feel like these ones need to be friendly arrows to the point of giving if you're going to shoot someone with an arrow and not harm them and maim them seriously can I be biased and say maybe we could make it out of jets because not only would it be um really like snazzy shiny black and it's also quite a soft material and it's brittle so the chances of it
00:25:40
Speaker
breaking or um giving you possibly a softer impact. I don't know if that would be actually the case. Maybe we'll have to try that on the Ballistics gel next, James. Yeah, I think if you still took a jet arrow in the knee, it's good it's going to ruin your day. I mean, I assume that the golden arrow is also pointed.
00:25:58
Speaker
So it must be enchanted in some way that it doesn't actually kill. So we'll just have to find, we'll look through the archives and we'll find the enchantment and we'll be able to apply that to whatever arrow we can. Maybe it's like the black arrow, it just sinks into you.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, it just fizzles away. Yeah, it becomes one with you. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So we have some potential materials. So how about the typology? Like what style of arrow would you think based on your knowledge of different arrow types?
00:26:26
Speaker
Ooh, I think it's got to be the barbed and tanged arrowhead because we want these things to stick and not come out. on it Yeah, don't want this mess again. even if the apples are tasty
00:26:42
Speaker
Okay, so and those arrows that then, and a random side note, when you're attaching an arrow, a flint arrow to a shaft, how does that, like, what what impact does the shaft have on the use of the arrow?
00:26:59
Speaker
Will that also be something we need to consider? Yeah, do we need resin? no Yeah, we'll definitely need some kind of glue. But I guess, i suppose, like choosing a wand to be made of the right wood species um for for to suit the character. I suppose we could look at the particular arrow shaft.
00:27:19
Speaker
ah materials that could be used because people use different materials through prehistory, ah either based on availability or preference. And definitely the very earliest arrows in Europe were made of pine, but which is definitely not traditional material in the modern world, but clearly it is one of the oldest. So it's but it's pretty traditional. But that's almost certainly down to availability rather than choice because it was just before the the the end of the last glacial maximum.
00:27:48
Speaker
Whereas later... people generally moved over to viburnum, like dogwood, because it grows pretty straight and it it's flexible. But even once it's dried out, it's still quite flexible.
00:28:01
Speaker
Whereas into the Bronze Age, people generally moved over to using hazel, which may be down to availability. But interestingly, hazel starts to get more brittle over time. but So...
00:28:12
Speaker
Usually with arrows that have been made from shoots rather than dowel, they have to be re-straightened every so often. Whereas
Future Projects and Bonus Content
00:28:20
Speaker
with dowel, arrow shafts, you don't have to usually unless they get very damp or hot.
00:28:24
Speaker
So people would have to maintain them quite frequently. And I suppose that's something that... because it's such a subtle detail, we don't see so much or think about in in the record or even myths and legends about people having to maintain their arrows or even just um straightening the fletchings on them so that the feathers aren't all crinkled or perhaps ah just checking them or cleaning them. It's just not something we think about.
00:28:49
Speaker
And I suppose for Cupid's or Eros' arrows, because they are enchanted, which clearly helps, but I wonder if... maintaining his equipment would ever sort of feature perhaps but i I think not I've just looked up some information about different wand types because I really like that idea about the shaft featuring and love that you're doing background research during the recording best guess ever so I guess if we're going to be
00:29:20
Speaker
a stickler for to fit with our archaeological theme. and Older has quite a nice tie-in because it's described as an unyielding wood. Its ideal owner is not stubborn or obstinate, but often helpful, considerate and most likeable.
00:29:36
Speaker
And I think if you're going to, you know, make an arrow for this task, you are trying to be kind of quite helpful and considerate. And um yeah, so should we should we go for an older shaft? Yeah, that sounds good to me.
00:29:49
Speaker
brilliant well that's decided folks motion motion carriage yes get to work dames right okay emma you mentioned jet so how would the creation of an arrowhead be different from that material to say flint as we talked about before Yeah, so I guess, I mean, I wouldn't nap jet in the way that you would nap flint.
00:30:18
Speaker
Jet does actually produce a conchoidal fracture if you hit it. So... One of the ways I guess you could test for jet if it wasn't an archaeological artifact that you're examining would be to to hit it and see if it fractures concoidally.
00:30:35
Speaker
And sometimes when you walk along a beach in the Whitby area and you're picking up black things that all kind of look the same in the wash, in the water, everything's nice and shiny, you can accidentally mistake plastic, stone, coal,
00:30:52
Speaker
um for jet. Sometimes when you find bits of jet on the beach they have been hit by other stones so you can see little kind of conchoidal fractures or like tiny fragments that have been taken out of them.
00:31:05
Speaker
But if I was going to reliably work jet into an arrowhead I'd probably have to carve and shape it. And one of the ways that this what could have been done in prehistory is just simply on the sandstone block and often time.
00:31:19
Speaker
So you could use flint blades for scraping and shaping. But yes, it's it's quite a tricky material to work with. As I said, it was soft, but it is also brittle. And like most natural materials, it can be prone to having flaws in it. So sometimes you'll be working on whether it's a piece of flint or jet. If it's not a ah good quality piece, ah you might have, yes, natural inclusions or flaws that...
00:31:46
Speaker
could cause it to break halfway through and you've just got to accept that and try again i feel like that's a perfect metaphor yeah for life for personhood i mean i felt a great affinity there where you said it's soft and brittle with some flaws i was like yep i see that you see me So it sounds like then what might be a good idea is to have a couple of different arrows. Because I mean, how many arrows are we actually going to make here? Because you've been talking about how you have all these different kinds of arrows depending on what you want to use it for.
00:32:18
Speaker
I'm imagining people with like a quiver full of arrows, like almost like a golf bag, you know, with like different golf clubs based on what you want to want to use it for. So I mean, how many arrows would you say we need for this particular task? can we Can we just do it with one arrow? Or would we need to have a couple?
00:32:35
Speaker
Or could we target Cupid?
00:32:40
Speaker
The plot thickens. I felt really powerful there.
00:32:47
Speaker
I was also thinking if we're going to have an enchantment, maybe the enchantment is a and never depleting quiver. True. yeah that would be A quiver of plenty. of plenty.
00:33:04
Speaker
So I guess for these arrows to be really effective on the Eros, we need to, in some way, make him but fall in love with someone who is going to ping this arrow at him because Psyche ah dropped some lamp oil on Eros.
00:33:21
Speaker
And that although that wound... generally wouldn't affect people for too long that wound was particularly effective on a god or or in a demigod because it was uh someone that they they loved but far more so than just a human so we i guess we would need to uh be quite tactical about how to be as effective as possible so who's doing the firing is also important yeah in that respect good point any volunteers
00:33:50
Speaker
Also, um because can we throw in some like Phoenix feather fletchings because why not? Yeah, definitely. God, I'm loving this arrow so far. Are we going to have to actually make this arrow now? I feel like this is going to be expensive. was just thinking that, I was like, how accessible is this arrow? I mean, but it's for a very good cause, I would argue. Okay, so I think we've got a bit of a solution then. We can make maybe a couple of different arrows, enchant the quiver so that it kind of constantly refills, have some arrows for general people, but also try and maybe target Eros slash Cupid with a particular arrow and then we need to think of who will who will fire it. So yeah, I think, does that sound like a good plan to everyone?
00:34:36
Speaker
I like it. Yeah. Okay. What are we waiting for? Then Emma and James, we look forward to receiving your completed arrowheads. Ash and I will start straightening the shaft. Yes. And we'll go and find that phoenix later as well.
00:34:51
Speaker
Well, that's about it for this episode of And My Trowel. We hope you enjoyed this quest. Thank you so much, Emma and James, for helping us out with this particular problem. We're going to get that pesky Cupid. We are. No doubt.
00:35:03
Speaker
It was great to have you guys join us. And I think we've definitely learned a lot about Arrowhead. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having us. And I mean, of course, keeping in mind, by the way, that we're recording this in 2024, but it will be released around Valentine's Day in 2025.
00:35:23
Speaker
Do you have any exciting projects coming up on the horizon? And also, if people want to follow you and find out more about what you do and your work and your projects, where can they where can they do that? Well, we do have some exciting projects coming up next year. We are not able to fully reveal um a couple of them just yet because that they are in that early development phase, including perhaps ah some, oh but I guess the one we can is expanding on the Bronze Age boat build at Stanek Lakes in Northampton, moving on to bigger and better projects, hopefully. Mm-hmm. But the best place to keep an eye on what we're doing is to find us on social media ah for both of us, I guess, at Ancient Craft UK or for Emma, Prehistoric Jewelry. But if if you search for either one of us, you'll you'll find what we're up to. You're fine, the other. Oh, dear. I don't think I think we need to get those arrows done soon.
00:36:16
Speaker
Yep. Well, um thank you very much for coming along. And as always, we are always open for no new episode ideas. So if this ah particular problem has sparked some inspiration for you, please do get in touch.
00:36:29
Speaker
Also, if there's any suggestions people have for an episode that they've gotten from a fantasy book, maybe you have an archaeological context, concept you don't quite understand that we can explain through fantasy, something in a book you want to think about from an archaeological viewpoint, anything at all, get in contact with us via email or social media.
00:36:45
Speaker
All of the contact info for us, plus for James and Emma, as well as references for further reading for all of the points we've discussed today can be found in the show notes. Also, we have some very, very exciting news because you might be thinking, huh, why do they have two people coming on for this episode, this special Valentine's episode? And this actually is not the special Valentine's episode.
00:37:07
Speaker
That is coming for our very special APN members and you'll be able to find it in bonus material because we're going to be doing a little quiz for Emma and James now to see how well they really know each other as a couple outside of their archaeological work.
00:37:22
Speaker
So if you want to listen to that as a member, please do go to the Archaeology Podcast Network website and log into your member space and you will be able to find that there. So enjoy.
00:37:36
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airey. Our social media coordinator is Matilda Sebrecht. And our chief editor is Rachel Roden. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of Cultural Media and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:37:57
Speaker
Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.