Welcome to Objects in Articles June Edition! This month, I’ve found five articles which all have a farily archaeological focus. Objects include 17th century clothing, coin hoards, castles built by crusading knights, Roman slingshots, and fakes and forgeries from the ancient and medieval worlds. Hope there’s something in there to take your fancy!
Underwater archaeologists have discovered a 17th century shipwreck in the North Sea. On the ship were a variety of articles including a well-preserved dress! They believe it belonged to the lady-in-waiting of the English Queen Henrietta Maria who was married to Charles I. But why was this ship, with this cargo, travelling on the North Sea c. 1640? Read the article to find out!
Coin hoards. Imagine that you are living in the medieval past. You’ve heard that an army is coming your way and you’ve seen the smoke of their camp fires on the horizon. Deciding to flee with your family, you find that you can’t take all of your treasures with you. So you dig a hole and hide them, hoping that you’ll be able to return in the future and dig them up again. But after 100’s of years, many coin hoards are still being found. During all this time, the metals have corroded and stuck together – just like a hoard found on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. This article shows how archaeologists separate a coin hoard.
I think each Objects in Articles edition so far has had an article about a castle! So here is another focusing on 10 castles that were lived in and often built by western Crusaders. There were several crusades during the Medieval period driven by western European countries such as France and England. The purpose of these crusades was to take control of the Holy Land, particularly Jerusalem. These castles seem so much more rugged and imposing than many you might find in western Europe.
If you’re interested in the Romans, ancient warfare, and Roman incursions into Scotland, then you’ll find this article fascinating. It discusses the recent archaeological excavations at Burnswark, Scotland, not far from Hadrian’s Wall. Over 400 sling bullets have been found at this location suggesting that the Romans besieged a local Scottish tribe here in c. 140 AD. It also includes an interesting tidbit about why the Romans purposefully carved a small hole in many of their bullets.
In this article the British Museum has collated five different fakes or forgeries that are part of their extensive historical collections. The vase that isn’t a vase which was supposedly created in the time of Emperor Hadrian has to be my favourite fake in this list!
I’d love to hear which articles you enjoyed reading and what interested you the most. Please comment below!
