Anglo Saxon lamps for Bede's World.

Some pictures of one of the Anglo Saxon lamps we made for Bede's World.

Animal fat is used to fuel the flame.

Prehistoric Life and Ancient Technologies course

Getting ready for our Prehistoric Life and Ancient Technologies Course this weekend - making prehistoric lamps!

New bookface, sorry Facebook address for Ancient Arts!

We have a new Facebook address: facebook.com/Dig.AncientArts.
If you dig it, click it!  Wow I should have been in advertising :)

'...our research may pass from revealed to hidden things'

Plaster mythical creatures, cats used to build walls!

It's all happening at the Elizabethan Town House, Plas Mawr, Conwy tomorrow 11am-4pm.  

Ancient Arts' gig looking at our work remaking and conserving the stunning Tudor plasterwork at this wonderful house and how it was built complete with dead cats and witches marks!

Last Friday saw the first show at our designed Anglo-Saxon theatre at Bede's World. How to bring heritage to life? Let the community use it!

A lovely Summer's evening, a lovely location, a lovely Anglo Saxon theatre, a lovely community event!

 
Show time! 'A funny thing happened on the way to Durham'. A comedy based around the Lindesfarne Gospels! 

 
The audience take their seats. 

The stage from the seats. 

 

 

The stage area. 

Sold Out!

Refreshments!

 

 

The play underway. The chap in the middle is the Lindesfarne Gospel! It was excellent.

Our Anglo Saxon designed 'mini thurling' for kids.

 
One of our storehouses next to the stage.

Collecting the oak for building our new ale making trough!

The trough will be a reconstruction of the Bronze Age trough we helped excavate at Hell's Mouth, North Wales a couple of years ago. This is the trough after the burnt stones had been removed. Note the launder leading into the trough from the course of an old stream (middle to right top of pic by long ranging rod).

We got the oak planks from The Woodland Skills Centre, Bodfari. Here Alan is marking the plank ready to trim it to size.

Cutting to size. The original trough planks from Hell's Mouth have clear axe/adze marks on their surface. 

 
The base and one side. The base plank of the Hell's Mouth trough was a re-used plank from a sewn boat! (The earliest known boat in Wales). 

 
Both sides on.

Once back at the Studio the planks will be set into a trench in the ground will be used for our Prehistoric Ale making Course 17th-18th August (Details on our events page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/405267512852660/ and Course page on our website http://www.ancient-arts.org/training.html). 

This is one we installed and used at St Fagan's Cardiff for the National Museum. 

 
Heating the water with hot stones to make the brew! Trough is on the left.

We also took a look at the new, eco-build building at the Woodland Skills Centre. A wonderful facility for the Centre. 

Insulated with sheeps wool, powered by the sun and built using local trees; very special! 

Ancient Arts discovers the first known Bronze Age metal making site in the UK!

Ancient Arts discovers the earliest known metal making site in the UK! Read our report on re-building and using the Bronze Age copper smleting furnaces from Pentrwyn, Great Orme! http://www.ancient-arts.org/experimental%20archaeology.html

Cofio - Learning from the past for a better future!

Cofio has its own dedicated Facebook page at: http://on.fb.me/17N5uBt please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts or suggestions.

Want to get involved in our work?

 

Exciting news! We have loads of people asking if they can help and get involved with our experimental work and we are now pleased to announce that we have started a volunteer group that you can sign up to if you are interested in exploring the past and how the past can help shape our futures. The group is called Cofio, which is Welsh for 'remembering'. Here's a link to some information on its aims: http://www.ancient-arts.org/Cofio.pdf. We also hope to develop this world wide so that people can contribute to and get involved with the work from all over the world. All comments and suggestions are welcome, please take a look!