Egyptian Antics

Posted on June 16, 2006 by admin

This month at YAC we all went Egyptian. The members’ first challenge of the day was to create their own cartouche. This involved the fun, and very messy, task of making some salt dough. This they shaped into a long, flat oval and pierced two holes in the top, so that when they had finished they could hang their cartouche on their bedroom door/wall.

Next they had to write either their own name or that of one of the Egyptian gods in paint on the dough. But not in English! They had to translate it into hieroglyphics first!!! Then the cartouches were ready to be taken home and baked dry in the oven.

The next part of the session was all about Egyptian games. The task was to cut out and colour in a playing board for the game of Mehen. This is also known as the ‘Snake Game’. After making the boards, members played games against each other.

And finally, what session about the Egyptians would be complete without playing the ‘Mummy Game’! This time it was girls v boys, to see who could wrap up one of their team mates as a mummy! The girls led from the start, and despite a valiant comeback from the boys in the dying moments of the game, the girls managed to cling on to their lead and win the game!

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Dressed for Danebury

Posted on May 15, 2006 by admin

This month at YAC members took at trip back in time. Dressed as Iron Age people they went to Danebury hillfort to see what Iron Age life would have been like.

On arrival the “tribe” marched up onto the ramparts, where they were impressed by the number of banks and ditches, as well as how far they could see! Then from this viewpoint they looked down into the centre of the hillfort. Below them would have been the actual roundhouses and they could imagine them nestling there.

The tribe then climbed down into the centre of the hillfort to have a go at some Iron Age activities. First there was weaving to be learnt, then as part of their initiation into Iron Age society, tattoos were designed and drawn onto their hands and faces!

Having learnt that the average size of a roundhouse at Danebury was 10m in diameter, some members acted as human posts so that everyone could see just how big or small it would have been to live inside a roundhouse.

Then, after some fun and games, they tucked into their Iron Age picnics. These consisted mainly of chunks of bread with ham or cheese, pork pies, apples and fruit juice. Crisps and chocolate were not allowed!

After lunch they clambered back onto the ramparts and completed a full circuit of the hillfort before returning to the 21st century.

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Iron Age Antics

Posted on April 15, 2006 by admin

This month at YAC members visited the Museum of the Iron Age in Andover. They were set challenges to find out more about what life was like in an Iron Age Hillfort!

They saw lots of artefacts that archaeologists had discovered from over 20 years of excavations at the Iron Age Hillfort of Danebury. There was an impressive collection of pots that had been carefully pieced back together. Members had to choose one pot to sketch. Then they had to think about what might have been used to create any patterns on the pot and most importantly what the pot might have been used for. They did this by asking themselves a series of questions such as:

How big is it?
Would it only hold enough food/liquid for one person?
Would it hold enough food/liquid for lots of people?
What shape is it?
Are there soot markings on the outside?

They also learnt about all the foods that people did and didn’t eat in the Iron Age, as well as just how much time and effort was involved in making a loaf of bread!

1: Ploughing a field
2: Planting the grains of wheat
3: Weeding and tending the field
4: Harvesting the grain
5: Threshing – beating cereal plants to separate the seeds or grains from the straw
6:Winnowing – separating the chaff (waste) from grain by fanning the stalks in the air
7: Sieving
8: Transporting the grain from the fields either to underground storage pits or above ground granaries
9: Grinding the grain to make flour
10: Mixing the flour with other ingredients such as beer or water to make a dough
11: Baking it in an oven to produce a loaf of bread!

Members were just as fascinated about death in the Iron Age and they learnt all about how the people then disposed of their dead! They thought about what might have been believed about death and how this was shown in the way they treated their ancestors. The hologram of the body of the strangled Lindow Man was also very spooky!


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Rock Art

Posted on March 15, 2006 by admin

Rock art was the subject of this month’s meeting – an opportunity to find out more about pictographs (paintings or drawings) and petroglyphs (carvings).

First everyone had to make their own piece of rock from a mixture of sand and plaster. It took 20 mins for the rock to dry, which gave time to try out designs on paper. Then petroglyphs were carved with pointed flints and images of animals and intricate patterns appeared on the ‘rocks’!

Emma experimented with the type of pigments (colours) used by the first cave painters, by mixing water with coloured soils and silts, and other members tried this successfully too.

With all these cave paintings, what we needed was a cave! So Chris organised a team to make one out of chairs and a huge tarpaulin.

Sadly for us this was Chris’s last session. After 9 years regular attendance he has reached the grand old age of 16. We wish him well now it’s time for him to leave us.

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Marvellous Mosaics

Posted on February 15, 2006 by admin

This month at YAC it was mosaic madness! Members were set the challenge of creating a mosaic to act as a display for this year’s National Archaeology Day. They were split into four groups, each with its own brief.

The Brief: You have an area of tiles (or tesserae as the Romans would say!) 12 by 12 tiles – that’s 144 individual tesserae! You must design a mosaic using –

Group 1 – The letter Y
Group 2 – The letter A
Group 3 – The letter C
Group 4 – The year 2006

The choice of colours was: Red, Green, Yellow, Black, White & Grey. But we also learnt what colours the Romans might have used:

Red & Brown – Iron stone
Yellow & Brown – Limestone & Sandstone
Blue & Black – Slate
White – Chalk

First each member of the group made his or her own design, then the group used ideas from each to come up with a final design to draw to scale and then be made. This is much the way it would have happened in Roman times. A mosaic being made for a villa would probably have gone through several stages of design, after all the owner of the villa – who was paying for it – would have insisted that it to looked exactly how he or she wanted it to!

Then came the messy bit – gluing each of the 144 tesserae into place on the wooden boards to create the finished mosaic. These are now grouted ready to be used as part of the display.

Nice work guys! 🙂

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Re: Writing History

Posted on January 15, 2006 by admin

This month at YAC the theme was writing through history. Members were first shown alphabets from 7 different ancient languages: Cuneiform, Greek, Hieroglyphic, Ogham, Phoenician, Roman and Runic. Then they wrote their name in all 7 different languages and found out how old each language was and where it was first used.

After this they were set the challenge of creating their own Rosetta Stone. Each member thought of a short message, which they translated into 3 different languages. Then they made a clay slab and inscribed their message onto it, for future archaeologists to decipher!

Finally members wrote messages in different languages using calligraphy pens and ink and gave them to other members to decipher.

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Fun, Food and Fancy Dress!

Posted on December 15, 2005 by admin

This year’s Christmas party had a fancy dress theme. Costumes ranged from a cave girl, to the Romans, Queen Victoria and Howard Carter. The first of many games was ‘pass the penny’.

The next games played were everybody’s old favourite – the ‘mummy game’, the first team to wrap a fellow team member up in toilet roll wins! Then a fast paced game of magic carpet races!

Prizes were then given for:

Best costume – Great idea Emil, enjoy your book!

Best coin design – Nice one Victoria, who won a replica Elizabethan half penny!

Best folder – Well done Stephen, who won a replica Bronze Age arrowhead!!

Then it was more games and prizes for everyone!

Even the YAC leaders joined in the fun!!!

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Bewildering Buildings

Posted on November 15, 2005 by admin

This month at YAC, members took an active approach to learning about standing buildings. This involved completing a quiz around Salisbury Cathedral Close. Members not only had to answer a specific question about each building but also had to use their information sheets to work out the date of the doors and windows by their architectural style. Bonus points were awarded for identifying the type of brick bonds used. Having honed their skill around The Close, members finished the session by visiting the cathedral to learn more about its architectural history.

Examples of architectural styles

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Bones, Burials & Beliefs

Posted on October 15, 2005 by admin

This month at YAC, following a Halloween-y theme, bones were the focus of the session. The task for the day was to cut out and assemble a skeleton. Then members learned about different burial rites and practices, including what different grave goods were associated with different archaeological periods.

After that they created a burial for their skeleton and filled out a burial record sheet describing what objects they had chosen to bury with it and why. Once they had created their burial they had to take a blank record sheet and look at someone else’s. Then as an archaeologist fill in the sheet from the evidence within the burial.

After this they compared their interpretation of the evidence with that of the person who created the burial, to see how accurate it was. Members learned that it’s not easy being an archaeologist and that there can be lots of different reasons why the same objects might be placed in a grave!

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Potty about Pottery

Posted on September 15, 2005 by admin

This month at YAC, members learned all about pottery – when and how it was first made and how it changed over time from coil pots to wheel-thrown pots. They thought about how and why shapes and designs varied and how as archaeologists they could use these changes to date the pottery. Then they went all around the museum looking at the different types of pottery, sketching the different sizes, shapes and designs that they saw.

After this things got messy as members used their sketches to create their own coil pot, modelled on what they had seen and learnt in the museum.

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