MYSTERY OBJECT.
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Doing a bit of tidying up (now that has rarity value !) this afternoon, I came across the above object. I'd almost forgotten it. It is made of bronze (with traces of silvering on it), although two parts are of iron. It is five inches long as seen. I bought it a good many years ago from a dealer in Essex, who told me that it had been 'dug up near Colchester'. Can you tell me its purpose, age, and origin, please.
25 comments:
Does one part fold out to be a knife?
Hello Lori. Yes! good start.
Mmm...Colchester, eh?
Was it by any chance one of these?
(Confession: Mr Google was consulted in the preparation of this answer. If it's wrong, blame Mr Google!)
Zoomorphic folding cutlery from times when you took your own eating irons to a shin-dig. The spoon-bowl appears to be bronze and of roman shape but probably about 700 to 800 AD c.f. the silver folding spoons from Sutton Hoo engraved +Saulos & + Paulos with locking collars and rabbit-head finials. I expect the iron blade beneath the bronze handle is bifurcated giving you the fore-runner of the modern folding picnic set of cutlery. Are the hinges still working, Mike?
Well, you all worked that one out pretty quickly (and fairly accurately). Lori Skoog instantly spotted that it could be a folding knife of some sort. Rog picked up on my hint about Colchester (which, for a while, in Roman days, was our capital, and in fact put up an illustration of a far more complicated combination eating tool (SIX tools as opposed to our three here. Crowbard spotted its likeness to the folding eating tools from Sutton Hoo. None of you ventured on an early enough date, although Rog obviously knew it was of Roman date. The hinges are solid, Crowbard, and I would not dream of trying to force them.
It is, of course a combination eating tool. The two iron parts ar the knife blade spotted by Lori, and an iron spike underneath the lion's belly. The spoon, and the body of the tool (which is in the shape of a stylised, outstretched lion) are of bronze. Folded up, the tool would have been just over two inches long. Given where it came up, it is, I think, fair to describe it as Romano-British. I think the date must be somewhere between the first and third/fourth centuries A.D.
I find it a satisfying little relic.
There is, by the way, a very similar tool illustrated in Simon Moore's book 'Cutlery for the Table' - page 44. He speaks of the smaller iron blade as a 'spike'. I think he's right, and that the 'spike might well have been used as would a modern fork.
Well done, All!
Don't apply force, Mike, soak it in WD40 for a few months and see if they ease a little?
Dear Crowbard. If any of my readers have similar pieces of very early metal ware, especially if any part of it is ferrous metalware (i.e. IRON), I strongly advise them not to take the above piece of advice tooooo seriously.
P.s. or, to put it more bluntly- as far as antiquities are concerned, conservation is more important than restoration.
I guess you're right Mike, but I prefer my metal-ware metallic rather than corroding back to the ore it was smelted from. I guess the answer is to make a new one from scratch to demonstrate how the dysfunctional relic would have worked in its heyday. How about a whiff of WD40 and beeswax once a month for a millenium or two?
Yes. I think that a good many museums these days would make an exact copy of the item (to show how it would have worked); but even that wouldn't be easy - for example, I cannot see any trace of springs acting on the spoon bowl or on the blades (the hinges of which fold the blades at right angles to each). On the folding spoons you quote (Saulos and Paulos) sliding collars are used to stabilise the joints, but I can't imagine an unsprung knife hinge remaining firm in use for any length of time. And - Yes, the Romans were quite capable of making springs - from bronze of all metals. I once had a fibula, entirely of bronze, the pin of which was sprung so that it could STILL be clipped and unclipped.
I suppose you mean that beeswax and WD40 could be used regularly to preserve the surfaces of the newly made copies?
No, I meant you to apply it to the original artifact, a) to keep you busy for the unforseeable future and b)interested enough to keep you going in order to prove to me you were right all along and c)purely coincidentally to free up the swivel pins so we could see what sort of mechanism lay beneath the corrosion to lock the business ends in place whilst in use.
Philistine!
I would say a tea scoop without a great deal of confidence.
Stig - quite.
Pat. We should try and remember that some tea scoops don't have a great deal of confidence, and that we should try and reassure them, and try to induce more confidence in them. Perhaps we should remember that a first century A.D. Roman tea scoop, made so many centuries before the introduction of tea to the Occident, would have had very little confidence regarding its usefulness or purpose in the ancient Romano British world.
P.s. And I must admit that there are times when I wonder if I or my readers take this blog quite seriously.
Thanks Styg,
Phyllis Stein wants to know how rusty old things work in order to more fully understand and respect the perceptive creativity of artisans and craftspeople of ancient days. I understand a great deal of WD40 went into decyphering the multi layered construction of the Antikythera device! Big Love, Aunty Phyllis XXX
PS Stig,
Would the shepherd lad David-bar-Jesse have ever become King David without his 'spin-doctor' Goliath of Gath, the Philistine, taking a dive?
PPS. I do not subscribe to the above suggestion, just wished to show there are an infinity of valuable approaches to every issue (even erroneous ones may produce a review of fixed attitudes.)
Luv-U-fondly,
nuncle-Carl
PPPS stig,
perhaps the Antikythera device is not a fair comparison as it was almost entirely of cuprous alloys but it had been in a harsher marine environment this complex-cutlery
The Antikythera mechanism is a qute remarkable piece of two thousand year old Greek technology, which probably has more to do with astronomy (and possibly navigation) than anything else. Seriously, I'd be interested to know where you got your information on the use of WD40 being used in its restoration?
The reason for my distrust of the stuff is as follows :- some years ago an American collector of weaponry showed my a very well used English boxlock, flintlock, pistol.It was deeply rusted overall but still in decent working order, and I gave him the usual advice about gentle cleaning and not using anything harsh. A month or so later he 'phoned me for advice. He was all of a Doo Dah (a medical expression meaning he had the heeby jeebies) because he'd decided to take a short cut. He'd removed the wooden butt of the pistol, and then immersed the rest of it (all ferrous) in WD40 for some weeks, and didn't like the end result - the iron on pistol parts were now an overall greyish colour, and looked like a sponge. The stuff under discussion appeared to have eaten away ALL the rust/iron oxide. Oddly enough the pistol remained in decent working order. The only advice I could think of was to wash it very well, then rub wax polish into it, buff it off, and sell it for whatever it would make. I'd never liked the stuff before that, and certainly I never used the stuff after that. Nor did he.
I think it likely the American WD40 is a bit more 'bullish' than the European stuff. Yanks don't do patient and subtle. Will dig up the Antikythera gen after dinner.
Cheers
C.
Hello Crowbard. Ummmm... you might have a point about american Forces W.D.40.
I too will have a look into the bumph available on the Antikythera mechanism. If the date given for its manufacture (about 100 years B.C.) is correct then it would have been made well into the Iron Age, and a mixture of cuprous wheels being acted upon by iron pinions is nowadays, certainly for the last three hundred and fifty years or so, considered desirable.
I have had a glance through previous research files and cannot immediately find references to WD40 in this context but I have e-mailed Professor M Edmunds at Cardiff University who was involved in the The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, launched in 2005, with a request for his opinion as to the use of WD40 in the stabilizing, conserving and preservation of the mechanism. There are further academic sources which may provide the answer should Prof. Edmunds be unable to assist.
PS.
I would have suggested brown boot-polish and carnauba wax for the over-cleaned pistol, give it a bit of a russet hue. Rubbed into the warmed metal it would also help fill the 'spongy' pitting created by the removal of microscopic corrosion.
There are several WD40 products available currently but all are now produced in America.
Yum-Yum, this humble pie is delicious! I was wrong Mike & Stig!
While Professor Mike edmunds has not included the treatment of more recently discovered parts of the mechanism. I accept his given opinion unreservedly.
On Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Carl Horner wrote:
Dear Professor Edmunds,
I wonder if you could help with a query about the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project?
There is an urban myth that WD40, a water displacement and lubricating fluid, was used in the stabilizing, conserving or preservation processes of the Antikythera device and its parts. Could you positively confirm or
deny this please? Was WD40 used at all during the last 60 years of the 113 year period since
its recovery on any part or parts of the Antikythera device, please?
Kindly regards, Carl P J Horner BA PGCE
Dear Carl,
So far as I am aware WD40 has never been used on the remains of the Mechanism, and I cannot see why it might have been - the remains would have dried out long before WD40 was invented (especially in the Greek
climate), and no attempt was made (or could have been made) to get the moving parts to move - the chemical changes and corrosion had gone far too far. I am not an expert in conservation, and all responsibility for the
Mechanism's curation has always been with the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. I have heard that varnish has been applied in the past for stabilisation, but I do not know the details.
Thank you for your interest in the Antikythera Mechanism. I'm sending a copy of a general article which may be of interest to you by separate e-mail.
With All Best Wishes, Mike Edmunds
Said article is being forwarded to you Mike.
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