Dark Ages Re-Creation Company
We received an invite to put on a display at the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown University. Since Rhode Island wasn't a place we had gotten lost at yet we decided to go. It was quite a bit of fun -- especially having the water so close by. There wasn't time for a lot of sight seeing but Unn and Kjarval did make a little time Sunday to go have a look at the "viking" tower nearby. Apparently its not as big as its reputation.
This exhibit did have one very unusual element in it. Kevin Smith was giving
daily lectures about the Norse culture. This meant that one a day we got a large
crowd of folks all at once who came prepated to see us. No questions about horns
on the helms, no questions about the local tower. The quality of the questions
was absolutely first rate. "What artifact evidence did you base this mail
shirt on? Is this size of wite and ring compatible with the other finds?".
Not easy to do first person interpretation but a joy to be able to speak in
depth about topics we love.
We were joined in this presentation by Michele. A friend we had met at the Viking
Millenium Conference in Newfoundland in 2000. Having finished her Ph.D. thesis
on the casting of broaches it was fun watching the attempts to make them over
a bellows powered charcoal fire.
Press coverage for this presentation is available here.
On to the pictures then. Loosely groups by where people were. Not many pictures
this time I'm afraid as we were all a little busy.
Unnr and Bera in their workspace
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| Unnr | Unnr | Bera | Kitchen |
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| Kitchen | Starting fire | Fire started | Unnr & Bera |
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| Kaðlín's weaving | Kaðlín's loom |
Ragnarr playing games again.
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| Ragnarr talking | Discussion group |
Its a little tricky to separate out Kjarval and Michele (who joined us for the day). They were doing some bronze casting (broaches) that day.
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| Opening mould | Opening mould | Casting | Heating |
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| Michele | Kjarval bellows | Cooling | Michele lecturing |
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| Kjarval | Kjarval | Kjarval smithing |
Ketill and the blacksmith's space.
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| Ketill lecturing | Crowded | Anvil | Ketill lecturing |
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| Open space | Museum building | Busy time |
The curator drops by for a visit and picks up a little something along the way...
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| Father and daughter |
