[Regia-NA] Stone Working

[rmhowe]

Delphi Evincar wrote:
> Greetings one and all.  I have been refered to this
> mailing list by those who knew of it and suggested it
> would be a good place to search for my answers.

It seems funny but the best questions often are asked
on the Regia North American list which is what anyone can
subscribe to. Since joining I've been put on three more
apparently.

> In my community there is a small group of persons
> forming a viking/norse reenactment group in the hopes
> that we will be able to travel, meet others of like
> intrest, and just generally have fun. 
> 
> I am currently petitioning the organizer of said group
> for memberships as a craftsman.  Particularly in the
> area of Stone Working and Crafting. 

To my knowledge the Norse were not great stoneworkers.
They were people who had some people pick designs into
their stones to commemorate various relatives or people
however, and this generally required a small pitching
chisel and a hammer/pick or mallet of some sort. (and generally
a whole lot of effort by people to move the things.)

There are some expensive books out currently on Standing
Stones (Runestones) and Ironwork which I have not bought yet.
Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History: Volume  3
James Lang, The Hogback: A Viking Colonial Monument .
(from Northeast England) which are some of the best
examples of their stone work.

Sometime before the mid sixth century there were people
in Gotland at least with stone house bases. There are
approximately 1400 farms on that island (which is also
where the great majority of Viking Age finds are found).
All of a sudden the stone foundations (which may be seen
today) changed to something else - likely wooden. That
probably happened was a comet strike or a large volcano
eruption, likely in south east Asia around 535-7 AD
(Arthur's time too) during which the sky turned much
darker and it was colder, and probably a good percentage
of everything died off.


See the book Catastrophe.
Keys, David.  Catastrophe: an Investigation into the
Origins of the Modern World; Ballantine, 2000, Stated
First American Edition. Hard Cover. 343 pages, notes,
bibliog., index. “Did a volcanic eruption in A.D. 535
begin a chain of events which changed the Earth's climate,
and sent the Black Plague out of Africa, through the
Mediterranean area and into Europe, thereby changing the
entire course of human history?”  “All too possible today.
Climactic changes, history, effect of environment
on human beings in history, natural disasters, weather --
effect of volcanic eruptions on, asteroids, collisions with
earth. Chapters on the Plague, the Barbarian Tide,
Destabilising the Empire, the Sword of Islam, the Turkish
dimension, western Europe, disaster in the Orient, changing
the Americas, and the reasons why. ISBN:0345408764
$25 Hardback.
Also ARROW (A DIVISION OF RANDOM House 2000. Catastrophe.
An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World.
ISBN:0345408764   "In AD 536, a volcanic eruption meant our
planet was enveloped by a cloak of lethal dust which changed
the climate for decades. Tens of millions of people died
around the globe as a bubonic plague epidemic broke out.
It was the nearest humankind has ever come to Doomsday and
it marked the real beginning of the modern era. David Keys
sets the record straight by firmly placing the pivotal point
in world history as the mid-sixth-century Dark Ages and
shows how our fragile civilisation almost ended." 520pp

After that time you do not find stone foundations there
for houses. I have seen the film history program of the
book and it mentioned that it is mentioned in the literature
on Arthur as well. I haven't had time to do more than
scan the book.

The norse had a number of rather rough soapstone lamps and
cooking pots. The cooking pots look to me like they were
finished inside with a stone carving gouge but still left
rather rough. The lamps were quite rough inside that I have
seen pictures of. I've seen one or two replicas (have some
rough soapstone from Virginia I may make a replica of one
of these with. One is a bit tear dropped shaped with three
suspension holes. It would have had a wick dipped likely in fat.

There is a quarry in which you can see a number of cooking
pots being carved out of the stone that were never completed.
They sit sideways in the stone as it lies. An archaeologist
once sent me a jpeg picture of the quarry. Must be the same
one in a couple of my viking books. I cannot remember just
which ones. I have somewhere around 150 of them.

Likely places to look would be the following books,
all of which were exhibition books and all of which
have subsequently become rather hard to find.
Viking Artefacts by James Graham-Campbell (took me several years)
limited to 800 copies - British Museum.
Viking to Crusader (also available in a German edition)
Vikings, the North Atlantic Saga, the most recent of them
was touring many museums in North America including the
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which conceivably
might still have one or two.

The cooking pots were highly prized as they were sometimes
repaired by metal plates and rivets. However, with very
few sites excepted, most soapstone contains asbestos,
and the greener it is generally the more it contains.
Asbestos is a fibrous kind of any of five minerals and
essentially has very tiny fibers that the lungs cannot
expel by nature of the cilia being unable to move anything
that small that also has hooks in some of it that dig in.
This can also happen to your skin and intestines. You
can get cancer from the body's efforts to deal with it.
It can be passed on to others by washing your clothes
with theirs after working it. A shipfitter's family
got it this way.
Montana white soapstone is nearly the only soapstone
without asbestos in it. It is massive talc instead.
Talc (yes folks, talcum powder comes from it) is also
suspected as a carcinogen, meaning it can cause cancer.

 > I have had 1
> years worth of apprenticship in the field, however it
> was with modern tools.  And alas my searching for the
> original tools and techniques of the Viking Era have
> come up empty.  Thus I come to you, seeking any who
> would be willing to share their knowledge in such a
> field.  Be it tips and tricks, a list of tools, or
> even a website that can list all of this for me. 

The greatest assemblage of late, or slightly later,
Viking Age tools is in the following book - The Mastermyr
Find, A Viking Age Tool-chest from Gotland, by the late
Greta Arwidsson. It is available from:
Norm Larson Books,
5426 E. Hwy 246, Lompoc, CA 93436.
  Fax 805-735-8367, Ph 800-743-4766
  Postage is $2 for first book
  plus $.50 for each additional book to a maximum of $5.00
larbooks@impulse.net
The book costs $18.
It contains metalworking, woodworking, jewelry, cooking
tools such as a folding fish griddle (ror suspension) and
a cauldron found nearby. What likely happened was the
chest (that is there also in detail complete with lock)
was being ferried across a bog in a boat that overturned
and it disappeared under the water. The bog later became
a meadow and the meadow was eventually plowed - 1937? -
at which time the chest was struck and the cauldron found
a bit later. There have been various groups reproducing
the thing as a set for fun - mostly blacksmiths.

> It would be greatly appreciated and gladly accepted.

You might want to ask on Norsefolk@yahoogroups.com
Mistress Gunnvor / Gunnora has many articles on the
Vikings on the http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ webpages.
She frequents the Norsefolk list and is a very good scholar
on most things Viking in a number of languages.

My best books on stoneworking are behind a thirty drawer
chest on top of which is another 250 pounds of stuff with no
good alternate place to put them. The rest generally involve
lettering in stone. I'd try books on stone sculpture.

Magnus, OL [SCA], Regia, Manx, GDH

> I thank you all for your time.  
> 
>          Cordially, Quinn Aboudara