Smiths in Bronze Age Europe (OpenARCH)

This film is a result of the project "Smiths in Bronze Age Europe", conducted by the Parco Archeologico e Museo all’Aperto della Terramara di Montale. The project saw the development of a research whose aim is to expand knowledge of both the tools and the techniques of the Terramare metallurgists. Combining archaeological data with experimentation, it defined new objectives and gave the possibility to share with archaeological open air museums research methods and various ways of presenting information to diverse audience.

The film shows how the project has been the fruit of interdisciplinary collaboration between archaeologists of various areas of expertise and craftsmen specialized in Bronze Age metallurgy who sought to verify the existence of differentiated skill levels among the ancient metallurgists. The craftsmen were assigned the task of creating replicas of bronze objects of various degrees of complexity in the post-casting phases (an axe, a pendant, a solid-hilted dagger, a sword, a sieve). The objects were reproduced using replicas of original work tools. Technicians were asked to record time spent and level of difficulty in production.
The film was firstly presented to the partners of OpenArch and to the public of St Fagans National History Museum in Cardiff (Wales) in the Oakdale Institute on 27 May 2015 in occasion of OpenArch meeting and St Fagans conference on managing archaeological open-air museums (25 - 29 May 2015).

#EXARC #ExperimentalArchaeology #documentary