| ISSN 1357-4442 | Editor: Simon Denison |
|---|
| LETTERS |
Simple lathes
From Mr Fred Bettess
Sir: I found your news item on a prehistoric wood-turning lathe (`Wooden evidence found for prehistoric power- tools', December) of interest because I once saw an even more primitive form set up and put to practical use.
As a young Royal Engineer officer in Malaya and Thailand, our sappers once wished to make a chair as a gift for an officer. It was a straight-backed armchair and they wished to make two finials to finish off the uprights at the back. We had skilled joiners but no lathe, but with their background this was no problem. They drove two stout posts into the ground about 1.5m apart with a hole in each about 20cm above the ground, through which they drove pointed centres fashioned out of scrap metal rod. A roughed-out length of wood was fixed between the centres, and a length of cord was wrapped around one end. One man pulled the ends of the cord to and fro to give a reciprocating rotary motion. The craftsman squatted alongside him, with one leg in front, and using the gap between his big toe and second toe as a tool rest he made two pretty little matching finials. When the work was finished the posts were pulled out of the ground, so the only evidence of our activity were the two post holes.
Yours sincerely,
FRED BETTESS
Alnmouth
27 January
Medieval games
From Mr Malcolm Watkins
Sir: Today's game of backgammon almost certainly owes its
origins to arabic precursors rather than to the
`Mediterranean' tabula, as Ian Riddler claimed (`When
there is no end to a good game,'
February). Like chess the game seems to have originated in
northern India or Persia, as the game of nard, and it
seems that the Graeco-Roman race-games (kubeia and ludus
duodecim scriptorum), which bear some alleged similarities
to backgammon, had completely died out by the time tabula
first came to medieval Europe.
There is, of course, a danger in using terms like kubeia,
tables, tabula, and taefl in that these
are generic names instead of specific ones, in much the same way
as we would talk about `playing cards'. Ludus
duodecim scriptorum, by contrast, is a specific game.
The taefl group of games may have had Celtic origins,
since an important game and board is described in the Mabinogion,
an early medieval Welsh text, but the evidence suggests it is
more likely to be Norse, hence its survival in Lappland for
Linnaeus to record.
Tables is the precursor to modern backgammon, and as
far as I am aware the Gloucester tables set, illustrated on your
cover, is the only known complete medieval set (board and
pieces). Contrary to your article, the St Denis find was just the
board, while the two boards at Freiburg had only nine and 11
plain beechwood tablesmen with them.
The dating of the Gloucester tables set is difficult, but I am
inclined to an earlier date than c 1120, given in the
article. My view depends on the assumption that the pit into
which the game was thrown was dug into the bailey of the first
Gloucester Castle (which is not certain). The date for the
building of the new castle is unknown, and unlikely to be ever
revealed archaeologically since its site is entirely covered by
HM Prison, but the Cathedral records suggest it was before 1112.
The tablesmen, insofar as they have parallels, are best
matched with the so-called Northern French group, which has been
dated stylistically to 1050-1100. I suggest they may have
been French imports through Scotland, since there are similar
pieces in Scotland (interesting in view of the Lewis pieces).
Moreover, the board had been repaired before deposition, and I
think it was perhaps earlier than the pieces.
As for why the Gloucester tables set was thrown away, I have
my own theory. I believe it was a princely gift, probably from
Malcolm of Scotland to William II. William was persuaded in 1093
by Archbishop Anselm, as a result of a near-fatal illness which
brought him to Gloucester, to both mend his debauched ways and
try to make his peace with Malcolm. In the event, Malcolm came to
Gloucester, by which time William had recovered, returned to his
old ways, and any attempt at reconciliation went out of the
window. I like to see the Gloucester tables set as an undelivered
gift, a victim of the Scottish king's rage at the attitude
of his Norman counterpart. This may be fantasy, but it offers a
credible reason for the destruction of what was, by any
standards, a hugely valuable set.
Yours sincerely, Celtic identity
From Mr Simon James
Sir: In his review of Britain and the Celtic Iron Age (`A short
book with a grand ambition',
September), Mark Bowden notes the book's critique of
the notion of a `Celtic' Iron Age, and asks: `so
why do the titles of both book and [the new British Museum]
gallery retain it?'.
His question seems to betray a narrowness of outlook widely
encountered among archaeologists. When writing a book, authors
have to decide not only what they want to say, but to whom they
want to say it. People still learn in school that the pre-Roman
past was a Celtic one, and are generally unaware that this is
problematical. You first have to catch your readers'
attention, before you can tell them anything new.
Our understandings of the British Iron Age have undergone
profound changes in recent decades. The simple idea of `the
ancient Celts' as an ethnic category, with common social and
cultural characteristics, is now obsolete. However, as yet there
have been few attempts to synthesise `post-Celticist'
thinking for non-specialist audiences. This is part of a
widespread reluctance among archaeologists to address anyone
outside academia.
The `Ancient Celts', as usually conceived, never
existed, especially in Britain. But Celts exist now. Millions of
people believe they are Celtic, and see themselves as descendants
of peoples they regard as Celts who lived in the British Isles.
For many it is one of several levels of identity they possess
- along with their national, regional and religious
identities. When an Anglo-centric British state was founded in
1707, the non-English nations responded by creating a new
identity expressing their shared non-Englishness. The idea of
ancient and modern Celts in Britain and Ireland, first mooted at
the start of the 1700s, was established in popular history within
a century.
All such identities are inventions. But to examine critically
the basis of living ethnicities like `Celticness', or
indeed `Englishness' as some medievalists are doing, is
to tinker with the roots of people's sense of identity. If
scholars do this, they have a responsibility to communicate with
the rest of society about the implications of what they say.
Yours sincerely, Return to the British Archaeology
homepage
© Council for British Archaeology, 1998
MALCOLM WATKINS
Gloucester City Council Gloucester
6th February
SIMON JAMES
University of Durham
22 January