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The Fringe | The Sciences Fields & The Lake | UCD Belfield Campus
The Fringe is a series of demonstrations, events and exhibitions, showcasing cutting edge international archaeological research and artistic practice. These will include demonstrations in experimental archaeology (e.g. flint knapping, hide working, cooking), musical performances, performance art and durational art installations. It brings together collaborators from the within Ireland, as well as from throughout Europe. Curated by Stephen Davis and Ian Russell with the assistance of Andrew Cochrane, the events programme includes:
Monday, 30th June - Friday, 4th July - The experimental bronze forging group, Umha Aois, will be in residence during the week of the 6th World Archaeological Congress at UCD's Belfield Campus. The group will offer demonstrations of experimental practices aimed at understanding the methods and techniques of forging bronze artefacts developed in the Bronze Age. Participants are invited to visit the group at their leisure during the week of the Congress and explore the development of their processes.
There will also be a special night casting display by the group after the Congress dinner on Thursday 3 July. All are welcome to attend.
Thursday 3rd July - Simon Pascoe is co-director and lead artist of the renowned performance art group Red Earth. Simon specialises in creating original site-specific installations and performances in response to the landscape. Red Earth make original site-specific work: temporary structural installations and performances that bring a landscape alive through installation, performance and sound, reinterpreting archaeology, geology and the environment, connecting past, present and future, activating landscape, experience and memory.
For WAC-6, Simon Pascoe joins with the archaeological community to create a ritualised journey across the grounds of UCD's Belfield campus: an ancient response to a contemporary landscape activated by fire, live sound and participation; an atmospheric sensory experience allowing an insight into the liminal world of our ancestors.
Billy Quinn and Declan Moore, Moore Group
Thursday, 3rd July & Friday 4th July - A demonstration of their ‘Great Beer Experiment’, which attempted to demonstrate the feasibilty of using burnt stone mounds (‘fulachta fiadh’ in Ireland) as brewing sites.
They will demonstrate and discuss their experiments and research into the enigmatic site that is the fulacht fiadh. These ubiquitous monuments, which are visible in the landscape as small, horseshoe-shaped grass-covered mounds, have been conventionally thought of by archaeologists as ancient cooking spots, saunas or industrial sites.
Using a wooden trough filled with water heated stones are added. After achieving an optimum temperature of 60-70°C they add milled barley and after 45 minutes bale the final product into fermentation vessels. They add natural wild flavourings and then added yeast after cooling the vessels in a bath of cold water for several hours. To produce the ale took only a few hours, followed by a three-day wait to allow for fermentation.
Metin Erin, University of Exeter, UK
Monday 30th June & Tuesday 1st July - A demonstration of flint knapping techniques.
Kathrine Verkooijen, University of Exeter, UK
Monday 30th June & Tuesday 1st July - An interactive demonstration a range of technologies associated with Bronze Age clothing manufacture including elements of pelt, skin and wool processing.
Holger Lonze, Lough Neagh Boating Heritage Association
Sunday 29th June, Monday 30th June & Tuesday 1st July - Sculptor and curach-maker Holger Lönze will demonstrate the making of a traditional oval-shaped River Boyne curach from the Oldcastle area of Co. Meath. Until their ban in the 1950s – to preserve fish stocks - these archaic skin boats were used in pairs to catch salmon. Although primarily used to drift downriver, a fisherman can direct the craft with by skulling a single spade-shaped paddle with a figure of 8 motion, while a second fisherman spends out the nets over the bow section of the boat. The woven hazel frame with a single seat plank is made on the ground to a standard size of 6’x4’ to fit a cured and tanned cowhide which is bound to the skilfully woven gunwale.
Skeleton-built skin boats with a waterproofed envelope are one of the four major roots of boat building. With its limited requirement of tools and skills, this technique may stretch as far back as the Mesolithic; skin boats were once common all over the circumpolar region but are now limited to Inuit umiaks, Welsh corwgls and Irish curachs. The Atlantic seaboard of Ireland still preserves a range of 12 sea-worthy types of keel-less curachs, ranging from 10-25 ft in length.
Website: http://www.loughneaghboats.org
Simon O’Dwyer, Prehistoric Music Ireland
Monday 30th June - Simon and Maria O’Dwyer have spent much of the last eighteen years reproducing and musically exploring Irish instruments from prehistory. These instruments range from late Bronze Age horns to the great Celtic trumpas of the middle Iron Age and woodwind instruments from early Christianity. As no written or oral music survives from these times we can never be sure what was played by the musicians or the circumstances in which instruments were used; however, their research has expored possibilities as to how horns and trumpas were designed and how they may have been played.
In the latter half of the 20th Century worldwide interest in pre-historic musical instruments has steadily increased. Surviving instruments are seen as a way to enlarge our knowledge of early peoples who made and played them. Insights can be had into ancient ways of life and living. Ireland’s extensive collection of surviving pre-historic trumpets, horns, bells and others make us unique in the world. Until the mid 1980s only strictly archaeological studies had been carried out on the Bronze Age horns and Iron Age trumpets. In 1986 Prehistoric Music Ireland was born and the first accurate reproductions were made of a pair of bronze horns from Co. Antrim. Almost immediately new and exciting discoveries came to light about how to make and play these instruments. Since then Prehistoric Music Ireland has been reproducing and studying Bronze Age horns and Iron Age trumpas including An Trumpa Créda, (Loughnashade original), the Ard Brinn (trumpa fada), crothalls (Bronze Age bells), the Mayophone (Early Medieval free-reed horn) from Co. Mayo, the Wicklow Pipes (4,000 year old wooden pipes), stone and bone flutes and instruments from abroad including English and Scottish horns and the silver pipes of Ur (Mesopotamia).
Simon has been employed as a heritage specialist by the INTO and The Heritage Council for the past 7 years. This work involves visits to National schools around the country presenting the prehistoric instruments of Ireland. Since his membership began he has visited over 360 schools.
Dr. Alan Peatfield and Dr. Barry Molloy, School of Archaeology, UCD
Bronze Age swords are almost always unfavourably compared to iron and steel swords in terms of sharpness, edge-strength, and general martial functionality. Thus, when found in archaeological contexts, bronze swords are mostly interpreted as symbolic items rather than as functional and effective weapons.
Using carefully and accurately made modern replicas, Alan Peatfield and Barry Molloy will demonstrate the effectiveness of bronze swords with a series of cutting tests. They will also show how it is possible to interpret sword combat techniques from the designs of the swords.
Iain Barber, Isu Pots
Displays and discussions of a range of reconstructed prehistoric pot-types throughout the congress. Iain is an expert in archaeological ceramics, producing exact replica Stone Age and Bronze Age bowls and pots for museum shops and standing displays.
More information on Iain's work is available here.
Dr. Natalie Uomini & Richard Hoyle, University of Southampton, UK
Interactive demonstration of a range of rock art techniques featuring a cave-painting wall.
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Ábhar agus Meon, Sixth World Archaeological Congress, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland
(@) http://www.ucd.ie/wac-6 (@) http://www.amexhibition.com (e) info(at)amexhibition.com
(t) +353 (0)87 654 8301 (f) + 353 (0)1 716 1184
Designed by iArchitectures (2008).