Tag Archives: Co. Tipperary

Thoughts on razors and male grooming in Earlier Bronze Age Ireland

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Razors, unlike most other types of metalwork, are as closely associated with their owners in death as they were in life.

r from Peafield, Co. Limerick. From Stanley 2013.

Fig. 1. Razor from Peafield, Co. Limerick. From Stanley 2013.

My report on a pair of bronze razors found in a pit burial at Peafield, Co. Limerick has just been published in River Road. The Archaeology of the Limerick Southern Ring Road. In this blog I am developing some additional thoughts about the Early Bronze Age razors with a new distribution map that includes the new finds. The discovery of the two Peafield razors and an example found in a house at Carrigatogher, Co. Tipperary, recently discussed by Michael Stanley (2013), now brings the total number of Bronze Age razors known in Ireland to just 47. Compared to some of the other artifact types of the period, such as the axes, razors are quite rare. They differ from axes in other ways as they are usually found in burials and never in hoards. In fact the interesting thing about the razors is that, unlike most other types of metalwork, they are as closely associated with their owners in death as they were in life.

The distribution of Bronze Age razors in Ireland. After Kavanagh 1991 with additions.
Fig. 2. The distribution of Earlier Bronze Age razors in Ireland. After Kavanagh 1991 with additions indicated as stars.

The razors indicate a fashion for the cutting of the beard and hair by some men. Harding (2008) in his paper on razors and male identify in the Bronze Age noted that a number of archaeologists have suggested that in continental Europe razors along with tweezers, spoons for applying make-up, and awls or needles for tattooing, formed toilet sets that were used by men for grooming. This special grooming was intended as a form of display by certain individuals and the association of the toilet sets with graves containing weapons indicates these men were probably warriors. The numbers of razors found in Ireland is quite small in comparison to continental Europe (see Kavanagh 1991 and Fig. 2) and none have been found associated with weapons, so there is no evidence that the Irish men who used razors were warriors. On the other hand razor matrices are found on moulds used to cast weapons such as spearheads, daggers and rapiers so that the razor owners certainly had access to weaponry (Kavanagh 1991, 82-3). Another possibility is that in Ireland razors were used by a small group of men to alter their appearance in order to differentiate themselves from their followers. I am going to call these men community leaders. When imagining the possible appearance of these men the ethnographic example of the Maori Chief springs to mind (Fig. 3).

Portrait of a Maori Chief with topknot and feathers, bone comb, facial tatoo, greenstone earring, tiki and woven flax coat. Partly shaved with small beard and moustache. By Sidney Parkinson the artist of on Captain's Cook first expedition. Source Wikipedia Commons.

Fig. 3. Portrait of a Maori Chief with topknot and feathers, bone comb, facial tatoo, greenstone earring, tiki and woven flax coat. Partly shaved with small beard and moustache. By Sidney Parkinson the artist of on Captain’s Cook first expedition. Source Wikipedia Commons.

Razors were personal to their owners in a way that tools and weapons don’t seem to have been and their consistent association with pottery and sometimes with beads, pins, whetstones and flint, in marked contrast to weapons and tools, indicates that the razors were seen as a domestic item, associated with the home. Although razors could be refashioned from old daggers, once they came into the possession of an individual they may not have been inherited as they are usually found buried with the deceased, and sometimes burnt on a pyre, thereby putting them beyond use (Kavanagh 1991, 79).

The discovery of the house at Carrigatogher Site 3, Co. Tipperary allows us for the first time to look at the type of home associated with the people who had razors. Here a razor was placed into a post hole, along with sherds of two cordoned urns and burnt animal bone, during the construction of the house. This was not a loss or discard but a symbolically significant deposit. The Carrigatogher house at 6.7m x 7m in diameter was large for the period, and was constructed with a bedding trench for the wall and an internal circle of posts. The other significant thing about the house is the presence of a large D-shaped entrance porch constructed with posts and 2 lines of stakes curving around the house from the entrance (Mulcahy and Taylor 2013). The deposition of such a rare artefact type, at a period when metal is rarely found in houses, its occurrence in a symbolic deposit in a relatively large house with an unusually elaborate entrance suggests this may have been the home of a significant community leader.

Razors are a rare artefact type with a restricted distribution and deposition that were closely associated with their owners in both life and death. They are also the only metal artefact that provides a link between the social identity of a small number of men found in burials and a contemporary house type. Because of this the significance of the razors vastly outweighs their small number.

References

Harding, A. 2008. Razors and male identity in the Bronze Age. In F. Verse, B. Knoche, J. Graefe, M. Hohlbein, K. Schierhold, C. Siemann, M. Uckelmann and G. Woltermann (Eds) Durch die Zeiten … ; Festschrift für Albrecht Jockenhövel zum 65. Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf.

Kavanagh, R.M. 1991. A reconsideration of razors in the Earlier Bronze Age”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 121, 77-104.

Mount 2013. Peafield Bronze razors. In N. Bermingham, F. Coyne, G. Hull, F. Reilly and K. Taylor (Eds) River Road. The Archaeology of the Limerick Southern Ring Road. National Roads Authority, Dublin.

Mulcahy, M. And Taylor, K. 2013. N7 Nenagh to Limerick E3327 Carrigatogher Site 3 Co. Tipperary. Unpublished report for Limerick Co. Council

Stanley, M. 2013. Death with a close shave? Seanda 8, 22-3.

 

Cite this post as:

Mount, C. 2013. Thoughts on razors and male grooming in Earlier Bronze Age Ireland. Charles Mount’s Blog, 20 November 2013. http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=1310

 

Identifying pottery fire-pits in the archaeological record

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Cloghabreedy, Co. Tipperary Site 125.3

Probable pottery fire-pits at Cloghabreedy, Co. Tipperary Site 125.3. Image from McQuade et al. 2009.

Thanks to the work of the UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology it may now be possible to identify the pottery fire-pits of the Irish prehistoric pottery industry.

One of the most characteristic artefacts of the Irish Bronze Age is pottery. It was produced in large quantities and is found at all types of sites from settlement and ritual to industrial. Until recently no prehistoric pottery fire-pits, where the clay is heated until it becomes pottery, had been identified in the Irish archaeological literature (see for example Ó Faoláin and Northover 1998, 73). Even where quite large settlement sites have been investigated like Corrstown, Co. Derry, where over 9,000 sherds of pottery were recovered, and Chancellosrland site A, where over 2,000 sherds were found, no fire-pits were identified.

UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology fire-pit.

UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology fire-pit with charcoal and pottery in situ. Photo Aidan O'Sullivan

Now thanks to the work of the UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology it looks as though firing sites can be identified. At UCD Aidan O’Sullivan, Conor Mcdermott, Thomas Cummins and John Nicholl have been making vessels of various periods and types and firing them in sub-rectangular shaped fire-pits. Once the contents of the pits have cooled and the finished pots are removed what is left is a fire-reddened pit filled with charcoal and any sherds of failed pots. The great value of this experimental work (and documenting it with images and video through media like Facebook) is that it helps archaeologists identify these features in excavation reports. Aidan O’Sullivan and the others have not only demonstrated how pottery can be made in a simple fire-pits, but Aidan has noted that the field archaeologist will find.

“Charcoal, ash, burnt stones, and pieces of fire-reddened and blackened soil. You might also find heavily fired and black, sooted pottery fragments, the fragmentary remains of previously failed pots that have been through several kiln fires.”

He also noted:

“The effect of a north-easterly breeze, meaning that only centimetres away on the ‘wrong’ side, the fire was essentially cool”.

So some method of blocking the prevailing airflow across the surface of the fire-pit is needed to maintain a constant temperature. As Graham Taylor who writes pottedhistory has noted:

“If the wind is gusting it can cause huge temperature fluctuations which destroy pots.”

The wind can be mitigated by the erection of a simple wattle screen across the path of the prevailing wind.

As Graham Taylor points out:

“A common technique would be: fairly serious fire in the pit allowed to burn down to charcoal, green brushwood directly onto this, pots on to this, then more dry fuel, close over with green brush and clay leaving a few small air holes around the edge. Walk away and leave it for a couple of days. If you’ve got it right, and it doesn’t go out, it’s a gentler way to fire larger pots and get them black.”

The sealing material may be dug from a pit or pits next to the fire-pit which may be refilled with the waste charcoal and sherds of any failed pots from the fire-pit.

Therefore the elements that one might expect to find at a pottery firing site are a fire-reddened pit or pits filled with charcoal, ash, sherds of failed pots with a windbreak to the west or south and pits from which soil has been dug to seal the fire-pit. These pits can be back-filled with the sooty failed pot sherds from the firing.

Plan of probable pottery fire-pits at Cloghabreedy, Co. Tipperary site 125-3.

Plan of probable pottery fire-pits at Cloghabreedy, Co. Tipperary site 125-3. from McQuade et al. 2009.

At Cloghabreedy, Co. Tipperary a site appears to fulfil all of these criteria. The site was excavated under the Direction of Colm Moriarty in advance of the construction of the N8 Cashel to Mitchelstown Road Scheme and is published by Colm in M. McQuade, B. Molloy and C. Moriarty (Eds.) In the Shadow of the Galtees. Archaeological excavations along the N8 Cashel to Mitchelstown Road Scheme. NRA Scheme Monographs 4, 30-31. The site consists of two sub-rectangular pits set in a line and aligned north-west to south-east with concave profiles that measure 1.37m and 1.65m long by 0.97m and 1.25m wide and 0.25m deep. The sides and bases of the pits were fire-reddened and contained charcoal fills.

Just to the east of the fire-pits was a pair of pits also filled with charcoal-rich deposits and sherds of food vessel vase and urn. Charcoal from the primary fill of one of the pits was radiocarbon dated to 2289-2014 Cal BC (UB-7377). Set 3.3m south of the fire-pits and aligned roughly east-west were nine stake-holes that appear to have supported a windbreak 7m long. This appears to have been a pottery firing site in which the leather hard vessels were placed into the fire-pit, fired under a layer of soil from the pits and then, after cooling, the material from the fire-pits was deposited back into the pits along with sherds of failed pots.

Cloghabreedy is a good example of a fire-pit because it has a number of elements, is a single period site without the complication of earlier or later features and was well excavated and published. However, where fire-pits lack associated pot sherds or windbreaks or are separated from these features by later elements recognition becomes more difficult. The conclusion is that using the insights being gained at the UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology it will be easier in future to identify the firing sites of the prehistoric pottery industry.

References

Ó Faoláin, S. and Northover, J.P.  1998. The Technology of Late Bronze Age Sword Production in Ireland, The Journal of Irish Archaeology, Vol. 9 (1998), pp. 69-88

About the author

Dr. Charles Mount has been involved in research on the Irish Bronze Age for more than twenty years and carried out his post-graduate and doctoral research on the period. Since then he has published extensively on the burials, monuments and artefacts of the period. This blog post is partly based on research he is preparing for a book on the period. You can learn more about Charles Mount’s publications here.

Cite this post as:

Mount, C. Identifying pottery fire-pits in the archaeological record. The Charles Mount Blog, 9 May 2012. http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=825.