Archaeology Bone Carving Experiment
In archaeology this year we did an experiment where we carved a symbol of our
choice out of a piece of bone. The process started off by researching symbols we wanted to
carve, be it our star sign or names written in an ancient script.
For the next few classes we practiced our designs on small squares of wood. We got
our symbols and sellotaped them onto the wood and drew over the lines heavily with biro
so they left a visible indentation on the wood. We each got a old butter knife and a replica
Stone Age tool and set to work carving out the symbols. These tools made the exercise very
hard but it was great to work with similar tools as our ancestors. We soon found out that
this was much harder than it looked and everyone tried using lots of different methods of
carving. After quite a few frustrated minutes we discovered that the most effective way to
carve out the wood was by using the knife as a chisel and the rock as a mallet. Once we
were comfortable with the tools we were using we got given our pieces of bone. After
polishing and smoothing the bone with sandstone rocks we began our carvings. This was
very difficult and challenging but it was a lot of fun.
This exercise was a really interesting experience all together. We learnt a lot about
bones and also how art was created during Irish Prehistory. It was very strange and
interesting to actually hold and carve into a piece of bone. To see all the different colours,
patterns and textures on the bone was really fascinating. As a class we learnt just how hard
it was to do a bone carving well and all the effort and skill needed to do it. This experiment
gave me a historical value of the time and skills needed to produce these works of art and
was a really enjoyable project.