This is the web site for building, learning and playing with the history of Boats and Ships from about BC to 1089AD. 

 

NOW HOSTING DARK AGE CORNWALL see details on Facebook


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157833023896833&set=g.409223976169250&type=1&ifg=1

BRONZE AGE SEWN PLANK BOAT BEING BUILT IN CORNWALL 2012

The build is well under way now and you can see stop motion films of the build at You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22chM3wYrk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u22j34g85Q

 

CHANGES TO MY OWN BRONZE AGE BOAT PLANS

I have been forced by circumstances to modify my own plans and will follow this new train of thought for a Bronze Age Boat for now while shelving my Roos Carr project.

We would like in our Bronze Age Living History reconstructions a quickly built boat to sell local produce to visiting trading ships or drop off a pilot or to carry messages but we want to travel faster in it than is possible in a coracle.

I will be making a simple sewn plank pirogue.
Sewn boats do not require large trunks. You can take, if necessary, just one plank from the centre of the trunk, You don't have to be able to sit in the trunk as in a dugout as you can combine more than one plank. Dugouts were common in the BA as we know but if you ain't got the trees which were likely to be scarce in Cornwall then you are stuck unless you build your boat from a kit of planks. So we have the means to knock up a utility boat of some sort both then and now. Different fastenings but much the same way a plywood pirogue was built by me in about three days.

Fortunately the type of authentic stitching and materials can still used so that building the new boat remains the learning experience it always has been.


I wouldn't be surprised if BA boat yards didn't knock out a few of this sort between large craft as they still make small dinghies sometimes in modern boatyards between orders for larger vessels.

 

LOGBOAT ENTHUSIASTS: Contact me if you have a question about logboats, monoxylon or pirogue and I will try to help with my extensive library.

 

  Replica boat...

Replica Dark Age Boat ideas.

 

If you would like to see a film of a pirogue being cut from a log in recent times.

Go here for a beautiful film of a logboat being created

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,188

 

This film was dedicated to Robert Flaherty and here are two youtube extracts showing his interest in boat people of Ireland and the Inuit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncsyA4JfCn8

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLERFRQl5EY&feature=related

 


 Living History and Paddling into the Past

Dark Age Cornwall

Our group in Cornwall to explore life and warfare after the Romans left.

Garrisons a defensive dyke, lives and builds from 400 to 600 AD

Arms and armour of the period. Our own wood for skirmishes and archery and period living.

We even have a skin covered Coracle.

Ancient Days and Ways

Our new group reenacting and giving displays of Living History at, so far:

Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, Cornwall.

Chysauster Iron Age Village, Cornwall.

As a members of Age of Bronze we have been at Durrington Walls, Wiltshire near to Stonehenge and Stonehenge itself.

We can also include Have-a-Go-Archery for aspiring archers as well as demonstrations of ancient boats for aspiring wet people

info@dark-age-boats.co.uk


The Pictae - a re-enactment group based on authentic replica boats.

Anybody interested in early history especially experimental archaeology and living history?

Paleoplanet

paleoplanet69529.yuku.com

Coracle Society for early boating (and swims!)

http://www.coraclesociety.org.uk/

 

Bronze Age discussion group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ageofbronze/

 

AND a Welsh group who have built their first boat

https://sites.google.com/site/ancientboatprojects/home

 

 

 

 

 


  Iron and Bronze Age Boats...

The Hjortspring Boat and an achievable scale replica

Bronze Age Kayak

Bronze Age Boat carving

 


  Languages...

The Languages used on sea and land around Britain in the Dark Ages . We hope to research this soon. In the meantime have a look at the publications of Joseph Biddulph http://www.cs.vu.nl/~dick/biddulph/ which include discussion of Brythonic, Frisian and Germanic languages.

 If these present a challenge remember that Latin was spoken as well and you could probably get by in those days with a basic knowledge

 

There is a developing theory that English is far older than the conventional ideas of it dating from the 5th Century AD would have us believe.

see

www.proto-english.org

www.archaeology.ws/upperthames.html

Origin of the British by Stephen Oppenheimer

History of Britain Revealed by M J Harper

 

 


  Discussion Groups...

Have a look at our discussion groups:


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