Can't Make Dragons Without Clay (Part 2) - AMT 62

0:00You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You have my sword and you have my boat and my trowel. Hi, you're listening to episode 62 of At My Trowel, where we look at the fantastic side of Archaeology and the archaeological side of fantasy, my mash, and I'm Tilly. And this is the second part of our discussion with professional potter Emma Harrison, chatting all about cute little clay dragons. Hello. Hello. Hello. We haven't tied her up a bit back in the comments, it's Tilly. So let's just remind ourselves of our current quest. So we have been approached by the Penny Kettle Dragon Sanctuary to help them analyze their current collection of dragon figurines. They're trying to showcase basically the diversity and the uniqueness of their collection, which as we discovered in the literature review of the last episode, is quite unique, actually, because there's not that many clay figurines that come to life. So they want to have as deep an analysis as possible, so not just, you know,

1:03typology and cataloging category, but also an investigation into things like material, firing technique, etc, etc. And of course, this analysis is a little bit more complicated than just cataloging because they come to life for all who actually believe they come to life, which I mean, the three of us do believe it, right? So that's a bit of a problem. So we already had a little bit of a look into our literature review in the last episode where we looked at how sort of living clay figurines and other sentient objects have cropped up in fantasy, better how about archaeology. So we talked a little bit about that last episode, Ash, our classics expert. Sorry, sorry for listening to the screen there. My classics episode, I mean, the one of us who has done one class in classical archaeology. I did it, yeah, thank you very much to it. Wow, I mean, go ahead. I read from lobbyists, I'll just join the past macabre and talk all about, you know, classical archaeology. I didn't do it, jeb, I didn't do it.

2:04It's a real minute, no more. It's a classic, I think it, but yeah, yeah, it's not counted. So it depends on the antiquity. Oh, I guess, yeah, yeah, because the old Egyptian. Again, if you're listening again, this is just goes to show that just because someone is an archaeologist, doesn't mean they are familiar with everything. Yeah, I don't know anything about Ruanoke, and I don't know anything about aliens. Oh, I didn't like that. We don't know it. Okay, so I'm so sorry. We don't have any treasure. Yeah, no. Yeah, anyway. Anyway, we mentioned in the last episode that there was that sort of ancient Greek mythology is that humans were made from clay, and I think you mentioned that there was like a Egyptian pottery god, Ash. Yeah, Kanum. He's the potter. Her mule's beings on a potter's wheel from clay. Oh, there you go. So it's similar. Yeah, I guess. That sort of. Yeah, the mule. And then fire, like, Prometheus is fire, and he was famously shaped humans from like modern water and give them fire.

3:05So the spark of life is fire. And I think in Frankenstein, they talk about that too, because it's Prometheus, we born, isn't it? Yeah. Prometheus, Frankenstein, and her fire and clay and all that kind of stuff is what makes us, who we are, that we are basically mad and be to be shaped in whatever way you want us to be shaped. Oh, that's very deep. That's very deep. I know. No, Shelley, man. Quit. And I mean, as a potter yourself, Emma, do you have any favourite archaeological examples of kind of ancient pottery? Yeah, it's actually one from Scotland. So people might have heard of the Wester wifey, it's a wee figure from Neolithic Orkney. So there's a famous figurine called the Wester wifey, which is actually made of sandstone. It's like 5,000 years old or so. But there's also another one that was found in the same kind of area, found in a midden, and it's made of clay, but it's not a complete one. So yeah, the Wester wifey's a complete little figurine about 4 centimeters tall with a little

4:08body and a head, but the clay version that was found is only the body, so it's missing the head. And it's about 3.5 centimeters tall, the body, so it's probably about the same size and it seems a similar sort of, you know, style to the Wester wifey that was found. So it was probably pretty similar. But the clay one, it's got some kind of markings on it that are a bit different that may be show a bit of the clothing styles and things, so yeah, it's really cool. I love that. And it's some of the earliest sort of depictions of human beings that have been found in the British Isles and stuff as well, so yeah, I love that. Yeah. Well, I actually love the earliest ever clay object, like the oldest clay object that we found is also a depiction of a, well, they're pretty sure it's a female because she has very large breasts. I mean, it's the only version you'd see, which is about 30,000 years old, so I'm a paleolithic and found in the Czech Republic at the site of Dolly Investing, you'd say, and she's

5:10also, like, that's also one of the Venus figurines, so the old, like, women figure, which yeah, and you mentioned the Venus of Willandor fashion, the last one, so those ones are definitely interesting, which I wonder if they already had then those mythologies then, and that's why they're making people out of clay. I mean, there almost must be something, right? Yeah. It's very instinctual to just, like, pick up, like, that's what I used to do on site when I was bored, if there was some clay that wasn't part of the context, like, in the side of the section or something, like, of the trench, not, like, anything archaeological, you feel pick it up, and you get a bit of water, and then you start, that just makes, like, tiny little venuses, as I was watching the digger, you know, that's work, right? And then you'd leave them to dry in the sun, and then they would just be there, and you'd be like, oh, I've got these tiny little figurines in there, and I want to do it, oh, like, little pinch pots and things like that, you'd just kind of mess with and play with. And yeah, and also, you're around fire all the time, like, people are firing stuff constantly,

6:11and you can find, you find that, archaeologically, all this crap pot that people are dull, that it just hasn't really worked, especially in Scotland, there's full of pots, like, especially in theolithic pits and middens, like, I'm ever saying about middens, and the West your wifey and stuff. So yeah, I think there's something kind of instinctual about fiddling with clay. Yeah. Which is what you were kind of talking about last episode as well, anyway, right, because you said you were brought up sort of around clay, so I suppose, if people living in pre-history had something similar, it would make sense to just make little figurines and sort of play around with them. Yeah, I think so, at least, and I always find it tricky to, you know, the interpretations of these little figurines that are found are often quite deep and sort of, quite, sort of spiritual and religious in a way, you know, sort of, they're seen as venuses and goddesses and things, but... Hang on a second, we go... I'm just going to win a ritual.

7:11We've got a... Oh no, the ritual buzz has gone. Oh my god! Oh my god! It has a ritual. No, it's gone clever. Well, sorry listeners, you won't get the ritual buzz at this time, but a ritual wall, there we go. I'll just do it. But yes, no, sorry, but I was interrupting you with my excitement about pressing your ritual buzz. But yeah, we reckon they're not, probably not actually quite that ritual. Well, they could be, they totally could be, but it could also just be the other end of the scale where someone just made something that was fun and they were making a portrait of their friend or their mum or whatever, you know, it could just be quite unimportant in a way, you know what I mean? It's quite mundane and everyday, just someone doing something fun, just to fiddle with for a few minutes or something. Yeah. There's been a few studies into looking at fingerprints on clay because you do find little pieces of finger... Like you can see it a lot on pottery as well, people's fingerprints, which I love. I found one and I remember looking at it and I go, oh my god, that's a much fingerprint

8:13from 6,000 years ago, that's all I've talked about. And I can't remember the site, so I'll have to try and find it and I'll link it in the show notes because I did a study on it a few years ago. And it was these little tiny figurines and pinch pots and stuff and they found that the fingerprint sizes were like the children that were making them. And so it's kind of teaching like learning how to make pots or figurines or something or toys. They didn't know because toys such a loaded, yeah, label in material culture, we never know what a toy would be because anything can be a toy, you know, a box can be a toy. So we did it from experience, you know, it can't be a toy, that's super expensive toy that you brought them for their birthday, that can't be a toy, that's not interesting. They were not playing with that. There's some of them on the ground that's been there for two days, that is the type. That's the best way I've ever. Yeah, and heaven's a bit, you're trying to go that way, anyway, sorry, that's a little... But yeah, you find that children are learning stuff, like, you know, there's kind of maybe key skills in prehistory that are needed like making pottery, flints, things like that

9:15maybe earlier, and you get that kind of apprentice pieces, they always call them. So there's a site that has a few of those where they've measured the fingerprints and they realize that their children making them, which is really cool. Oh, although that's actually also with the Venus of Dawn Invest in it, so they actually has a fingerprint on her back, covered through like a later one. And they reckon that it might be a child's fingerprint, but I actually, on one of my first episodes of Tea Break Time Travel, as was now Tea Break Hockeyology, I chatted with Sarah Lorde from Potter's History about the Venus of Dawn Invest in Nitsy, and she reckons it was probably more that, you know, a child was sort of handed it before it got fired, and then, you know, the fingerprint was on it, or it just sort of prodded it or poked it, because it's kind of just above the backside. So she was more of a kind of, yeah, thinking, you know, which again, it's just that sort of every day nurse, right, which I love kind of bringing it back in. But you have, so it wasn't clay, but I did a study as part of my PhD research on little

10:16carved ivory figurines from the Paleo-Winter-Wit Dorset culture, and again, there's so much, it's so funny. As soon as you start having things like figurines, basically something that's non-functional, every, like, archaeologists just go mad talking about symbolic significance and everything, but it's so funny, because you would never have that conversation if it was like just a everyday object, you know? And so it's what's to say that these weren't just everyday objects, indeed. I always find it interesting how there's always that assumption that if it's a little figurine, it has to have some sort of significance. Yeah. Always. Which, you know, I mean, fair, because you make, so just going back to boggabongcraftsummer, because you make the cups and everything, so, you know, they're, I guess, functional objects, the everyday objects, but then you also do make little figurines as well. Yeah, well, I make rep, I call them replicas, but they're made in clay. I make the Westery Wifey, but a version in clay, for example. Yeah. I make her in wax. I make her in wax. I make her in wax. Yeah, I make her in wax. I make her in wax.

11:17I make her in wax. Yeah, that's a great object. Me. Yeah. You can make things like, yeah, there you go. Those things like medieval lobes cups, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of those. So there are these communal cups that would be passed around a group, so it's a group drinking vessel, you know? So it's got often several handles, and it might have several sort of shapes. Lips on the edge of the cup where different people can drink from and things like this. Oh, good. And usually inside the cup, they have a little figurine, so something like a little dog or a knight or something. So that will stick out of the sort of drink, you know, you'll see it sticking out as the cup drains. Ah! More of it, more people, which is really fun, I think. So, yeah, sometimes in archaeology, you just find the figurine that used to be in the centre, it gets sort of broken and detached, and you'll just find the figurine. And then yeah, if you piece it together, it's actually from a lobed cup, but it just seems like a separate figurine, so sometimes I'll just make the figurine from the cup or I'll make the whole cup, you know? Yeah.

12:18That's cool. It's like those ones people have, where there's like a spider in the bottom, have you ever seen this? Yeah. Yeah, and they drink and then they go, oh my god. Yeah. And be horrifying. Please never do that to me. I think I have a commission for you for my sister. You better bloody not. I swear. Because I'll forget, I know I will and I'll keep drinking and I'll be like, oh, I'm just silent. Yeah. And I mean, the nice thing, obviously what we're talking about now is kind of, well, medieval is a bit later, I guess, but a lot of the ones we're talking about come from prehistory, but you do have ones from, for example, Egyptian, ancient Egyptian sites, the Schwap-Schwapdi, so they're called Schwapdi's, the little figurines which were actually introduced to me by Jess, who has been on the podcast before and who is actually aware of these things about ancient Egypt and apologies, Jess, if you're listening and you're like, what? They're not called Schwapdi's. What are you talking about? They're figurines that are quite often made from clay or car from stone that are basically

13:18put in to kind of represent the servants of the Pharaoh that's being entombed. So then they'll be buried with all these little figurines, these little Schwapdi's, who are then going to be their servants in the afterlife, basically, and serve them. But those would be sort of know what they are for because it's kind of documented in a way, in that respect, which I find quite interesting. And then you have the terracotta warriors, of course, which were the first ones I thought off when I was thinking of clay. Yeah. I don't know if you've called them a figurine? They're definitely not. They're lifetimes. They're big. They're big. So figurine. Yeah. Which is quite interesting. And actually, I heard a very interesting episode, this is a random plug for a completely different podcast called Your Dead To Me, which I was listening to one about the, I can't remember what the overall topic was, but it featured part of the terracotta warriors. And did you know they have individualized faces? Yes. So each face is a little bit... Yeah, it's amazing. I did not know that. It's amazing. That's right. So there was a guy that jumped into them, like a few, I think it was last year of the year before, and like broke one of them.

14:19Yeah, and he started pushing, trying to push them, which is like, we're digging into the whole terracotta. But yeah, he broke one of them and you were like, why did you do that, sir? Why did you drop it? So yeah, I remember that coming up because they're all very unique and then it's difficult to replicate them again. Yeah. Maybe the ones we were talking about last episode, you know, the dittos or whatever, where people just make clay versions of themselves. Every time you think of the Pokemon, Ditto, that takes a form of every other Pokemon. What do you do? There you go. Well, maybe that's it. You know clay, though. That's it. Oh, come on. Oh my god. Clay Pokemon. Maybe that's it. That's dig, dig, dig is the dig a little, little ones. I thought you said you picked it up. I was like, what? What? One's a really obvious idea. There's like a microwave one and stuff. They sort of ran out of ideas and there's like a microwave and a fridge and that's not really. But I think there is actually, there's definitely some weird ones, the newest ones, but the older ones. Yeah, Ditto was the kind of purple blob that would take on the form of it.

15:22Anyway, I'm stuck. Let's stop talking about it. Right. Well, I will stop you because I've just seen that one of the figurines that we're trying to kind of experimentally fire at the moment has just walked out of the kiln, so maybe we should stop him before he sets something on fire. One second, we'll be right back. Okay, the figurines back in the kiln and promises to wait until he's cooled off a bit before coming out again. I should hope so he'll fall apart. Okay, so we've thought of some examples from archaeology, so we know that the clay figurines can be very important and there's ways to typologize them. But what about learning more about archaeological clays and perhaps you can help us? Yeah, because I mean, I can do a little bit of thin sectioning, like potrography, but if I just look at a clay, I have absolutely no idea how all this is or where it's from, which is a real bummer of work. I can tell you because I'm supposed to be cataloging things. But are you able to look at sort of also archaeological clays and kind of have a rough idea of what time period they come from, what might be inside them, I guess?

16:24Yeah, I mean, if you've read enough about the different typologies and things you do start to get an idea of, you know, when they're from and sort of culture it might have come from and things, but that really is just a case of staring at the typologies and reading about the dates and things and just memorizing that, I suppose. But yeah, if you've got an archaeological ceramic in front of you, I think you can tell a lot sort of materially about it at least. So you're going to get information about sort of the form of the pot, whether it was curved, flat, had different indents and shaping on it and things, can tell a bit about the sort of fabric of the clay. So that's just the clay itself and any things that were added to it. So potters in the past and even today would add stuff called temper. So they might take crushed up ceramic or they might take sand or crushed seashells, things like that and add it into the clay and that temper sort of stops things cracking when you fire it and also stops cracking when you're cooking with it.

17:27So if it's something like a cooking pot that gets used on the fire, you want that sort of sand and added stuff to help stop, you know, cracks spreading throughout the clay and just help a bit with thermal shock and things like that. Which you'd probably need with these little dragon figurines because they do a bit what's it called? Oh God, breathe, breathe fire. I was about to say, belt fire. They breathe. They breathe. They breathe fire. So you'd want to have like temperature control. Yeah. I think the dragon figurines would probably be tempered but we'll have to look at the clay on them. Oh. Like it's particular, temper good for particular types of things like if you're wanting something for very high heat, you'd use one temper but if it's just like general structure you'd use another one. I think it's actually more of a cultural practice in general of what's added. I think in general any sort of silica based, you know, temper, things like sand, crush quartz, different crush rocks, things like that are going to work pretty similarly.

18:28There's not going to be a huge difference but for whatever reason I don't know a huge amount about the cultural practice of tempering if I'm honest but you know, there is certain trends are found in different places and cultures they tend to favor maybe crushed quartz or sand or whatever it might be. The only thing is sometimes with seashells, crushed seashells and things like that, they can actually degrade over time and also certain rocks like limestone if you've used that. It degrades over time and kind of absorbs water into the wall of the pot and that can also cause cracks over time. So yeah, you can have a pot that looks great and then over time the temper that you've added in can actually be absorbing, you know, moisture and things and it can actually eventually lead to breaking your pot. So some tempering practices that were done in the past did actually have that sort of property to it. So yeah, it's interesting how they would sometimes use that but it's not always the case.

19:28Yeah. So hopefully we might even be able to see that if we see that some of the dragons are maybe, you know, starting to crack a little bit then maybe we could say what sort of temper. Okay. Okay. So we can see things like temper potentially. What sort of is there anything you mentioned there's lots of things that we can see. Well, I reckon we can also have a we look at the surface decoration on the pots on the dragon figurines. So I'm guessing they're sculpted little figurines that we have in front of us and I think they'll probably also have impressions or lines and things drawn on them to look scaly and dragony, you know? So we can probably see the tool marks and yeah, you can look closely at tool marks and with a bit of practice and a bit of experience, I suppose, you can start to figure out which tools might make similar marks. So if you're trying to make a reconstruction or something of a pot or a dragon figurine as it may be, you could at least use a similar tool, but you don't know if it's identical unless you maybe got out, you know,

20:33microscopes and did absolutely detailed really close up views of the sort of tool marks left and things like this, but you can at least visually see if you've got a mark that looks at least similar to what was done on the archaeological piece. So something like you might take a piece of cordage and press it into the clay, what they did on the bronze age and neolithic beakers and things, so kind of tell it was definitely a cord that was pressed in, you know, that's quite obvious. In other times, it might just be a pointy tool that's been scraped through the clay, but you can try and get the right sort of width of pointy tool, you know, and the right sort of depth of cut, things like that can be quite important if you're making replicas. You sound like you have quite a lot of experience with experimental archaeologists do that. I don't know how to tell as well. Yeah, I think it would be a really cool thing to, you know, if these dragon figurines were here, we could be making a replica of them.

21:33I don't know about bringing them to life if we made our own dragon figurine. I don't know how the magic of them works, but I'm sure we can find out. I'm sure we could like chat to Prometheus or something. Yeah, yeah. Just dragons like a couple of streets up, right? So yeah, he's just been a big clay host. Like around a banana bread and, you know, yeah, I make a crack in banana bread. Yeah, there you go. Okay, you're on banana bread and we'll want to play. I'm going to play. I'll start my sweet talking. He's not a fan of Terry Pratchett out here. Oh, no. Everyone is a fan of Terry Pratchett. They just aren't realising, yeah. We don't know. All right, so we can look at the material, we can look at the decoration. So for example, I mean, you mentioned that you make a lot of like medieval replicas and things. So what kinds of information do you try to get to know about the portal, the original, I guess, artifact before you start replicating it? I think the first thing I normally look at is the colour of the clay, the tempering, like I was just seeing. So I'll have to prepare the right clay for the project so you can tell if it's red or

22:36buff coloured or, you know, you can get that basic information just by visually looking or reading, it normally tells you in a book or a report or something, what colour it was. And then the next thing is the dimensions. So this is where I love the people that do the archaeological illustrations and things like this, because they are incredible for making replicas, because they've normally got the sort of dimensions of the different parts of the artifact and then they'll also give the profile of the ceramics quite often. So they'll give the sort of thickness of the base and then how even the wall is and the shape of the rim and things like this. So it's almost like a silhouette of if you'd cut the part in half, it gives you that sort of profile of the edges and walls and everything of it. Yeah, like a proper ceramic typology and you've got those like rows of, basically lines but they're all in a very specific shape, but I'm such a nerd for those I love.

23:40I've got a painting on my wall like that, so yeah, I'm sorry. Amazing. Okay, so you need to find out shape, size, colour and ingredients, okay. And then those sort of illustrations of the parts often show how even the walls are or not and that can give an idea of how it was made. So in this case of the figurines, we can't cut into them because they're living things. So we're not going to cut into them and thin section them, which is one way to find out if it was wheel throw or coil built because you can see that when you cut into the pot. But in this case, we can't do that. So we're going to have to do a bit of looking just at the surface of the objects and have a look for things like concentric lines that seem quite orders and even, which could be an indication of wheel throwing because as you throw the clay, your fingers just move up and leave little traces of lines as you go.

24:40So that can be quite a good indicator of if something wheel thrown and it tends to be pretty even walls and quite round as well, quite sort of even shape. But sometimes potters are pesky and they take a tool and they can actually take away those throwing lines. So it can be not smooth and neat and then you've got nothing, it's not good yet. Or it could be quite a lumpy piece, it could be a bit more uneven, a bit more variation and thicknesses and the edges and things. So that could be an indication that it might be hand built. So coil built or pinch pottery or something like this. But then again, people can be very skilled at hand building as well. So they can make an incredibly even pot even if it's hand built. So we can have a good guess at how it was made, but yeah, there's not always a clear line just depending on how much skills involved I suppose. I mean, this is already far more than I was getting started doing this because yeah, I have

25:42no idea about things like pottery. And I mean, I guess also the final thing you mentioned before in last episode was the glaze, which means they're a way to, because this is something that has always amazed me as the glaze is different color before it goes into the kiln compared to when it comes out of the kiln. Like, it looks different, which I just, my dad is also a potter and I can't, it's something that I can't get my head around. Is there a way to know when you look at a glaze, what it's original color was, what kind of material it comes from or anything like that? Not necessarily, but I suppose if you're looking at the color of the finished glaze, chances are in the past, they're using things like oxides, so you know, the sort of pigments that form geologically with rocks and things, I'm not a geologist, so don't ask me to define what an oxide is. We say things with enough confidence, people just believe in themselves, yeah, geologically forms, yeah, it's midrills, it's midrills, yeah, minerals, that's the hard one. So they're probably using things like oxides, so you know, things like green glazes, there's

26:46a good chance there might be copper involved or things like that as well. Yeah, you can get an idea just by a bit of knowledge about the colors, the oxides and things producing glazes, what's likely involved in terms of colorants, but then there's lots of other things go into glazes, so there's things like it's normally silica base, so there's going to be things like crushed quartz again that go into glazes or very finely ground sand or rock minerals, and you might have different clays that go in as powders, so a glaze end up being a liquid form normally, so you'll just have a big bucket of minerals and colorants and things like this that form the glaze, it's basically a vat of liquid glass, it will ultimately become glass, pretty much, that's what brains is, that's what brains is, okay, so it's a tricky one if you're just visually looking at the glaze that's on an archaeological pot and you haven't done any chemical analysis or anything, I suppose as

27:46someone who's just making replicas, you're just aiming to make a glaze that looks visually similar, or as close as you can get, yeah, without that chemical analysis you can't really know if you've got the same composition or not, I suppose, I wonder if we could do XRF on the figurines to just, well they're probably not because you probably, I don't know if XRF even works on ceramic glazes, is this something I should know, because I did a lot of work, I feel like it does, but don't quote me on that, I think it depends because I know that you can definitely use them to look at like different stone types and different like paintings to see the paints use, but I wonder whether something in the glaze, the sort of sealant, you know, or something, might affect the ability of XRF machines to fix something up XRF by the way, of course, as we all know from, I think we've done an episode on XRF, is X-ray fluorescence, so bombarding, as with everything, with artifact analysis, you bombard your sample with various different kinds of X-rays and depending on

28:49what comes back, shows you what kinds of, what they're called, elements are present in the sample that you're bombarding, so there you go, that's my incredibly simplified overview of XRF analysis, it sounds like we need to do a lot of experimental archaeology, basically, in order to be able to properly catalog these little figurines. I was also thinking they're alive, right? Yeah, can they communicate? They can, if they want to. We could ask, we could ask how they're made, couldn't we? Yeah, oh my god, it's mine, you know? Oh my god, we can't need archaeology, we can't afford to have all these nuts I got. Where's that room to ask how they're made? Wait, hi, you little living guy, can you tell how you're made? But we can know, because surely they're not alive when they're being made. Well, you can ask them, do you feel a little bit crumbly in the inside? You're like, yeah, I do actually, are you quite old? Yeah, but you feel shiny? Yeah, a lot of quartz if you don't, do you feel that there's some sand in you?

29:52I don't know, any dung, any dung, any dung, any dung, any dung, any dung, any dung, any dung, any dung. Are you shit? Yeah, are you true? Are you who's true? Are you supposed to be made of food? Okay, what did you just call me? Like, do you reckon they could fire themselves as well? We could have abandoned them, sir. Oh wow, they could have dragged through it, and now they're dragging? Oh, I think grooming, this is, yeah, they're doing grooming activities. My goodness, we could watch these little guys forever. Isn't dragon fire going to be super hot? Like, if they want them with pottery firings, you want to start super slow, and you slowly heat it, and then you get hot, and then you slowly cool, because you don't want cracks forming, right? So these are going to have to be incredibly well-tempered pots, so with some dragon fire, if they're firing other dragons into life or whatever, you know? They just have like a troll of their fire that year. Yeah.

30:52Okay. Oh my gosh, we should totally, oh, wouldn't that be adorable though? A little, they have like a mini stone circle, and they just do like a little firing thing all along. I want to write a book about this. Chris, do you think you're listening? Oh, I think you're not. Can you write a children's book about this? I mean, I try to remember, actually, whether they mention anything about that in the books. I can't remember. It's a whole series. It's like four books in the series. So listen, if you're familiar, do let us know. If there's anything like that. What, we've sorted it then. We basically just asked them. Yeah. Sorry. Man, we called you for absolutely no reason. Oh, yeah. Good. I'm happy to talk about clay anyway. Well, thank you anyway for coming and helping us out with this particular problem. We very much appreciated you coming on. Is there anything before you go back on your way? Because, you know, we don't need you to apparently. That you would like to share with our listeners, perhaps I don't know any upcoming projects or anything you feel they should know about? Well, I suppose I've got a few things coming up this year.

31:55I've got some living history demonstrations I'm doing of sort of medieval pottery. I've got some Iron Age pottery. I'm going to be doing down at the Chalk History Festival in the south of England. So a few different time periods. And yeah, I'm just always making pots from replicas. So always lots of fun. Always lots of claying. Clay fun going on at the Bob Boy Workshop. How can people best find you? So I have a website, it's bogborn.com. And then I've got social media, Instagram, Facebook, which is at bog born crafts. Perfect. And as, of course, we will definitely put them in the show notes. Well, again, thank you so much for joining us. We've definitely learnt a lot. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, fun. Well, thank you to you listeners as well for joining in on this admittedly, slightly tangential quest. If you enjoy these episodes, as always, please do like, subscribe, follow wherever you get your podcast. It really helps to support the show. Also, if you're interested in hearing more archaeology content,

32:57make sure to check out the other shows on the archaeology podcast network. As always, any episode ideas or just one to get in touch, you can find all of our contact information, as well as links and further information on what we discussed today and on how to keep up with whatever Emma's doing in the show notes. By the way, Tilly, you'll need to bring your trail with you for the next quest. Oh, OK, let me just grab it. Here it is. Know your archaeology trail, your plot strings trail. Thanks for listening to this podcast. The archaeology podcast network's chief editor is Rachel Rodin. Our executive producer is Ashley Erie. Our social media and newsletter coordinator is Matilda Sebrecht. The APN was founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle on December 1, 2014. We're supported by our amazing podcast hosts, many volunteers and listeners like you. Check out membership at www.arcpodnet.com slash members. This has been a presentation of the archaeology podcast network. Visitors on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.arcpodnet.com.

33:57Contact us at Chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.