A piece on the onager experiment by students Hannah Rock and Lewis Beck:We are archaeology students from Cardiff University, undertaking a month’s fieldwork placement at Butser Ancient Farm. The farm is well known as a site for conducting experimental archaeology.As part of the national Day of Archaeology, the farm organised a ‘Try it Day’, where members of the public could participate in a variety of activities ranging from wattle fencing to stone baking bread. Our activity was to build and test a functional Roman style onager, rectifying the problems found in our first attempt.The onager, named after its donkey-like kick when it fires, is a siege engine developed in ancient Greece and later adopted by the Romans, which sources its power entirely through torsion. The basic framework for the onager is constructed from 4”x4” timber around a 48” x 27” frame with a 46” arm.The site’s original onager, which measures an approximate 10ft in height, faced two key issues surrounding both its ease of use and capability. Firstly, as the rope bundle would not hold high torsion, the siege engine would not fire particularly far in proportion to its large size. Secondly, those who used the original onager faced tremendous trouble cocking it to fire effectively. To conquer the torsion issue, pins would need to be installed to secure the torsion rods in place and prevent the bundle slipping. Furthermore, to amend the struggle of cocking the firing arm, a ratchet system would be installed to crank back the firing arm which would then be fired using a pin on the end of a string.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6jmr_u83swEven though we faced a fair few bumps during the construction of the onager, we managed to construct it just in time to fire on Try it Day! The catapult was set up, we were all dressed up, and the rotten apples were just waiting to be fired. However, there was one problem we were unprepared for; the sheer popularity of the onager amongst the kids. The system worked, firing time and time again in succession, achieving a greater distance each time as the torsion was further racked up. Then disaster struck, in the form of a child cracking the dowel on the firing mechanism. Halted for two hours, we scrambled to find an alternative but safe firing mechanism which would still let the children participate. As the sky broke and heavens opened, we settled for cocking the arm by hand and pinning it through two eyes screwed into the frame of the onager. Regardless of the rain, the children kept in high spirits and carried on participating. Interestingly, the rain aided us in our efforts by lubricating the bundle and dowels, in turn allowing torsion to be again increased, flinging apples further and further until it reached the end of the paddock.Overall, the project was a success and proved popular amongst kids of all ages, successfully introducing them to what you might term ‘experiential’ archaeology. Furthermore, once the dowel on the cocking mechanism is replaced, we aim to conduct some experimentation around the firing of the onager – testing different lengths of sling, and subsequently different firing arcs, to see which is deemed the most effective and efficient method of catapulting projectiles.
Welcome to the Butser Roman Summer!
The Butser Roman Summer kicked off with a bang this week, as we celebrated our first Toga Tuesday exploring the Roman home and kitchen. Visitors were able to taste real Roman food from our cook Janet and have a go at Roman chores using only materials available at the time, such as polishing silver and washing clothes. They also made their own clay oil lamps, herbal soap, bristle brushes, wooden pendants and much more.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our first Toga Tuesday - it was fantastic! The Roman Summer continues next Tuesday 8 August with our Weapons & Wardrobe day, where you can dress up as a Roman and hold real Roman weapons. We are open 10am - 5pm and standard entrance rates apply of £8 adult/£7 concession/£4 child/Under fives free. See you there!
All photos taken by our fantastic volunteer Eleanor Sopwith.
Another 'Try It Day' Success!
Last Friday we held our annual 'Try It! Day' event, as part of the Festival of Archaeology run each year by the Council for British Archaeology. It's always a fantastic day, with a range of archaeological and outdoor activities for all the family to take part in.This year our visitors made bread, bird feeders, wooden pendants, wove textiles, dug for artefacts, wattled fences, crushed chalk, tasted Roman cooking, watched blacksmiths at work, practised drumming, Stone Age painting and much more.We'd like to thank all our visitors for making it such a fabulous day, and we'd also like to thank all those who voted on our staff Archaeocake competition! As part of the Festival of Archaeology, we each took part in the Archaeocake baking challenge to create an archaeology-themed cake. The winner was Charlie, who baked an amazing Saxon house cake (below) - you can find all the other entries on our Facebook page here.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6jmr_u83sw[/embed]All photos (except the first) below taken by our brilliant volunteer Eleanor Sopwith.
The Bog Blog: Day 2
After days of getting down and dirty, our slaves were finally able to start construction on the latrine walls! Using the flint and mortar technique used on our Roman Villa, the latrine has been built up slowly and precariously, but don’t worry, we’re sure it will be stable enough to sit on!
Also, over the past couple of days, we’ve caught our slaves skiving off work to play the Roman board game latrunculi with our domesticated legionnaire, Larus Fucius Hispania. They’ve had so much fun playing it, that they might just end up incorporating it into the latrine itself as the Roman’s did themselves, so you can play while you poo! Watch this space...
The Rare Breeds Show
We had another fantastic day at the Rare & Traditional Breeds Show on Sunday! The show takes place each year at the Weald & Downland Museum in Singleton, and it's the perfect outing for anyone who loves livestock, rare breeds and rural life. Last year we took our youngest kid Sorrel to the show, and this year we took Sorrel (now grown up!) with her two male kids Hops and Burdock.It was also a great opportunity to catch up with our fellow members of the English Goat Breeders' Association, dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the English goat breed. English goats are a rare breed in Britain, and we are lucky enough to have six of them at the farm. They are a great dual purpose breed for milk and meat (although we don't eat ours!), so if you're interested in introducing a goat to your family or smallholding, we really recommend this breed.We also bought a brand new Manx Loaghtan ram to refresh our flock! He's a pedigree yearling called Norman, and is very handsome. Sorrel and Burdock each won 3rd prize in their categories, although Hops was a bit naughty and won 4th... Nevertheless, we are proud of them all and look forward to another lovely day next year! Hops is also still currently for sale, so do get in touch if you'd like a pet goat or a companion for your horse or sheep.
The Bog Blog: Day 1
Apparently, one of the most commonly asked questions about the Romans is: Where did they go to the toilet? So our student volunteers from Cardiff University, Hannah and Lewis, along with our archaeologist Claire Walton thought they’d show you first hand!After initial investigations into the dirty work of Roman toilets, we discovered that the average toilet stood at 43cm tall and as little as 30cm apart! To save such a close encounter and give the modern derrière some wiggle room, we decided to increase the distance to a more moderate 56cm instead. Such a gap however, had its downsides as it meant we had to create a three-seater latrine 181cm long, which meant some digging!
..and some more digging…
..and more digging….
When our slaves were all dug out we thought we’d be kind and let them mix some mortar, with the help of supreme leader Simon instead, ready for tomorrow’s antics!
Celebrating National Volunteers' Week
A big thank you to all the Butser Ancient Farm volunteers, this week and every week! It’s National Volunteers’ Week and organisations all over the country are celebrating their volunteers.Our volunteers come in many different guises. They are the regulars who come every Wednesday to help with physical work around the farm. They are groups who come from local businesses to give some of their time and skills to help with tasks that range from counting Roman mosaic tiles to daubing a roundhouse wall. They come to help with special events, including our major festivals like Beltain, or the Toga Tuesdays for this year’s Roman Summer. They are students, or retired, or people wanting to learn a new skill, meet some friendly people, work outside in our lovely site, or share their love of the past. They are all welcome and very much appreciated.Thank you to all the Butser Ancient Farm volunteers. We couldn’t do it without you!
Twin baby goats born at Butser!
We are delighted to announce the birth of twin baby goats! The boys arrived this morning and are the sons of our English goat Sorrel, who came third place in her category at the Singleton Rare & Traditional Breeds show last summer. English goats are a traditional breed in Britain and there are only 1800 individuals in the country.At just a few hours old, the boys are already exploring their paddock and tiptoeing out into the rain under Sorrel's watchful eye. Based on past experiences at the farm, the next few months will be full of mischief and mayhem as the two boys will find every opportunity to escape their paddock and explore the site.The boys have not yet been named but will probably go with Butser tradition and take a botanical name, like our other goats Sorrel, Yarrow and Comfrey. Now is the perfect time to visit the site and meet our new arrivals in the beautiful spring weather, as we are now open seven days a week! 
