Living history event gives fresh insight
into our ancient past
by Myles Hodnett
(Article dated: June 6, 2002)

Isla Paterson tries out the replica Orkney Hood, overlooked by the original garment in the Orkney Museum. (Orkney Photographic)

When experimental archaeologist Jacqui Wood was asked to recreate a replica of the Orkney Hood – a 2,000-year-old child’s cape found in the East Mainland – she predicted that new discoveries would be made about the ancient garment.

She was right, and her educated guesswork paid off with new insights tumbling out of the sky as the replica hood slowly took shape.

Jacqui was commissioned by the organisers of last weekend’s Minehowe Know How living history event to remake the hood.

The original and remarkably well preserved fringed woollen cape was found in a peat bog at Groatsetter in Tankerness, near the historic Minehowe site. This was back in 1867 and the rare find found its way into the hands of the National Museum of Scotland.

Radiocarbon dating techniques revealed that the hood was up to 1,750 years old, the same age as the Iron age Minehowe site.

It was at Minehowe and the adjacent Langskaill Farm, that Jacqui based herself at the weekend for Minehowe Know How. To coincide with the event, the hood is being exhibited locally for the first time in over 100 years alongside Jacqui’s replica. They’re on show at the Orkney Museum until September.

Jacqui, who also lists prehistoric cooking and ceramics among her skills, was in Orkney last year for a conference when she got talking to Arlene Isbister of Art Discovery, the prime mover behind last weekend’s event.

Among the Polish visitors at last weekend's event, were goldsmiths Wojciech Kochman and Michal Sekula and bronzesmith Zibby Dolski. Zibby, (pictured) was given the job of making a replica of the Minehowe door-knob spearbutt. Evidence of the mould for the piece was found at Minehowe by St Andrews Primary School pupils and local archaeologist Tom Muir during Channel 4's Time Team excavations. (Orkney Photographic)

“She said something about the Orkney Hood and I connected that it was the same hood I had seen pictures of,” recalls Jacqui, “so they commissioned me to make the hood.”

Her first stop was the museum in Edinburgh where Jacqui was allowed to take measurements and pictures of the garment. Armed with this information, she went back to her Cornish home and started work.

It proved to be a five-and-a-half-month task of discovery as new facts dawned on her about how the original cape was made and who made it.

Step one was the construction of a prehistoric loom before Jacqui got to weaving with half a millimetre single spun thread.

A report written in the 1950s had determined how the hood was made, but 40 hours into the job, Jacqui realised the method was not working because the chevron bands across the garment didn’t all match up with each other.

“Only by going to the incredible lengths, you really discover what it is really like,” she explained.

“I started measuring the bands and they were not fitting into the original measurements I had taken in Edinburgh. Some of the bands are spun ten rows per centimetre, some eight rows per centimetre, some nine rows per centimetre.

“There are four different thicknesses so some of the bands with more rows were narrower than the bands with less rows.”

There could only be one conclusion – Jacqui had discovered that four people had woven the original garment.

It’s finds like this, she said, that make such projects fulfilling.

“The project took five and half months and a total of 230 hours to actually make it. But it is fascinating to do something like that. It is as important to Britain as the Ice Man’s cloak is to Italy. We have not got any garments at all like this, only scraps if we are lucky.”

The quality of the original thread of the fringe also pointed to its very high status.

Jacqui believes the fringe possibly belonged to a chief’s garment and was recycled to make the child’s hood. Four eighths of a millimetre threads were spun together to make the half a millimetre thread used throughout the fringe.

“From my own impressions, a mother or father found a very nice quality piece of fabric and made the hood for a child,” she said.

Jacqui was also on hand during the weekend to demonstrate prehistoric cooking. Fish stew, lamb cooked in water heated by hot stones and beef cooked in a stone lined pit were among the delicacies on offer.

A Cree First Nations sweat lodge was built on the site where Cree ceremonies were performed; there were amber making and pottery demonstrations, as well as musical events, and a series of lectures.

The whole event brought together artisans, archaeologists, musicians and other specialists from as far afield as Lithuania, Poland and Saskatchewan.

The Polish team also recreated one of the gold discs found at the Knowes of Trotty in Harray using the same ancient techniques. (Orkney Photographic)

Organiser Arlene Isbister said a lot of the demonstrations, and the exhibition of the original Orkney Hood could not have been made possible without help from Orkney Heritage and it was planned to donate the replica hood – and the spearbutt, amber and gold disc artefacts made at the weekend – to the Orkney Museum.

Speaking on Monday she added: “We need now to take stock of everything. It is an interpretative project as well. We were trying to create artefacts and understand the artefacts better and bring to light interpretations archaeologists have suggested.”

The making of the replica hood proved that new discoveries can be made by using a hands-on approach.

As such, Arlene said she hoped the learning process would evolve, with Minehowe Know How continuing to shed new light on the past.