A few months ago I received my first formal invitation to contributing to a blog. While drafting that invited blog entry, I finally decided that it was time for me to start my own blog.
I have always been hesitant with blogging, for a specific reason: I am not an English native speaker and find it quite difficult to write fluently in a language that is not my 'own'. Nonetheless, after years of hesitation, here I am, with my first piece written in inspiration a few nights ago. This piece takes the form of a diary; it is therefore quite emotional and reflexive. I promise that the next one will have (maybe) a more academic tone!
22nd of September 2016, 9:53pm: the kids are finally sleeping and I can enjoy a cup of tea while working a bit more at my computer; one blog entry to write and one paper to finish. But…I need to procrastinate a bit, and here I open my twitter account. To my surprise, by sheer serendipity, I find a tweet by @MAA Cambridge: “Follow the journey of our most famous hand axe over the next week to @GrobiusBau, Berlin”. The tweet ends with a nice hastag: #handaxetravels.
Many of you might not know this special object, but would
absolutely fall in love with it if you only saw it and got to learn its story.
This marvelous hand axe was knapped (i.e., created using a knapping technique)
around fossil shell about 100.000-10.000 BC, a period we call Palaeolithic, and
discovered in Norfolk, England.
Why am I so attached to this object? I am not usually a fan
of prehistoric stone tools, even though I should, considering the amount of
specialized work they required by our ancestors. Nonetheless, as soon as I
entered into the MAA, I was struck by this nice little thing, which is well
visible to MAA visitors from the main door. What impressed me the most the
first time I saw it, was the shell in the centre, which makes this axe so
unique and beautiful. I thought: “the person who made it was certainly a
beautiful soul; otherwise, why would she spend so much time knapping this tool
in a way so to keep the shell in the centre?”
I was at the MAA for a specific reason: to 3D scan a few
artefacts and use them for my Marie Curie project #DIGIFACT. This hand axe was
the first object I decided to scan. Now, I am here with my cup of tea, looking
at the photograph that highlights the amazing color variations and shapes of
this object and next to my cup I put the 3D printed replica of it… and feel a
deep sense of frustration, because my print comes with a greenish patina that
has nothing to do with the beautiful colors portrayed by the photo.
Then I touch my print and can feel the surface of stone, with some difference in texture between the knapped part and the raw part
(with the shell)…and I realize that the right side (right side on the photo) of
the axe is concave and makes it quite easy to hold the object with my thumb leaning
against this concavity. I bet the owner must have felt quite comfortable
holding and using this tool! Even though the shell could also make us believe
that the axe had a commemorative or ceremonial function, this concavity
on one of the sides leaves me no doubt about the function of this object: it
was definitely a tool.
It is time for me to go back to work, but I have the feeling
tonight that the hand axe, while going to Berlin, stopped by my flat for a cup
of tea. Here one of the #handaxetravels. Safe travels hand axe!
