Bryn Celli Ddu Open Day

Sometimes, social media actually does something good. Keeping an eye on things I had seen that both GeoMôn and James Dilly, the experimental archaeologist, would attend an open day at Bryn Celli Ddu, arguably the most famous Neolithic monument in North Wales. That sounded fun! And Neil is borderline obsessed with the sort of work that James Dilly does, so he didn't need any encouragement to go there.

We arrived at the normal parking lot, to the west of the actual monument. We were early enough to be able to park there. When we got to location, we saw Dei getting his stall ready. Other people were already active. I could see James in the distance, and there were clearly more experimental people; next to Dei was a bloke making swirly decorations in stone, like what you could see on a standing just outside the actual burial mound. We could see that today, you could actually park on the other side. 

Dei with his GeoMôn stand

Swirly pattern man

We had a nice chat with Dei, and then had a look at the man with the swirly patterns. He had also brought several axes. Neil was mesmerised. 

Then we made our way to James’ setup. I let them chat away while I admired everything that was going on in the tent. Axes, spears, swords (he does both the Neolithic and the Bronze Age), jewellery, buckets, bellows, antlers, whatnot. I loved it! 

A bit later he would do a demonstration, but now we left him to it. There was more to see! Next door were two ladies in Neolithic outfits doing textile work. One was making a net. We talked about flax and nettles and how you make thread with that. One of them was wearing a nettle dress. Fascinating! 

We also went into the mound itself. Neil had never been! And then the demo started. This was all about making a stone hand axe. We had seen that before! But it was still impressive to see how he starts with a big lump of rock, and within 20 minutes has a usable axe. And he talked about why you would want to polish them. Not just for good looks! And gave a lot of background information. He knows his stuff.

Knapping

When he was done we looked at the other things going on; there was a potter there, and another textile lady who was working with wool. 

There would be another demo; this one about casting bronze. We make sure we had had some food and drink before that, and put our warmest clothes on, as it was windy. And we said hello to another James; this was one of our students who will graduate this summer. After summer he will start a Welsh language PhD in our school. It will be great to keep him for a few more years.

The bronze casting was exciting as well! Neil had seen it all before; he had even done it himself. But he was quite happy to see it again. 

Casting the bronze

When that demo was over we were almost Neolithically saturated. We admired a bloke we had seen at the Vikings talk blow a Bronze Age horn, said goodbye to Dei, and made our way back.

Bronze Age horn blowing

As we were on Anglesey anyway, we decided to tag on a little visit to Lleiniog beach, to see the amazing sediments we are dragging the students to every year. So we did! And it turned out that Neil had been before, but he had never really paid attention to the sediments. He agreed that they were spectacular. And then it was time for us to go home. It had been a good day all around!