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Draco reconstructions
#16
That's probably why I said "could be" instead of "is." Nor was I making any assumption about color. I was merely offering a possible explanation. Not all the colors on the St. Gall Psalter are fantastic or unlikely, after all. There's brown dirt, green grass, and though the horsemen look a little pale, none of them are blue.<br>
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There are medieval depictions of copper alloy armor with a green color (and iron armor with a red color, as I recall). and it's quite possible the St. Gall draco had simply turned green over time. Not everyone kept their equipment up like the Romans, you know...<br>
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Gregg <p></p><i></i>
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#17
Hi Gregg,<br>
In answer to some of your remarks, here they go some more remarks...<br>
1. You cannot take too seriously when on an ancient (or not so ancient) report they state that an item is made of 'bronze' or of 'brass'. The most correct approach to the problem is to understand it -unless modern analysis have been made- simply as 'copper alloy'.<br>
2. The narrowing form of the palate was surely intended to be connected to the narrow tube forming the body of the carnyx. No airflow lost then. I have no idea on how wind instruments do work and maybe if somebody reading this does have, we would thank some help on this respect!<br>
3. The Numantia 'bugle' cannot be by any means termed as a 'carnyx'.<br>
4. You cannot dismiss the 'dish' as not being part of the Deskford object simply because it does not fit your ideas about it!. There is no hint on the report about items not belongin to the object in the find. The 'dish' belongs to the head. What the XIXth century scholar says is just that the diameter of the 'dish' is slightly bigger than that of the back of the head. A missing middle part would account for the difference. I know that it is too easy to resort to missing parts to fill the gaps but it is clear that objects deposited in the bogs were previously ritually killed and not all the parts were deposited. You can find many examples in the contemporary Jutland deposits.<br>
5. The attachment system in the Niederbieber draco is as straightforward as two holes, one on top of the other, transfixing vertically the head. Nothing similar is present on the Deskford head (or are you going to resort to a missing section now ? )<br>
6. By Mithra's sake, Deskford is in Scotland, not in North England. A carnyx would be there as much at home as a draco inside the Roman Empire! (if you start saying things like that, maybe some Scots will start thinking of making haggish of you! )<br>
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Aitor <p></p><i></i>
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.

Rolf Steiner
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#18
Howdy Aitor<br>
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I'll answer these numerically...<br>
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1. I believe modern analysis has been done to determine the piece was made of brass with one bronze attachment. That's how it was described by the guy who headed the recent excavations and did the reconstruction. He also acknowledged that the brass construction dated it to the Roman era. Smith described every part of the find as made of bronze, which was a fair assumption on his part, since he was at the time assuming the part was native pre-Roman.<br>
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2. Since the palate piece is only 4 1/2 inches long, and is connected, at the back, to the jaw hinges (terminating just in front of the eyes), there's no way any part of the "horn" could connect to it. For the horn to connect to the palate as you suggest, the entire head would have to somehow slip over the end of the trumpet stem (which would have to continue in past the eyes), and the end of the stem would then connect internally to what was basically a half-circular bit of ribbed bronze. A half-circular bit of ribbed bronze that narrows downwards to a point, I should add. What this would do to any sound the trumpeter was trying to make, or how any sound would be made for that matter, is beyond my imagining.<br>
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On the one doubtless ancient depiction of a carnyx (the Gundestrup cauldron) we see a long-stemmed trumpet that swells outwards near the top, but with an animal head instead of a bell. The mouth of the animal head is wide open so as not to hinder the outflow of air (which is also possibly why there is no tongue depicted). The modern Deskford carnyx reconstruction, as I understand it, was put together based on the idea of a long-stemmed battle trumpet, like the Gundestrup carnyx, but on the reconstruction the trumpet swells out and actually forms a bell, and the animal head is connected to this. Very different than the Gundestrup carnyx. In fact, on the modern reconstruction they added a few inches of bronze tube to the back of the head (to accommodate the ears). You can see this clearly on the picture of the reconstructed carnyx posted above. This is considerably different than the carnyx as depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron, where the trumpet stem swells normally and then terminates in the head instead of a bell. In fact, the head is little more than an open mouth.<br>
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3. My mistake, I was under the impression that the carnyx was an animal head war horn. So is a long vertical trumpet a better definition, or does the carnyx have to have an animal head?<br>
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4. It's not far fetched that the dish/disc object isn't part of the animal head. Further excavations of the site revealed a number of other deposited items including, among other things, a pot and some broken Roman ceramics (Samian ware). Other items, judged to be from the same period but not the same deposit, included small copper alloy items, some riveted together. It seems over all to be a very poor votive deposit site, in fact. Pottery shards, animal bones, bits of scrap metal... The animal head almost seems out of place. That the dish/plate was simply more deposited scrap metal can't be dismissed. Remember, though the Deskford find was discovered in pieces, all the pieces were present when found, and all the pieces were easy to reassemble, despite having been "killed." The dish/disc is the only part that doesn't fit the animal head, being an inch in diameter wider than the back of the animal head, and serving no clear purpose. The idea that there was some middle piece, wider at the back than the front (on a trumpet!), a piece for which there is no evidence whatsoever, is simply unbelievable. Again, we're left with the same problem. The idea that the only pieces missing from the Deskford find are the pieces that coincidentally the same pieces that are necessary to identify it as a carnyx, is just too far into the realm of fantasy for me.<br>
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5. Two holes? Hmm, you mean one at the bottom for the pole to go in, and one at the top as well? How big are they? Is the one at the top smaller than the one at the bottom? Would the pole through the head hinder airflow? I should note that there seems to be at least one rivet hole at the bottom of the Deskford head, near the bottom on the left towards the rear, that can be seen on one photo. There may or may not be others, I've never seen a drawing or photo that shows the bottom of the thing. I'm not suggesting this rivet hole was part of a system for somehow connecting the head to a pole, but it wasn't described by Smith, and I think a better description or more detailed photos might provide some crucial evidence.<br>
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6. Ooops, I should have said "Northern Britain." Though again, an animal head carnyx would be completely out of place in any part of Britain, in the Roman or any other era. There's simply no evidence for it.<br>
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Gregg <p></p><i></i>
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#19
Gregg,<br>
I'm afraid that we've reached dialectical stalemate<br>
We've told almost everything we had to say and, for me, it will be better to let the readers decide on their own. Here they go my last remarks (on the Deskford head, we can continue talking on the Niederbieber head, if you like!<br>
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2. The palate piece ends at its back in an almost circular section, just appropriate to inset there the prolongation of the main tube. The animal head was perhaps only a decoration without any real function. The depictions on the Gundestrup chauldron are too sketchy as to back any assumption on details, IMHO.<br>
3. As far as I reach, a carnyx is a long, vertical trumpet finishing in an animal head, but I can have a misguided idea...<br>
4. In a poorly documented find of a poorly known kind of artefact, you cannot decide so surely what belongs or what does not...<br>
5. No the two holes have seemingly the same diameter. Bear in mind that it could be deemed interesting that the draco head could revolve around the pole. In any case, better photos, better and complete drawings and a good description of the Deskford head are highly desirable.<br>
6. The Scots were of Celtic breed and weren't under Roman control, were do you see the difficulty for them to continue using carnyxes?<br>
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Aitor <p></p><i></i>
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.

Rolf Steiner
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#20
Aitor,<br>
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I agree, we’ve pretty much run through this subject as much as we can without reference to more recent archeological data (though if anyone on the list who lives in Scotland would be good enough to check out the original find and post a description, it would be greatly appreciated).<br>
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I’ll touch on one or two of your points briefly…<br>
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2. I’m not sure, I don’t have an Oxford English Dictionary handy at the moment, and that’s the one place I can think of that might have a scholarly definition with references. If we accept that a carnyx is a long vertical horn (usually defined as “Sâ€ÂÂ
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#21
Gregg,<br>
I think ('thinking' is somewhat different to 'positively knowing') that the pair of holes allowed the Niederbieber draco to revolve around the pole.<br>
The advertisement draco placed at the gate of our archaeological site has a head ca. 80 cem long an it revolves with the wind so easily that it is a problem, because the whole draco, when the wind is strong enough, gets positioned across the wind and no airflow inflates the tail!<br>
Maybe it would be more practical to get the head fixed to the pole and leave to the draco-bearer the task of orienting it.<br>
That question and the other one about the pole restricting the airflow, should be better answered by actual users of draco replicas.<br>
I used the term 'Celt' to mean generally 'Celtic Iron Age culture', a phaenomenon wider than the Roman Empire was.<br>
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Aitor <p></p><i></i>
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.

Rolf Steiner
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