Since coming back from fieldwork I have slowly been sorting out stuff at home and in the labs. In doing so I came across this box given to me by Pete Yankowski at the Chorlton Arts Festival knapping session (see previous post).

As you can see it is full of treasure, however the thing that caught my immediate attention was the modern broken vase base, languishing at the bottom of the pile.

As you can see, it is both thick and has a way in, and so I spent a little time with this yesterday. A day earlier I had worked on another glass base, but hadn’t prepared the edges as well as necessary. Consequently I ended up with an artefact with a ‘step fracture island’ on one face, and some original surface left on the other. Most unsatisfactory! Consequently, I spent quite a lot of time on this one, turning the edges as well as possible.

This particular flake has a story. The reflective bit is a section of original surface that was sitting at the centre of one face, and it needed to go. Because I had spent time creating well prepared edges and platforms I was able to remove it with one accurate and hard blow of the antler hammer. This meant both faces were fully bifacially worked. Most satisfactory!

Anyway, the result is a small and wonky cordate handaxe. There are a couple of small step fractures that I could get rid of, but that would mean losing width, so I am going to live with them. Or should I say, Pete is going to live with them, as the handaxe and flake are now winging their way to him, as a thank you for the original box of treasure.