By Sam Much, Jacob Forster Rothbart, Patrick Assali

“Before setting forth on that inevitable journey, none is wiser than the man who considers—before his soul departs hence—what good or evil he has done, and what judgement his soul will receive after its passing.”

Bede’s Death Song, translated by Leo Shirley-Price, our farewell to Two Sixteen

Introduction

This week we examined the process of cremation and pottery firing, both according to Anglo-Saxon tradition. The pottery firing was an exploration of the different techniques in firing, such as smothering the fire with greenery to create a reducing fire which gives Anglo-Saxon pottery its dark grey to black appearance. For the cremation, our main question was about the construction methods and shape of the funeral pyre itself. Using a whole pig, who we named Two Sixteen, we created a funeral pyre that combined elements from two previous experiments, McKinley 1994 and Wells 1960. Combined with our farewell, where both Bede’s Death Song and the Mourner’s Kaddish were performed, we truly experienced the whole depth of the rite of cremation.

Methods

Cremation

The design of the funeral pyre we constructed was an intermediate between the tipi-style bonfire proposed by Calvin Wells (Wells 1960) and the tall log cabin proposed by Jackie McKinley (McKinley 1994). It consisted of a low log cabin structure with the body on top, surrounded by a tipi of smaller roundwood. We used a pig body as a stand-in for a human body. This pig will henceforth be referred to as Two Sixteen. Two Sixteen’s body was smaller than the body of an adult human, so the pyre was scaled down accordingly.

The log cabin structure was a rectangle roughly 2.5 feet by 4.5 feet. Each layer in the long direction consisted of three parallel lengths of roundwood. This wood was relatively green, as it had been cut several days prior from the Carleton Arboretum. The short direction of the pyre consisted of a mix of roundwood (offcuts from the long-direction layers) and split firewood. This was repeated until the structure had three layers in the long direction and two in the short direction, resulting in a roughly knee-high structure. Brush and a few sticks of fatwood were then added into the gaps between the logs.

Two Sixteen’s body was transported wrapped in plastic and on ice. The butcher had shaved her body and removed her abdominal organs, but her body was otherwise intact. Two Sixteen’s body was transferred to a cotton blanket, used to simulate clothing. The blanket was folded and pinned with two brooch pins. Then Two Sixteen’s body was placed atop the pyre. Flowers were laid upon Two Sixteen’s head, less out of a desire for exact recreation than of a desire to give her a proper funeral. Also to this end, Bede’s Death Song and the Mourner’s Kaddish were performed over her body.

The final step of pyre construction was building the tipi. This was done to conceal the body and provide additional fuel. Some wood was placed directly on top of Two Sixteen’s body. The main part of the tipi consisted of long, wrist-sized and smaller sticks placed with one end on the ground and the other leaning on other tipi sticks. These sticks were added to all sides of the pyre. 

Then the pyre was lit. From this point on, no additional fuel was added to the fire; however, after it had burned down enough, the coals were consolidated and some of the still-burning wood was carefully shifted to on top of the partially cremated body. Unfortunately, due to fire risk, the fire could not be left to smolder overnight, so at the end of the lab period (1.5 hours after the fire was lit), the fire was spread out and drenched with water. Since portions of the body were not fully cremated at that point, Austin took them home and finished them in his backyard fire pit.

Bottom layers of the log cabin

The mid-section of the log cabin

Two Sixteen’s body on the log cabin portion of the pyre. 

Constructing the tipi 

Finished pyre, ready to be lit 

Pottery Firing

The pots and loom weights that we made in week 3 were split into three different groups and fired in three different ways. Group A+B fired their pottery in a reducing environment, by smothering with turf. Group C+D fired their pottery in the cremation pyre. Group E+F served as a control, firing their pottery in a normal fire without any additional steps (a mostly oxidizing environment).

The first step in the chaîne opératoire for all three methods was to preheat the pots. This is done to expel any remaining moisture and reduce the chance of breakage. Two small fires were built and the pottery was placed in circles around them. As they warmed, the pieces of pottery were periodically rotated and moved closer to the fire until they reached approximately 230°C.

The pots were then separated by group. Group C+D placed their pots in extra space in the funeral pyre past Two Sixteen’s head (this transfer happened during the middle of the tipi-building phase). Some of the pots were placed on the ground, others nestled within the log cabin portion of the pyre. Groups A+B and E+F stacked the remaining pots and loom weights over the beds of coals produced by the prewarming fires. They then constructed and lit a new fire over the stack of pottery, adding wood as needed. Group E+F allowed their fire to burn for an hour, then let it die and removed their pottery from the ash. Groups A+B smothered their fire with turf part way through the firing process.

Prewarming the pottery

Groups C and D’s pottery in the incomplete pyre (tipi material was later added to this side)

Group A+B constructing the second fire overtop a stack of pottery

Qualitative Observations and Conclusion

For the purpose of potentially reproducing this experiment, we made some important qualitative observations and conclusions. For one, with regards to the cremation part of the experiment, the fire burned far too intensely at first, before quickly dying down. This is also shown in the quantitative data which shows a sudden and sharp decrease in pot temperature for those pots fired in the cremation pyre which happened at about the one hour mark. It is not entirely clear why the fire quickly died down, which prevented the full cremation of Two Sixteen, but it seems as if the early intensity of the fire burned through much of the firewood fuel we had for the fire. The intention of the experiment was to allow the fire to burn for 60-90 minutes at about 800 Celsius. However, we did not manage to reach 800 Celsius for any significant amount of time, nor did we sustain high temperatures for a long enough time either. The final weight of the cremation remains, after a secondary cremation process at a different location, was roughly three percent of the original weight of Two Sixteen. This is slightly less than the estimated 5.7% proposed by McKinley 1994. Below are graphs illustrating the change in percent of bodyweight remaining and the remains in the pyre.

View the interactive graphs here and here.

Secondly, the pots fired in the cremation pyre were significantly different from the pots fired in the control environment (Groups E+F) and the reducing environment (Groups A+B). In both of these groups, the pots cracked at much higher rates. In addition, the pottery from these two groups appeared to be fully blackened or charred, which is the desired appearance of fired pottery. This is to be contrasted with the pottery fired in the cremation pyre (Groups C+D), none of which experienced cracking from firing (although one cracked when the pyre collapsed). At the same time, the cremation pottery did not exhibit a charred color, largely maintaining the clay’s original beige color which it exhibited before firing. This suggests one of two things: (1) that the fire failed to heat the pottery adequately or (2) that it did heat the pottery adequately but it did not sustain these high temperatures. The second possibility is suggested by the quantitative data collected from Groups C+D on the temperature of the pots in the fire, which shows the pots being heated in the cremation were at temperatures much higher than the other groups. Although this data could be inaccurate due to the intensity of the cremation fire which made it difficult for anyone to approach it to take accurate measurements for 20-30 minutes. 

Data Visualizations

Here are some further explorations of the temperature data collected on the pottery. Group F’s data showed the variability in temperature in the warming process prior to firing while Group D collected data on the temperature of the pots in the funeral pyre as they were fired. Group F also had two different types of clay and tracked the temperature of a loom weight.

Group F’s Data

Interactive Graph

Temperature of Funeral Pyre Pot

Interactive Graph

Sources:

McKinley, J.I. 1994a. The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham Part VIII: The
Cremations. East Anglian Archaeology Report 69. Dereham: Field Archaeology Division Norfolk Museums Service.

Shirley-Price, Leo. “Bede’s Death Song”, A History of the English Church and People. Penguin Books, 1955

Wells, C. 1960. A study of cremation, Antiquity 34(133): 29–37.

Group Data Reports