A bit of fun!!

Butser Ancient Farm is many different things, it is an Open air museum where the public can learn about the Prehistory and Roman history of Britain. It is an education provider, teaching school children through hands on activities about British history. It is a site of scientific research, exploring the many questions we have about our past.

It is also the best place to work as it allows me to have fun like this!

Look closely at my feet.....can you guess what I am wearing? (Havey, 2015).

In the autumn of 2013 I brought a set of prehistoric ice skates made from the toe bones of a cow on the promise of the seller of a harsh winter......... it did not happen, so these two skates have been sitting around idol for some time.

The afore mention ice skates that have been gathering dust and  suffering neglect (Watts, 2015).

Today however was my day to try them out! As I got into work this morning it was bitterly cold, the thermometer in the Janus building said -2! So as I walked around site to open up the site I noticed that not only were all the animals waters frozen over but there was ice in the two log boats that we have at the farm........... an idea started to form!


So I strapped on the ice skates (after some confusion as to how to do this) and I stepped foot on the ice! Not knowing what to expect, the skates felt very natural to stand on, on the ice, and I felt very secure....... though as I found out the ice was not as thick as I thought it was on one end of the puddle in the boat!

It didn't matter, I was bitten by the bug and I had another log boat filled with water to to try and skate on! This time the ice held and I comfortably managed to keep skating on the frozen Prometheus. It was great fun and although did not answer any archaeological questions it helped show people that these two bones that I have had lying around for years actually are ice skates!

A brief article about the archaeological finds can be found here.