House of Questions
Delphi House of Questions was an EU Culture 2000 project by three EXARC members. Under this umbrella, other EXARC members as well collected and answered the most frequently asked questions by visitors to archaeological open-air museums. The largest part of this collection of questions you can find here – as many of them still carry importance. In most cases we offer the questions both in the original language and in English. With several questions you will find illustrations by Savannah Parent.
How do you see the difference between an old and a new object (CH)?
There are numerous copied artefacts. It is quite well possible to copy prehistoric objects. For a layman it is especially in the case of flint objects difficult to see the difference between a copy and an original. Archaeologists however can generally speaking discern such "fakes"...
Did a Dutch 14th century city stink (NL)?
That is difficult to answer because: what is stinking actually? It smelled different in a medieval town than nowadays. Almost all houses had a fire place where wood was burnt. Poor people would burn turf (smells more)...
What did they eat at the Crannogs in Scotland (UK)?
We have found traces of spelt and emmer wheat on site and barley. Also, a wide range of nuts and berries, including cloud-berry, raspberry, strawberry, brambles, sloes and wild cherries. Hazelnuts are in great abundance. Wild carrots, wild cabbages, wild garlic and thyme, and meat from domestic animals such as sheep and cow. Butter and cheese were found, but So far no fish bones have been found, but we have net weights.
What were roofs made from during the Bronze Age (CZ)?
Remains of roofs are rarely preserved so we know little about them. They may have been thatched but at that time people did not grow corn with long stalks as rye later in Middle Ages and modern times and...
Did they use animals in the Middle Ages (NL)?
Domestic animals (dog and horse in Stone Age, the sheep with the first farmers, the pig, chicken with the Romans - roughly said) are wild animals which were domesticated by humans for own use...
Where did medieval people go to the toilet (NL)?
In the Middle Ages, every house needed to have a secrete (toilet). Ordinary folk usually had it in their back yard. Underneath, a hole was dug which regularly needed to be emptied. The contents was used by farmers as fertiliser...
How did people make fire in the Iron Age (NL)?
Roughly seen, there are two methods of fire making. The oldest way is the fire drilling: one mounts a wooden peg on a board of wood and rotates this peg quite fast. This way, the temperature rises where the peg touches the board...
What did people in the Middle Ages believe in (NL)?
The medieval people in Europe were Christian. They considered life as an earthly passage with death the gate which led to heaven. Real life started in heaven. To reach this...
Wooden castles, did they at all exist (DE)?
Apart from the prehistoric and early medieval large castles, all the way into the High and Late Middle Ages, there were wooden castles. Partly these were, like...
How did they put the wooden piles into the loch (UK)?
They sharpened the bottom end of the pile to a point using axes. They tied a cross piece of timber and attached it near the top. A person on either side of this cross piece could then twist back and forth to drive the pile into the bed of the loch.