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.
Have the megalithic structures found in the artisans quarter of the gallo-roman city of Alesia really been used for the smelting of metal or enamel (FR)?
Experimental archaeology found that the most probable use of these structures was as heating ovens for clay-moulds being used for the smelting of bronze in the so called “lost form”...
How many parish churches existed in Denmark in the Middle Ages (DK)?
In total there were 2,000 stone churches, all built between 1150 and 1250 AD. In libraries in Denmark you will find books about them...
How many people lived in the Netherlands in prehistory (NL)?
Estimations of population numbers in the Netherlands in prehistory are based in information from ethnography, burial places, traces from settlements and many assumptions...
Was the castle meant as well for defending (NL)?
A medieval castle - like the one from Eindhoven - often was the house in which the Lordship lived. Often it was the only stone building in the area he owned...
How did they warm the houses in the early Middle Ages (NL)?
With wood and turf. A hearth can be found in virtually all excavated houses. Often this is a round spot with a lot of charcoal and orange burned clay. The hearths sometimes were constructed on small platforms...
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...
What kind of weapons did people use in the Middle Ages (NL)?
Weapons were both used when hunting, in a fight and at war. Many items can be used as weapon, in an impulse, but I think you refer to tools specifically made to hunt with, to hurt or to kill, to threat with or to use in fight sports or tournaments...
What kind of religion did people practice in prehistory (NL)?
On base of archaeological finds only, it is hard to reconstruct the religious beliefs of the past. Many aspects of it, like stories, songs and most rituals do not leave any traces in the soil that we can recover today...
Was it really true, in the Iron Age, men hunted and women cooked the food above a camp fire (NL)?
Surely there was a set division of tasks between men and women, more traditional then nowadays. Probably, inside the house, the women were in charge, men outside. Contrasts were important; air - earth, inside - outside, north - south...
Are baking plates, typical for the middle and late Neolithic cultures of western Europe also known from the younger Neolithic (FR)?
Baking plates are known from the Cerny- und Chassey-cultures, the Bourgogne middle-Neolithic and the Michelsberg-culture, ca. 4500-3500 BC). Their use seem to stop abruptly around 3500 BC caused by another way of baking bread. Maybe from this time onward, people used to bake directly on hot ashes, hot stones, pots or the inner walls of furnaces...