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.
What tools were used to work mammoth tusks, bones and so on? Did people use special tools for prehistoric art (CZ)?
We do not know about any special tools or more exactly we cannot recognize them. Prehistoric craftspeople and artists probably used tools common to their time; of course they could have had their own tools made especially for such use...
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...
Where did the raw materials fot the medieval blacksmith come from and how did they get to him (NL)?
Probably, there were already tradesmen in iron and coal. Iron came form Germany, Sweden and the UK. Here there are locations where iron ore is found at the surface. Coal came from Germany...
How would a 12 year old entertain oneself in the Middle Ages (NL)?
Well, in those days, as soon as it would even be possible, children had to give a hand at home, for example with raising the even younger children. Many of those things would nowadays be called 'child labour', but that was how it was...
What kind of jewellery did people wear in the Middle Ages (NL)?
Well, that depended on who you were. There were large differences in classes, between farmers, civilians, clergymen and the nobility.
Often jewellery was about your profession (if you were a man)...
How many people lived in a lake fortress (LV)?
Every dwelling house with its auxiliary structures was an independent economic unit. Each house would have been the home of one nuclear family, consisting of parents, children and grandparents...
Were there many parties in the Middle Ages? (NL)?
The image we have of the Middle Ages is often about the king at his castle, knights and ladies, jokers et cetera. But the truth was much different...
How could people live in these smoked through rooms (DE)?
Medieval people were used to the smoke, like the modern city people the exhaust smoke of cars. Furthermore we should suppose, in the Middle Ages people could make a fire with much less smoke then...
Did people already drink tea in the Middle Ages or Iron Age (NL)?
Drinking tea, why did people do that is the first question. Tea can be used as a medicine or as an intoxicating means. Besides that it serves as a ceremony. "Herbal tea" actually does not exist...
Could Romans read and write (NL)?
Only the rich were able to afford a private teacher (paedagogus). He would teach young Romans basic reading, writing and arithmetic. At an older age children had to learn famous Roman poems and epic stories by heart...