Jet (lignite)

Abstract: Archaeological illustration has changed enormously in recent years, with inked-up plans a thing of the past with the advent of an array of digital tools and programmes. Despite all that, the need to produce an illustration of high quality that accurately reproduces an object remains paramount. This necessary combination of accuracy and aestheticism - we should appreciate both object and illustration - has inspired this handbook. It presents a series of drawings of objects made from a full range of materials accompanied by discussions of the types of illustration most suited to that object-type, the manufacture of the object, how it was drawn and suggestions for further reading. Organised by material, the guide covers objects of bone, ceramic, glass, jet and shale, leather, copper alloy, gold, iron, lead, carved stone, flints and wood, and includes a Roman knife and comb, Ming porcelain, medieval floor tiles and roof finials, Roman and medieval glass, a Roman shoe, Bronze Age dress-fasteners, iron shackles, Scottish carved slabs and an Iron Age wooden shovel. As was Melanie Steiner's intention, the handbook promotes respect for both the skill of the original craftsman and that of the archaeological illustrator.

Abstract: Jewellery from Bronze Age graves is normally interpreted as a symbol of status. Howevr, materials like jet, amber, faience and tin were also worn as talismans, writes Alison Sheridan When archaeologists found the 4,300-year-old burial of an archer and metalworker at Amesbury in Wiltshire last year, they knew at once that they were looking at the remains of a great Bronze Age chieftain. The astonishing wealth of the possessions found in his grave declared him a man of power. This was, quite simply, the richest early Bronze Age grave ever found in Britain, with some of the country's earliest known items of gold. Included among the man's 100-odd possessions were a pair of gold hair ornaments, three copper knives, a shale belt-ring, archery equipment and arrowheads. No wonder he was described in the media as the 'King of Stonehenge'

Abstract: Viking jewellery of polished black stone is too readily labelled as jet, implying E-coast contacts to North Yorkshire. Analysis of Scottish material (predominantly bangles) shows that here jet was rarely used. Instead a range of more readily available materials, primarily lignite and cannel coal, was favoured. These suggest contacts to Sutherland and down the western seaways to the Firth of Clyde and perhaps Ireland. The ornamental habit itself was not a Viking one in origin, and they probably acquired it from contacts with indigenous groups in the source areas.

Abstract: From the late second century AD to the end of the fourth century AD, black, shiny materials were popular in Britain and the Rhineland for the production of jewellery. In the past, in the absence of accurate, detailed analysis, all these products, irrespective of composition, have invariably been described as being made of 'jet'. A project at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, has used the non-destructive technique of reflected light microscopy to identify the various black materials used by the Roman craftsmen. Long used for petrographic studies of coals and fossil fuels, this technique has proved very suitable for the analysis of small artefacts. The project initially focused on black objects from the area of Hadrian's Wall but was extended to look at objects from Rhineland sites as well as finds from other parts of Britain and the Continent. The project has revealed that a wide range of 'jets' and shales and varieties of coal from a diversity of geographical sources were used, and that t...