Dunmanway Horn
Using archaeometallurgy to make a replica of a LBA horn
To produce his work, Holger brings the Bronze- and Iron-Ages alive by using experimental archaeology to cast bronze sculptures in the lost-wax process. Appropriately, his studio is only two miles from Mount Gabriel where some of the oldest copper mines of North-West Europe are located. Often used in a journey or workshop context, he investigates the relationship of the local archaeology and landscape by working with charcoal-fired and leather-bellows operated pit kilns, often to produce archaeology-inspired work. Using local materials, sustainably produced charcoal and recycled bronze makes the process itself carbon neutral, offering sculptors and crafts people an environmentally sustainable, inexpensive and low-tech approach to producing their own sculpture or jewellery.
The tradition of cast bronze horns developed in Ireland in the Bronze Age. They are masterpieces of early metalwork although much of their casting methods remain speculation. Holger has been working with the experimental archæology project Umha Aois since 2008 to resolve many of their mysteries. No archaeological artifacts of the process itself have been found yet. A definite conclusion about the actual method of casting has to be established and relies on close analysis of the horns (Holmes, 1978 and O'Dwyer, 2004), other archaeological evidence and experimental/practical approaches.
The tradition of cast bronze horns developed in Ireland in the Bronze Age. They are masterpieces of early metalwork although much of their casting methods remain speculation. Holger has been working with the experimental archæology project Umha Aois since 2008 to resolve many of their mysteries. No archaeological artifacts of the process itself have been found yet. A definite conclusion about the actual method of casting has to be established and relies on close analysis of the horns (Holmes, 1978 and O'Dwyer, 2004), other archaeological evidence and experimental/practical approaches.
