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Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
18 September 2026
Hi Rachel, I have looked for more photos of you, but that was not very successful. I found a link on...
Guest - Beatrix Sprang Discussion
15 September 2026
That lozenge pattern element is not a photograph, but a scan. So it should be to scale. But I pinned...
Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
15 September 2026
I was not referring to Rachel's reconstruction (is the reconstruction you refer to the one photograp...
Guest - Beatrix Sprang Discussion
14 September 2026
There is something Rachel did not mention. She told me: "Well, I worked with the measurements we too...
Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
14 September 2026
Well, this is certainly developing into an interesting discussion. Firstly, going from that lovely l...

Spindle Whorl Hit and Miss.


After showing you the dead whorls yesterday, it's probably time to also show you the survivors - so here's part of the yield, hanging out in a basket and feeling decorative:








By now, the whorls have all been weighed and are sorted in boxes - they range from below 8 g to almost 70 g in weight. The heavy ones are modeled after prehistoric whorl finds - and yes, it is astonishingly hard to match a given size and shape, as you can see here:







I find it really hard to make some shapes, among them the longish ones and the ones with a sort of T-profile. Roundish or double-conical is much easier for me, and I'm wondering if someone else would have a different experience, or if there's some special technique to making these other shapes easily. You can see in the picture that I didn't really match the original shape of whorl no. 14 - even though I tried really hard!




In some cases, with some shapes, I am quite happy with how close I got, though. Like with this one:







As a final note, it might amuse you that I managed to get only a few whorls within the weight range I was mostly aiming for - while I happened to (again) hit spot-on a few other ranges with a lot of whorls. If this continues, I might have to make a sale for these weight ranges!

1
Elections are coming up!
Exploding Whorls and Salamander Snacks.
 

Comments 1

Kathryn Leroux on Thursday, 16 May 2019 15:13

They look great! It's really cool how you reproduced the ancient shapes.
Your dedication to your craft and historically accurate reproduction is inspiring, but...
Watching you firing them, I couldn't help but comment that "the crazy neighbor lady is making a fire on the front lawn again!" LOL.

They look great! It's really cool how you reproduced the ancient shapes. Your dedication to your craft and historically accurate reproduction is inspiring, but... Watching you firing them, I couldn't help but comment that "the crazy neighbor lady is making a fire on the front lawn again!" LOL.
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Monday, 21 September 2026

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