Replica Egyptian Canopic Jars

A set of canopic jars with their storage chest made recently for Maidstone Museum's educational handling collection.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

TV Props, Greek Bronzes Made From Clay

Usually the replicas that I make are recognisably ceramic, and if asked, I’d always say that I’ll replicate anything as long as it’s old and made from pottery, but when it comes to TV props things aren’t always what they seem. Recently I was contacted by Tern Television who were making a documentary for BBC2 entitled “Who Were The Greeks?”.  The two part mini series, presented by Dr Michael Scott of Warwick University, the program set out to highlight some little known aspects of life in ancient Greece and the ways that these still affect out lives today.  To do this, a number of specific artefacts were needed as illustrations, objects that were unavailable to the crew as they were in national collections.  So I set to making; Oil lamps to illuminate Greek silver mines; Ostraka showing the beginnings of democracy and a pot to carry sacred fire.  However the two most complex items that were needed weren’t ceramic at all, but bronze, but with the assistance of my wife Lynda Taylor, an artist, we were able to give them a bronze finish that did the job.  So here they are:

A treaty tablet documenting an alliance, of 100 hundred years duration, between Eleans and the Heraians of Arcadia. The original in now in the British Museum.

This Spartan Running Girl, 520-500 BC, sometimes called the Thigh Flasher,

found at Prizren, Serbia; possibly made in Sparta.

And last but not least, the pot, lamp and ostrakon.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk