Ice Axes

Freezing temperatures and snow means that ice axes can sometimes prove useful.

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The axe has been a powerful tool, both functionally and symbolically, through out much of prehistory.  The polished stone axe in the Neolithic (c 4000 – 2500 BC) clearly has a significance beyond the functional with highly polished examples, that clearly were never used for felling trees, but had circulated long distances.  Yet this belies the fact that in experienced hands the axe is an effective tool to fell and clear woodland, and as such has played a role historically in the transformation of many a landscape.

In the Copper Age / early Bronze Age in Britain c 2500 BC the first metal axes were cast in flat open stone moulds.  Some examples of Bronze Age axes we have in museums were recovered from bogs and / or rivers during the 19th and 20th centuries as parts of groups of objects.  They had been collected together into groups (often described as hoards) during the Bronze Age and deposited as votive offerings in bogs and rivers.  Thus in some cases, objects born of stone and fire were plunged seemingly forever into a watery death.

Inspired by bronze castings I have seen in recent years, and with low temperatures, I wondered if I could cast ice axes?

So I took a replica of a Bronze Age axe and used it to create templates of early Bronze age axes forms : the earliest Broad Butt forms and later more developed forms with more splayed cutting edges and a narrow butt.  I then used these templates to create snow moulds to cast boiled then cooled water into : I couldn’t resist some colour too !

The next morning a small collection of axes were removed from the mould. Collected together I now have a small hoard of ice axes.  As temperatures rise they will probably be gone in a few days time, unlike some examples from the Bronze Age in Britain which have lasted for 4500 years.

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Sun Voyagers

Sólfar by Jón Gunnar Árnason is a striking piece of art in the public realm known to many, often pictured back dropped by stunning sunsets.  Its graceful form undoubtedly evokes the Norse ships which brought settlers to Iceland.  Indeed, perhaps the name Sólfar (Sun Voyager) playfully refers to the much debated sunstones (sólarsteinn) potentially used to aid their navigation.

I was just relooking at the photos of Sólfar I took early one morning whilst exploring Reykjavik.  To my surprise I spotted other travelers on the prow and stern of the vessel which I hadn’t noticed when I was taking the photographs.  So intent was I on the art piece that I had shut my eyes to another important aspect of the landscape of Reykjavik.

These stowaways had no need for a vessel.  These perched Arctic Terns, called Sea Swallows by some, have a remarkable migratory cycle, travelling approximately 80,000 km a year to ensure better weather.

They truly are

Sun Voyagers.

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Ironically, later on that day, despite my inability to have spotted the Sun Voyagers on Sólfar, I spent time photographing the Arctic Terns as they flew playfully above Reykjavíkurtjörnin, one of the photos of which I have inserted above.