what type of axe did the frisians use (sorry for the repost)

Kevin Houtzager said:
Not in the slightest bit. There is a real time difference of roughly 700 years in between them. What happend in between with the axe evolution is everybody's guess
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700 years diffidence! but you said the frisians came to friesland in the year 800-1000 is that still true or was that a mistake . and your axes is from 800 to 1000 .
thank you
 
Square_peg said:
Just realized that isn't gonna show up for you guys. I'll get the html link posted.
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Kevin Houtzager said:
Or get me the FTP acces ;)
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shameonyou.gif


Try this.
http://cedarriverforge.com/Photo-index/axephotos/stubai forestry tool catalog.pdf
 
My understanding is that the Frisians are suspected to either be the descendants of the original West Germanic migrants or a mixture of those folks and later arrivals from Scandinavia, etc. As for the language, it is probably the closest of all of the Germanic tongues to the older less French/Latin influenced forms of English. When I try to read it, it looks like a Dutchman who only speaks little English but does not read it is trying to write in English. :D Apparently,most of those migration period Western Germanic languages were still somewhat mutually intelligible until some of the Germans stated handing out with Romans and Celts. Where it gets really weird is like in French where the pronunciation changed drastically over the centuries, but the spelling didn't. Not quite as bad as when the Latin alphabet was applied to the Western Slavic tongues, but almost.
 
Thank you gents for a fascinating discussion,Very interesting,i've learned much.

I've nothing of substance to add to the above,other than a few loose,general thoughts....:

I think that Kevin is very correct in stating just how under-forested the region in question is(ALWAYS a necessary point).However,the assumption seems to follow that an axe-any axe-is a "logging",forestry tool...In Europe,in most cases,it was not...
There was Vastly more wood Processing vs falling....

Also,very wise of Kevin to point to the scarcity of ores,et c.,in the region,this also usually is a good facet of historic research into tools.
However,it would surprise many just how sophisticated and modern those people were,this past millenium plus.
Just as today our topic starter Ti is looking to Buy this axe,vs learning to forge et c. :),so were they!
And they also,of course,had their Ebay-like,competitive source(-s).
One of the most famous-Hedeby(Haithabu)...(don't know if they accepted PayPal...:(

From all the wonderful info above it is becoming apparent that some French,Belgian,Flemmish axes were very similar....It is no accident,of course,but most likely points to the fact that they all stem from the same manufacturies,originally.
Probably somewhere along the Rhine...As,again,the "specialisation",that late in European history,was pretty rampant,and these people were far too practical,busy,pragmatic,et c.,to reinvent the wheel,and dink about with their own,inferior,ores,craftsmanship,experience,et c.
They simply "ordered" it,in quantity...

Thank you Kevin as well for those two lovely old axes....Vikings,of all people,were a particularly striking example of sophisticated shoppers of those days.They never particularly prided themselves on craftsmanship,considering the crafts inferior to Trading,the ultimate occupation,and (wisely) valued objects made by the regional "professionals" of the day,in this case the smithies along the Rhine valley for their superlative metalworking skills and wares.From way back in the time of the Merovingian dynasty and onward...

I say all of the above with 0 (zero) authority,being neither historian nor archaeo-metallurgist(more's the pity...).However,i do notice the often striking difference between the finer examples of tools such as Kevin's "viking" axes,and the village-smith versions of same....(as a smith i look for weird little signs,quality of welds,et c.)

But,yea,hey,thanks for this great thread!Cool linguistic note in the end,far out!...:)
 
:)

And,speaking of axes, Happy 4th of July to everyone!!!
(a special greeting,this,from an immigrant from a place so unspeakably foul that taking Independence for granted is not even an option,Ever!:)

In Ukraine,a friend there tells me,an axe has always symbolised independence.The place was mostly composed of agrarian communes,people working the sparsely forested land spread fairly thinly,so each household was somewhat vulnerable.
An axe came to represent that peaceful/but not tolerant of any nonsense attitude of those people,still found even today further toward the western,Carpathian,part of the land...
 
Thanks,Kevin!What an excellent map of trading centers!Just like a well-run corporation has set up a distribution network of it's products(in effect it had:)!
It is clear fro this map that the Low Countries were in the very center of the exchange of products and skills,and so their own,regional patterns would reflect what was the most practical,and useful.The survival of this pattern to our day also speaks volumes.
It is true that the evolution of axes over the centuries is often obscure and difficult to trace.
In my humble opinion,one of the methods that can help us with that is the evidence of the Marks left by the use of axes and other tools.
What do we have for Holland in terms of these?Well,right off what comes to mind is the superlative shipbuilding(of which there's a fair historical record),and the joinery of house construction...
Those magnificent wind-mills,so iconic for Holland,with their involved wooden mechanisms,how close do they date towards the end of the first millenium AD?
If not too close,still,the skills and the methods must have a relationship to the axe-like tools...
So,again,i believe that much can be learned from the types of joinery used by the peoples whose tools we may be interested in...
 
Kevin,sorry,i didn't make myself clear-what i meant were the marks on wood,left by the axe-work.
This type of forensics,you may say,is becoming an important part of the study of tool use...

Thanks for those historic notes.Yes,those wind,or water-driven sawmills eventually replaced the cleaved and hewn timbers of the past,and i'm sure reduced the variety of axes and adzes used previously.
But for the more detailed work,as well as for finishing,some edge tools had to remain.
In boatbuilding the finish functions as a part of the preservation,the longevity system,and so cannot be dispensed with.
The Dutch-such skilled and prolific shipbuilders-was it only in the second half of the millenium?How old are the boatbuilding traditions there,with so much coast?
(and where did the predominant material for the ships come from?)...

Sorry to wonder so widely,on and off the given specific topic....
 
jake pogg said:
Kevin,sorry,i didn't make myself clear-what i meant were the marks on wood,left by the axe-work.
This type of forensics,you may say,is becoming an important part of the study of tool use...

Thanks for those historic notes.Yes,those wind,or water-driven sawmills eventually replaced the cleaved and hewn timbers of the past,and i'm sure reduced the variety of axes and adzes used previously...
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Speaking of wood forensics, as well as Frisia, this site gives some details of the writer's investigations into still-standing barns constructed in Friesland over the past few centuries. He analyzes the beams, getting core samples to look at the rings, and considers how the beams were hewed, etc. (It's written in Dutch, so my interpretation might be faulty as I'm relying on google translate.)

http://boerderijenonderzoek.nl/2016/12/

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"With ax and baardaaks squared timber as was customary in Friesland until 1880-90"


The beams used during the 1500s were typically oak, squared on two sides. Sapwood is shallow (1/2" to 1"), so the mortise and tenon joints are mostly heartwood, which stays strong over time, despite deterioration of the sapwood (from beetles...)

Starting in the 1600s, pine makes an appearance. The sapwood is thicker (2" to 4"), so squared sides are more important to remove sapwood from the joints. In the 1600s and 1700s the pine logs [from the Baltic Sea area] were thick enough that the sapwood could be removed (except at the corners) when the log was hewed.

FR1000005-kopie-1024x997.jpg

"Deep squared oak.. only some sapwood on the corners"

Forests around the Baltic Sea were becoming depleted, and the resulting smaller trees had too much sapwood remaining on the flat surfaces after hewing, which was "a serious problem", "especially in the first half of the nineteenth century".

"Characteristic of the pine from the first half of the nineteenth century is that it is quite coarse in texture with huge knots and much sapwood. The wood has rapidly grown with wide growth rings... [which] indicate a warmer climate with favorable growing conditions... [from a Southern location]."

"By the mid-nineteenth century, there is a sharp change in the [wood structure]. The wood is suddenly very fine structure with very narrow growth rings... [A drilled sample showed] well over 370 annual rings [in] 22cm [or about 9"]... The wood is almost invariably [from] much further north... Central and northern Sweden and Finland. Apparently [it] could be exploited profitably at that time [at] further and higher forest areas.

FR05801-1024x99.jpg

Sample of "fine pine wood from Finland... 380 annual rings".

"From 1890 there are two visible trends: [Roundwood, and American pine]... For smaller buildings, the use of roundwood in vogue... after 1890 suddenly appear everywhere farms where the wood, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, only two sides squared or often not even that... Most small farms are built with logs from 1890, especially in the southwest corner of Friesland...

"[At the] same time, they will use American pine around 1890 as construction wood for the larger truss work. It can be recognized because it is almost always with a huge circular saw is cut, the saw marks like half circles on the surface of the wood to be seen..."

DSC_3368-1024x685.jpg

"Slender American pine bint work after 1900".

"The mid-nineteenth century was the highlight of the Frisian barns building... Around World War II put an end to the Frisian barns building."

I tried to make a brief summary (above), using a faulty translation, so I suggest going to the site for the full details:
http://boerderijenonderzoek.nl/2016/12/
Thanks to the author Paul Borghaerts for writing about his interesting work.
 
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