I have noticed that when you are travelling, as I am now with the family, my focus has shifted from looking at the things all tourists are meant to see to looking for woodcraft. Of course it shouldn't be "Made in China", but made locally (or at least in the country). I am on a trip through the Mediterranean, and have now landed in Greece and am in Athens as I write this. (It is very hot outside the window so we are in the hotel room during the afternoon.) When we were out in the morning we came down to Monastiraki, the area that lies below the Acropolis rock. (Comparable to the Old Town in Stockholm, perhaps.) Many small shops selling mass-produced tourist products. But sometimes you come across someone who sells local handicraft. We also saw similar shops on Mykonos when we were there a few days ago. Here they use olive trees as the material, and you find all kinds of goods, everything from turned honey dippers to cutting boards and chess boards with figures. The most advanced so far I saw today in one shop.
Watches in olive wood, cases and on some even the bracelets. I have seen wooden watches before, but then it has been single watches; here there were 10-15 different ones. I didn't see any prices, but as the other goods were clearly above the average price in the area, I hope the craftsman gets a bit in his wallet. And rightly so; given the time that those of you who make things in wood and sell at markets and so on put in, the prices ought to reflect it. After walking around here in Athens, going to museums to escape the heat, I looked especially for wooden things. And started thinking about craftspeople and their craft. About how little is left to posterity; wood is a finite material, it disappears over time, breaks, rots, burns up and so on. And here we are talking about things 2000-3000 years old, and not much is left. You can see from the statues that there were woodworkers; people are depicted on chairs, you see pots that have stood on tables or pedestals. And you start thinking about how these things were made.
In one of the museums there were some surviving pieces of evidence, a number of chisels made of bronze, about 3000 years old. I also saw tools they called "sickles", but which looked like saws, so their use is somewhat unclear. Also punches, drill-like tools, but according to the information they were intended for stone cutting, though there should have been similar tools for woodworking..
Some surviving things did actually exist, parts of a table. Made about 3000 years ago. And a box from about the same time. I couldn't really see how it was joined; does anyone have an idea? The figures on the side were in bronze.
When we visited Tallinn a few years ago we walked past one of the shop windows, and in that shop, which was part of a chain of craft shops in Estonia, they had a craftsman working in the shop with his production. It may have been a tourist thing, because it was empty when we were there, but I think it was actually used now and then.. :)
Another thing I wanted to see was the Antikythera Mechanism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism). The ancient supercomputer, which could calculate lunar eclipses and all sorts of other time-related things. Unfortunately the originals were not on display, but there was a whole room dedicated to this marvel. There were several different attempts to understand how it had worked, and the latest and probably most similar is the one in the pictures. If you are the slightest bit interested in technology there is a lot to dig into.
Otherwise I have been away from the Rubank world for a few weeks, so I don't have a good grip on what is happening, but a new delivery from Veritas is planned and is going out shortly. I am back in a week or so, will update myself, and a summer newsletter will come in a few weeks. Rubank is open all summer, so deliveries will be sent more or less daily.
Share this content