Categorie: Publicatie

Destroyed & destructed : a multidisciplinary study of drowned Coxyde

de Ruijsscher, D. (2019). Destroyed & destructed : a multidisciplinary study of drowned Coxyde. REVUE BELGE DE PHILOLOGIE ET D HISTOIRE, 97(4), 1101–1120.

Abstract:

The village of Coxyde, coinciding with the parish of Beniardskerke, was situated on the south bank of the eastern branch of the Zwin tidal inlet, in nowadays West Zeelandic Flanders. It is certain that the parish of Beniardskerke originated in the High Middle Ages. The harbour of Coxyde joined the economic success of Bruges and its outports during the Late Medieval Period. Due to a combination of economic decline, political jousting and the consequences of revolt and war the village shrank during the 15th and 16th centuries. Coxyde eventually disappeared from the landscape because of the inundation of the region during the Eighty Years’ War, making it one of the so-called drowned villages of Zeeland. Thanks to an interdisciplinary research, combining historical sources, remote sensing techniques and archaeological fieldwalking it was possible to trace back the exact location of individual landscape features of the village and reveal the main lines of its socio-economic and topographical development.

Refining silver at the castle: the rare case of a large early modern cupel from Middelburg-in-Flanders, Belgium

Saussus, L., Hsu, YT., Poulain, M. et al. Refining silver at the castle: the rare case of a large early modern cupel from Middelburg-in-Flanders, Belgium. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 14, 185 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-022-01655-7

ABSTRACT:

Ash cupels were widely used in early modern Europe for small-scale refining of noble metals in artisanal workshops, mints and assay offices. The manufacture and use of cupels display considerable variability from context to context, which poses both challenges and opportunities for modern investigation. Here, we present the analytical study of an unusually large cupel recovered from castle of Middleburg-in-Flanders (Belgium), probably dated to the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, which we discuss in connection to historical sources and other archaeological finds. We demonstrate that the cupel was made of bone ash mixed with a small fraction of another calcareous material, and most likely used for the refining of silver heavily debased with copper. We illustrate simple methods to investigate the manufacture of cupels and the nature and amount of metals being refined, as well as approaches to assess and discuss cupellation performance in archaeological contexts.

Travelogue of an Almohad Sherd: from Twelfth-Century al-Andalus to Fourteenth-Century Flanders

Almohad lustreware sherd found in Sint-Lievens-Houtem (photos by Dirk Wollaert).

Excavations in Sint-Lievens-Houtem (Flanders, Belgium), an important medieval pilgrimage village, uncovered a fourteenth-century refuse pit. This feature contained a fragment of a rare Andalusī moulded lustreware vessel, dating to the mid or second half of the twelfth century. The reconstruction of the vessel’s itinerary aids in understanding how an object travelled from Muslim Spain to Catholic Flanders and why it ended up under Sint-Lievens-Houtem’s marketplace, about two centuries after its production. Traditional explanations of Crusades or trade seem unlikely or do not account for the entire trajectory of the vessel. These narratives are therefore extended with the incorporation of the vessel in Sint-Lievens-Houtem’s church treasury. This biographical approach offers a valuable framework to interpret the increasing number of Islamic finds across Europe, the way by which they travelled north and the contexts in which they functioned.

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