Ancient Bannerstone Repair

[painshill]

Ancient Bannerstone Repair

Posted by [Olden]
I like artifacts that have a story to tell through old repairs.
Here's a soapstone banner I found that seems to have been sloppily made, (Woodland Period?) and was followed up by a quick repair. This material is so easy to drill that I have to wonder who
made it and what the heck was he thinking?



Posted by [greywolf22]
Now that is a neat artifact. Maybe making a pipe and it broke.
Jack

Posted by [CliffJ]
Irregardless of the "soft" steatite material, it still took a while to cane drill and form that banner. After it got broken (while drilling?), it looks as though they tied the two halves together to salvage their work.

Posted by [rockredhed]
Nice finds. I think Cliff might be onto something. Looks like it had been tied together.

Posted by [Olden]
I'm not sure if this piece was ever cane and sand drilled. Looks like the interior was gouged out with a beaver tooth chisel in order to make the morning hunt.

[painshill]

Posted by [Olden]
Ok.. here's a few more pics that I took outside today to make use of the natural light.

Here's a couple of the repaired soapstone banner (complete banner would have been an oval shape). One shows even tally looking marks along the ridge. The other shows the ends (outside the deep repair grooves) are still polished.




This is a shot of the drill work in the different bannerstones




The slate Winged banner - I found the first quarter: and the other 25 percent a few years later

[painshill]

Continued…

A banded slate tube banner - has a great patina: very high polish inside and out.




Unfinished hematite Pick Banner: pecked into shape, and showing some polish. Partially drilled on one side only.