Making harpoons

Seeing with your hands

The antler harpoon is an iconic tool from Doggerland. You’ll see these amazing artefacts all over books about the Mesolithic.

I had been wondering about how to make one for a while. Carve down some wood? Carved wood looks like carved wood. So that could work. But wood is not antler, and these harpoons are quite a specific shape. While I do a bit of whittling here and there, I don’t really feel I have either the tools or the skills to reliably pull that off.

Pay someone else to make one? I could do this. I have some very talented friends. And after all I asked one such friend to 3d print me a horse skull for this very project.

Somehow that didn’t feel right here. They’re relatively small objects. Surely I should be able to make one somehow?

Also, as the book was getting very close to being finished, I didn’t think we’d have space, and I should just let it go. I have plenty of other tools to show. But the iconic harpoon wouldn’t leave me alone.

Having got back into sculpting with Super Sculpey, the solution presented itself. The semi translucent doll head Super Sculpey could be just the thing. You can sculpt it, and then once it’s been oven baked it can be sanded and carved. And it’s not a million miles away from the appearance of bone or antler…

There were two main inspirations - a nice jagged one, which is a sort of composite of loads of different archaeological finds, and the really iconic one found in Norfolk from Doggerland with its notched back and scribed non-business end. Arguably a bit early for Maskwitches but it’s strongly connected to Doggerland:

(Image pinched from here, and I encourage you to check this site out: https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF11171-Mesolithic-harpoon-from-Leman-and-Ower-Bank-Doggerland )

Here’s the first one I sculpted pre-oven.

It shows off the typical features of a less-practiced sculptor - it’s a bit squishy looking, and lumpy in the wrong places, so I was definitely going to rely on sanding to sharpen up the forms to make believable antler. But that’s ok. We learn as we go.

I modelled it around a thick piece of wire to give it some solidity across that long axis. Otherwise it’d be flopping about all over the place.

Once baked and cooled it was off outside to sand it. I was really pleased with how the polymer clay took the sanding, and I was able to really refine the form and reduce a lot of that squishy “hand made from clay” look.

It also turns out that baked Sculpey can take a wicked edge when sanded. Whoops. Learning the hard way!

I don’t have any photos of the second harpoon in production prior to baking. I was in the zone and applying what I learned from the first one. For this one I concentrated on a rounder form. It was interesting to see the markings on the real historical version, and make them close-up. They seem like they would be an ideal key for bindings and pitch glue. I’ll need to research more to find out if we know of traces of such on the real thing.

I really enjoyed working this second one. It’s a really pleasing form. There’s considerable variation from the original inspiration: I haven’t put the long notch down the side of the teeth and I don’t think I will. I am happy enough to look at the source material and then take the memory of it away into making.

It occurred to me at this point that I did need to sharpen up the engraved notches to make them look less like they were pressed into soft clay. They were betraying their origins with that calligraphic, slightly wobbly, scribed look. In going to fetch a knife I saw my prop tools, and realised that this would be an ideal chance to use a flint bladelet for the task.

This proved to be more than just poetic stuff though. As you can see above I have a rather crudely made knife made from bladelets. And while there are various theories in books about why people in the Mesolithic started working with smaller blades set into handles, in practice it very quickly showed its value - even with my clumsy version. Each blade was better for a different task. I didn’t need to swap tools or even pause to switch between cutting around edges with a curved blade, or scribing deeper with a bit of a hooked straight edge. Amazing.

I now know if I was doing to make another harpoon I could preselect the right set of flint bladelets, set them into a single handle (that allows for much better handling, at least for modern me) and I’d really save a lot of time. It’s like a multitool that doesn’t need you to even open a new blade. Now, I’m not saying this is why Mesolithic people did this. It doesn’t prove anything at all. But I did find it really fascinating to be so hands on, and what we only see through doing.

The harpoons are very nearly finished at this point, and for once I’m really delighted with what I’ve made. The process of making went really well, and perhaps having thought about it for three months paid off? WHO KNEW?

Behind the scenes:

Results so far:

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