Artefacture

Flint-knappers nibbled graceful knobbly nature into smooth hand-jobs, artefacts. But what is ancient ? What is real ? Edward Saunders, ‘Flint Jack’, naughty nineteenth-century knapper, made a tidy living knocking up neat tools for gullible collectors. He was good at it, and even famous. Joseph Stevens, Reading Museum’s first Curator, wrote a moralising pamphlet about his wayward ways as a warning to youthful collectors:

"his love of wondering and adventure mingled with his native duplicity were more than a match for his integrity, and his life became a failure";

but Joe conceded that

"had he lived during the Neolithic Stone Age, his ingenuity and cunning in the construction of instruments for the destruction of animals for food would have made him a chief among savages" (Stevens, Flint Jack: A Short History of a Notorious Forger of Antiquities 1894, p 5).

Mark Edmonds, doyen of lithic-loving archaeologists today, has dedicated a book to Flint Jack:

"curators often continued to pay for his products for some time after they realised that their antiquity was - to say the least - open to question. It seems that many were happy to do so because the artefacts that sprang from his hand were far ‘superior’ to the worn, broken and patinated examples found in fields and graves" (Edmonds, Stone Tools and Society 1995:8)

The craze for flint artefacts subsided, partly because so many more of them came to light. Paleolithic hand-axes became a synonym for all that was seen as dull and boring about museums and archaeology, but things are changing now.

"The market has changed over the past five to ten years. Before, it was mainly the seriously esoteric collectors, fascinated by the type of flint used, and how it was worked. Latterly, there has been a great move towards appreciation of the aesthetics of simple forms; the style, the colour. These new collectors already collect contemporary art. They go especially for polished stone axes, but will also buy exquisitely flaked tools. It is an artistic following that is willing to pay artistic prices" (Chris Martin, dealer in ancient art, Observer 9 April 2000)

Flint Jack’s heirs may find work a-plenty yet.

Rock of the Godly