Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 35

Nails, Rivets, and Clench Bolts: A Case for Typological Clarity
and interpretation of their existence and
relative position is thus of considerable
importance for the reconstruction of
medieval lifeways.
With notable exceptions, such
as the work of Patrick Ottaway (1992),
the limited attention devoted to function-
al iron artifacts has resulted in the lack
of a uniform terminology, thus obscur-
ing the identity and interpretive value
of these artifact types. In an attempt to
address this issue, I begin by advancing
specific definitions of nails, rivets and
clench bolts. Subsequently, my analy-
sis employs a sample of artifacts frorn
the National Museum of Iceland to test
and elaborate on the criteria distinguish-
ing the various artifact types. This data
highlights the interpretive complica-
tions resulting from typological descrip-
tive variability. Examination of several
English- and Danish-language exam-
ples, demonstrates that this typological
variability is a general phenomenon in
museums and the international corpus
of scholarly publications. I then employ
the example of clench bolts in mortuary
contexts from medieval northwestern
Europe to illustrate the ways in which
a consistent terminology and a refined
understanding of artifact types can lend
insights into the past.
II. A Brief Introduction to Definitions
Basic descriptive definitions of nails,
rivets, and clench bolts are necessary in
order to frame the following discussion
of functional iron artifacts. The form of
each of these artifact types is constrained
primarily by their function, a factor which
accounts for the similarities observed
across time and space; thus, these arti-
fact definitions are widely applicable.
Understood in the modern sense, a nail
is “a small metal spike with a broadened
flat head, driven typically into wood with
a hammer to join things together or to
serve as a peg or hook” (Oxford Ameri-
can Dictionary). A rivet is “a metal bolt
or pin having a head on one end, inserted
through aligned holes in the pieces to be
joined and then hammered on the plain
end so as to form a second head” (Ameri-
can Heritage Dictionarý). A clench bolt
is probably the most unfamiliar of the
three artifacts and is the only one made
up of two separate components: a nail and
a rove. As Patrick Ottaway (1992: 615)
explains, “[a] clench bolt was used for
joining overlapped timbers and consists
of a nail which, once passed through the
timbers to be joined, had a small pierced
plate, the rove, set over its tip. The tip
was then burred or hammered over (i.e.
clenched) to hold the bolt in position.”
Characteristically, clench bolts are used
to join pieces of wood that either overlap,
or are cut diagonally and then fit together
(Figure 1).
III. Artifact Identification and
the Need for Typological Consistency:
A Case Study from the National
Museum of Iceland
The artifact analysis in this section is
based on data that I collected during the
summer of 2003 at the National Museum
of Iceland (Þjóðminjasafn Islands)1 while
doing comparative research for finds
from the Mosfell Archaeological Project
1 This research was made possible by the generous assistance of Halldóra Ásgeirsdóttir, conservator at the National Museum
of Iceland, and the help and guidance of Guðmundur Ólafsson, Head of the Archaeological Department at the National
Museum.
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