Is a tool in the money pit enough context to make a call on the prior users ethnicity?
Let me backtrack to picture posted earlier of a mine.
I suspect tothe right side into the floor is the hole being worked. Everything else is in support of extracting what is being dug below.
Note the pipes. Multiple purpose pipes. One for air perhaps. And the slot in the square post near the hole begs the question of if it's a wooden hand pump minus the lever.
Bring us/me back to the pick found in hole.
For the sake of argument we are under sail. A long journey waits and we are to earn our keep aboard. It's not an option.
Examples exist of wooden pipes. Video exists somewhere of a guy with a family heirloom bit he demonstrates.
Select timber. A big stack in the bilge. Let's not work knots if we don't have to.
Amount of seasoning depends on purpose and how to work it. But it wouldn't take long to have "pipes' ready to go. It's an art but quite doable with a basic process.
Plenty of other work while underway to. As in the ships blacksmith.
Better yet one like the carpenter with an apprentice for redundancy's sake.
Picks?
A pick can be the smiths design. Or the smiths recollection of a design. Or a customers design. Within logical reason.
Salt mines in Poland and mines around the world had quite a mix of tools. Ships shuffled nationalities of workers based on skills more than ethnicity at times. It's more efficient to haul specialties than those trying to figure a skill or process out.
Which would encourage Cornish miners for mining purposes. But would that be worth the expense? And number of bowls at meal times?
IF the miners were versed in other disciplines perhaps. As opposed to lounging about the ship underway.
We have fun looking at axe designs over time and across regions as they surface in recoveries.
Some are easier than others to figure out their origin despite the context they were found in.
But axes traveled. Still do.
An American axe in another country is no shocker. That it arrived by ship is a strong possibility. But doesn't mean if one is recovered in an Australian mines yard that an American was directly responsible
Given the culture of mining communities in my area I can't suspect a pick would be left in a secretive works.
A broken one returned to the smith or tool crib/version of a crib. But more likely to be discarded.
You have a pick. Marking a rock would be a simple matter to leave an indicator for someone who is supposed to find it and confuse anyone else. Vs leaving evidence of possible ethnicity and purpose.
In the natural shuffle of goods and services a pick might be more generic in availability than a Cornish miner. It might.
If you were to have an axe forged for yourself what size and design would you prefer ; and why?
You'd warm it in bitter cold before striking with it to try to avoid breaking it.
The odds of losing it even in snow due to it being a valuable tool would be low.
Would you sacrifice it exposed to the elements for unknown years to come to indicate where your chopping block is?
Putting a tool in sand can control the humidity to some extent. Keep a handle through an eye from drying and shrinking.
Mix oil with sand and shove a tool in to reduce rusting.
Even under steps to address superstition? Or just for relocating's sake. I didn't get to ask.
But a Cornish miner would more likely wear a pick out than leave it rot. It's weight would mean little to a departing ship/boat. And a miner could improvise much in terms of survival beyond mining with one.
You hauled it as if it was valuable to arrive. Unless cargo taken on(and the pit is alleged to be a cargo deposit) water and fuel demands less weight tools go back aboard.
The art of working iron was highly skilled and even then failures happened. The mysteries of steel weren't quite sorted out yet. And each swing of a hammer cost someone. Or more than one person.
A piece of steel was costly. Inserted into a folded piece of iron and forge welded an axe was more economical. That doesn't mean decent iron was casually discarded.
A worn pick of iron would still be decent or better quality to recycle. Rocks were far cheaper as signals.
Why was the museum pick rehandled? How long was the original? How long did it's user(s) shorten it to?
Reminds me of single bevel broad axes with straight handles instead of curved per user dominant hand.. Purpose gone right out the window. Well, at least context gone .
Despite being straight handled(?) this axe is lefthanded? It being rehandled has what to do with original context and orientation? We don't know. The last actual user may or may not have been left handed.
What nationality would the user have been?
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