Seahenge / Rose Ferraby

Seahenge Rose Ferraby From the forthcoming third issue of Oscillations, a journal published by Blackford Hill

Seahenge As part of its new The world of Stonehenge exhibition, the British Museum commissioned Rose Ferraby to create a series of artworks that explored and enhanced visitor understanding of Seahenge – an Early Bronze Age timber monument found on a beach in North Norfolk.

Here she talks about how working with visual art, and in collaboration with Rob St John, with sound, she explored the story and landscape of this intriguing monument.

Collage and photos by Rose Ferraby.

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In the grey mud by the boat house, a trail of ecologies have left their footprints. The defined toes of a wader, small patterings of rat, flappy goose or gull. They are momentary, lasting only until the next tide, which will swill the marshes, leaving a new canvas of fine sediment amid the grass fringes and carved gullies. This stretch of the North Norfolk coastline is defined by these comings and goings, rhythmic yet unpredictable. Nothing can be taken for granted. Rather, it is defined by change, a fleeting frailty between water and land.

Within this, there are moments of brief, bright clarity. Marks and traces held, then blurred and vanished. Amid the peat stacks on the beach a little way west of boat house prints, Seahenge emerged as a momentary glimpse of an Early Bronze Age world, within the greater fug of prehistory. An ellipse of split timbers nestled side by side around a great upturned stump of oak. The first muscles of its roots 66

greeted the sky. Hewn, angular holes were still looped with the honeysuckle rope that had been used to drag it from the woods. Its function may never be truly known, but it is likely it was a funerary monument. A body may have been lain on top of the stump, part of earth and air at once. The wood provides a date of extraordinary precision: the late spring of 2049BC. Originally built on the fringes of a tidal saltmarsh, it would have stood amid a low, flat landscape. It would be a landscape of pale yellows and fresh greens, low unusual vegetation particular to the coming and goings of saltwater. The plaintive cries and pipings of waterbirds would have surrounded it, though to any ear inside the bounds of the close-set timbers it would be muffled and distanced. Over time, sand dunes formed out beyond it, and the marsh became brackish. Peat began to form, and

as the monument aged its lower reaches were preserved.

Sediment gathered above, keeping them safe. But gradually the coast changed, shifted once more. The dunes retreated back as sea levels rose, and when the waves revealed the wood once more, it found itself all at sea, caught between high and low tide.

presence of the trench dug to stand the timbers in. For each timber they cut neat sections, drew and photographed, and finally took it out. The waterlogged wood was extremely delicate yet also very heavy, so each was manoeuvred onto a stretcher and walked from the beach. The central stump was cradled and lifted with a crane.

And so it was discovered, all toothy timbers emerging from the scarps. Without excavation it would have soon been lost to the sea, so in the summer of 1999 a team from the Norfolk Archaeological Unit began the careful process of recording and removal. They worked between the tides, their working day shifting to coincide with the retreating water. Every day they bailed, every day the water came hurrying back, flooding back in. Nothing could be left unfinished. Considering the mud and wet, they were able to get their eye in. They began to understand the construction of the monument, to feel the

The peat has preserved the axe marks in crisp detail, so specialists studying the wood were able to identify the marks of 51 different axes on the timbers. Each likely represented an individual. And each person seems to have had their role – some felled the trees, others cut the timbers. The axes that worked the central stump were not used anywhere else, a testament to the rather special nature of that colossal hulk. It is the first time archaeologists have been able to see the makers, the community, behind a monument. It makes Seahenge more vividly present, more animated with life.

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TheThe story of Seahenge, its its past story of Seahenge, past construction andand present exaction, construction present exaction, have been growing ever more familiar have been growing ever more familiar to me over thethe lastlast year through a slow to me over year through a slow attentive process of looking, listening attentive process of looking, listening andand making.

And it has been fascinating making.

And it has been fascinating to think how to communicate a site to think how to communicate a site that is as much landscape andand place as as that is as much landscape place it isitthe timbers that form it. it. is the timbers that form

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TheThe coastal fringe around Holme-nextcoastal fringe around Holme-nextthe-sea in North Norfolk is extraordinary. the-sea in North Norfolk is extraordinary.

TheThe saltmarshes areare strangely saltmarshes strangely inaccessible, fullfull of unusual plants andand inaccessible, of unusual plants birds, andand everywhere thethe creep of of birds, everywhere creep water.

As As soon as Ias began exploring water. soon I began exploring them, I was aware how strongly thethe them, I was aware how strongly landscape was part of Seahenge, andand landscape was part of Seahenge, began thinking about how to bring that began thinking about how to bring that

back to the timbers in the context of an back to the timbers in the context of an exhibition.

I also wanted to capture thethe exhibition.

I also wanted to capture sense of the unseen, underground, sense of the unseen, underground, underwater, material inside-ness of of underwater, material inside-ness wood; in essence, thethe things that wewe wood; in essence, things that getget to feel andand explore in our to feel explore in our archaeological imaginations.

How archaeological imaginations.

How could these be be drawn outout in the could these drawn in the context of the museum? context of the museum?

The beginning of of any project is ais a The beginning any project matter of of feeling your way, working matter feeling your way, working instinctively.

In In mymy early expeditions to to instinctively. early expeditions thethe marshes I took mymy camera and marshes I took camera and Rob’s bag of of sound recording Rob’s bag sound recording equipment, and began thethe intense equipment, and began intense process of of looking and listening.

How process looking and listening.

How could I capture notnot just this place, butbut could I capture just this place,

a sense of of this place over 4000 years a sense this place over 4000 years ago?

I dipped hydrophones in marshy ago?

I dipped hydrophones in marshy pools, crept along with binaurals to to pools, crept along with binaurals capture thethe bottle-hoot of of a bittern in in capture bottle-hoot a bittern thethe reeds.

AsAs I stood listening, I was reeds.

I stood listening, I was also honing in the visual palette of of also honing in the visual palette place: thethe buff windblown colours, thethe place: buff windblown colours, greyish yellow sediments, thethe way thethe greyish yellow sediments, way

wind blew sand down thethe beach, thethe wind blew sand down beach, ruffle of of water byby anan oldold wooden ruffle water wooden stump.

The slowness required of of stump.

The slowness required filming and sound recording gives time filming and sound recording gives time forfor getting really immersed in a getting really immersed in a landscape, and thethe constant desire to to landscape, and constant desire gogo a bit further, find thethe next thing, a bit further, find next thing, often leads to to unexpected discoveries. often leads unexpected discoveries.

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After my first visit to the coast, I began the process of talking to the archaeologists involved in the discovery and excavation of Seahenge. Their stories folded into one another, each bringing aspects of the story to life. And in talking to them I was reminded that there exists within archaeology an empathy, a kindness that accompanies the act of uncovering other lives and memories in the landscape.

It became clear that the process of excavation echoed that of the monuments construction in so many little ways, and how thoughtful the archaeologists were of the people who had gone before them.

Wrapping these voices and stories into the landscapes and material forms of the film and audio now began. Rob St John then took the archive of sound recordings, and we talked about how to create a sound piece for the exhibition which gave a sense of the landscape and materiality of the monument through time. Rob variously warped, eroded, abstracted and recomposed the recordings of the Norfolk coastline into new sonic tones and textures. His ten-minute composition used 70

techniques of granular synthesis and environmentally-altered tape loops, bringing resonant processes of ecological chance and uncertainty into its production. The resulting sound piece is installed across multiple speakers around the timbers of Seahenge creating a subtle sonic environment throughout the British Museum gallery.

Rob’s composition also soundtracks the Seahenge film, which aims to bring story and contextualise the monument in a more abstract, artistic form. The film’s narrative is created by the voices of the archaeologists involved, and the imagery draws on the coastal palette, pulling in and out of focus between small details and broad views. Finally, a painted collage grew from the quiet recollections of the landscape and memories recounted to me of the excavation; a slow layering of paper to echo the ever changing come and go of that prehistoric coastal world. Between them, it’s hoped that these artworks bring new ways of imagining Seahenge, of understanding the narratives of people and place that live with it.

Rose Ferraby is an archaeologist and artist from North Yorkshire whose work explores our relationships with landscape. She is interested in how we communicate the often invisible or hidden stories of the past. Her creative practice spans fine art, illustration, photography and film, and is increasing used in museum and heritage settings.

Rose illustrates poetry for Guillemot Press and won the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Illustration in 2017. She has written and presented for BBC Radio 3 and 4.

You can find all the Seahenge artwork here: britishmuseum.org/stonehenge-resources Listen to an exclusive excerpt mix of the Half/Life sound installation here: blackford-hill.co.uk/seahenge

roseferraby.com

Rob St John is an artist and writer based in rural Lancashire. Working primarily with sound, film and photography, his practice is attentive to entanglements of nature and culture in contemporary landscapes, and is often based on slow, sustained periods of fieldwork. robstjohn.co.uk

The work was commissioned as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Icons in Context: Rethinking Symbols of Power at the Time of Stonehenge project, led by Duncan Garrow and Neil Wilkin.

The World of Stonehenge exhibition is on at the British Museum from 17th February – 17th July 2022.

Find out more at britishmuseum.org 71