Tuesday 30 April 2013

Art: Bronze Age Lunula necklaces!




A lunula is jewellery that was in fashion over The whole Bronze Age period and into the Iron Age too. It is named after the Latin word for moon luna (lunula literally means: little moon) because of its crescent shape. Usually it is made from a thin sheet of bronze.   The Bronze age is know as the bronze age simply because that is the time when man discovered that if you mix the two metals, copper and tin you get Bronze.  They liked bronze better than just copper as it was much stronger than copper, therefore more useful.

Lunulae are often decorated with the same decorative motifs that are commonly found on Bronze Age pottery: zig zag lines, triangles and diamond (kite) shapes.

So do you fancy making your own?  This is how we made ours...

What you'll need:

  • Cardboard - You could use cereal box cardboard but we used corrigated carboard from some old boxes we used when we moved house which was more durable when it came to play!
  • paint
  • gold tissue paper
  • glue
  • a brown pencil
  • paint brushes
  • glue sticks
  • optional gold pipe cleaners

First cut out a shape like this out of your cardboard...



Then paint then with either gold or bronze paint like this...


 
And either stick on bits of gold tissue paper like my 2 year old or...


 
With a brown pencil draw patterns that were common in the Bronze Age period like my 8 yera old did here...

 
My 10 year old did something a little different she covered hers in tissue paper using glue and then lightly painted over it in gold paint for texture which was a nice effect.



Or you can just glue on gold bits of pipe cleaner like my 5 year old...




Just use your imagination and have fun!

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