Workshop “Little archaeobotanists”

Sara Essert

May 15, 2018 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

On Monday, 16/05/2018 in the Botanical garden in Zagreb (during Croatian botanic gardens and arboreta Week) Sara Essert held the workshop for 13 pupils of the 7thand 8thgrade of elementary school with the title: “Little archaeobotanists”. The aim of the workshop was to familiarize students with tasks that an archaeobotanist meets in his work and to allow children to try themselves the determination of the seeds.

The first part of the workshop included a brief lecture on the Croatian Apoxiomen, which is in Croatia one of the most interesting and popular recently found Roman statues and shows in an obvious way the importance of an interdisciplinary approach when composing a complete story about some archaeological object (or site). In an interactive lecture, the children heard the story of finding and restoring that bronze statue and in presentation they saw photos of plant residues found inside the statue.

In the second part of the workshop, with the help of the lecturer, all the children had the opportunity to sort and identify some of 15 different seed species that are well known to the children (olive, cherry, rose, cucumber, etc.). The children also got to know other 20 different beautiful seeds of wild plants, watched them under magnifying glass and drew them.