Emma Harrison

Having had a keen interest in traditional crafts and living history as a youngster, I went on to study Experimental Archaeology at University, specialising in viking age bloomery iron smelting. I also have a background in arts and crafts having grown up with a potter for a father and worked as a painter for a movie set.

These days I am very interested in ceramics, and run a pottery part-time, partly making replicas and doing experimental open firings of pottery, particularly focusing on the composition of clay bodies and potential methods of firing in British prehistory. I do my own craft work as well as living history displays and selling replica pottery at markets at museums and historical events. I am still keeping my hand in with iron smelting while I can, alongside the pottery, doing some iron smelting displays and education at history events. I did some training in traditional leatherwork and tanning also, and in the past have worked at a living history museum here in Scotland doing crafts such as textiles, pottery etc.

My interest ranges from bronze age to early medieval to later medieval.

I have also illustrated and written outreach education packs for museums to use with schools and young people, based on their museum collections. I have done outreach packs on the topics of the Picts, the Jacobites, and the Vikings in Scotland.