3

What's up with the yellow bowls around 40 minutes into S2E7 of The Last Kingdom, where Erik is eating with Sigfried? They seem like plastic or glass at best. Is this historically plausible? Or did they hope viewers wouldn't notice?

enter image description here

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    Have a screen capture? Hollow glass containers have been around since 1500 BC, I think. Bowls can be made from a nearly infinite number of materials. I'll try to look at Netflix.
    – PoloHoleSet
    May 23, 2018 at 22:05

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

Having looked at that sequence, I see, at the table, there are brown wooden bowls, and in the background, on shelves, much lighter-colored bowls.

There's nothing about them that suggests plastic or even glass.

It could be a much lighter-colored wood. Here is a pine bowl -

Pine Bowl

Here is a maple bowl -

enter image description here

Ceramics and tinted glazes have been around for thousands of years, so a light/white glaze could easily be in play if it was glazed. Also, clay bowls aren't just orange. Very often they are a very pale grey, almost white before glazing, like this one -

Unglazed bowl

I have a bowl that I made in a class that I left unglazed so I could use it for clay pot cooking. It started out as a slightly yellowish near-white.

I don't think this was any kind of error.

EDIT: After checking in the correct timestamped area, my original assessment holds, except I'd say those are definitely wooden. They yellow and black-ish.

Here is an image of a bowl made from mulberry wood, which is pretty yellow -

Mulberry bowl

and this is one of a maple bowl that has had a food-safe oil finish added, which has yellowed the wood quite a bit, but has darker discolorations, like the ones in that scene -

Finished Maple

Other View Finished Maple

Improve this answer
5
  • Ah sorry, Netflix does this thing where it's actually telling you time til end of the video. So it's somewhere around 40 minutes from start.
    – Pyjong
    May 24, 2018 at 7:27
  • @Pyjong - What? But there were bowls right there at the other time mark!! LOL. I'll re-check and get back to you.
    – PoloHoleSet
    May 24, 2018 at 16:47
  • I uploaded the picture.. I dunno... because of that reflection it really looks like plastic to me. But maybe there is something, the author wanted to teach us about vikings. Like... they used plastic bowls.
    – Pyjong
    May 24, 2018 at 18:35
  • The maple bowl with the foodsafe oil rub/finish is pretty glossy, and yellow. Probably a lot of bright lights shining on them, to be fair. Definitely could be plastic fakes, but at least there is a historically real plausibly deniable case to be made for wood, is what I'm saying.
    – PoloHoleSet
    May 24, 2018 at 21:08
  • Yeah.. it is somewhat similar to the bowls you've posted. I guess that was the idea.
    – Pyjong
    May 24, 2018 at 22:46
1

In the still shown, the reflection makes it like a highly glazed ceramic bowl. I don't see why there couldn't have been glazed ceramic bowls in 9th century Britain.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .