Elizabethan

I have frequently been asked when I talk about the BOB project, “did the bears hibernate”? We can answer this question in two ways: by looking at what we know about modern bears, and by looking at archival accounts.

What did pet dogs look like and how were they described?  Although the idea of a “pet” does not quite exist in this period, this list contains detailed descriptions of a wide range of Elizabethan dogs owned by men and women of the age.

Last year, we launched our prototype website with an animation about the fire of Nantwich in 1581 and what it meant for the town’s bears. This new post sees the Box Office Bears team discussing "where do animals belong in early modern England?"

Box Office Bears panel at the TIDE Conference 2.  Join us to hear more about the project and its interest in movement, traffic, and national and regional identity.  This event is part of the TIDE project exploring travel, transculturality, and identity in England, c. 1550-1700.

Two months ago, I had the privilege of travelling with some early modern bear bones from Oxford to Nottingham. These bear bones were found during excavations by MOLA in Southwark in London, and were analysed for zooarchaeology and isotopes in Nottingham, before being taken to Oxford to be sampled for ancient DNA analysis.