Welcome to “Walking Woods Edinburgh”, a self-guided audio tour around the centre of Edinburgh that takes a closer look at the history of the city through the eyes of a wood scientist. The tour was developed as part of the 20th annual meeting of the Northern European Network for Wood Science and Engineering (WSE), but it is meant to be interesting for wood scientists and laypeople alike.
Go to the route map and list of stops
In case you are intrigued by the 17,138 wooden objects in the museum but don’t have time to see for yourself, I just found you a few examples:
A beautiful piano made from willow
A boat-sized bowl carved from a single piece of wood
A carved makeup container from India
A waka kanu that is not only wood anymore…
And, of course, more on the coffins
Dan and I were thinking that the coffins might also have been an experiment on wood durability. In fact, the time that wood takes to degrade when in contact with the ground is a typical measurement that we use to compare the durability of different species. As Dan mentioned, the coffins directly in contact with the ground decayed more quickly than the ones stacked above, because they were permanently wet, and wood-decaying fungi need moisture in order to decay the wood. In field trials the area of the specimens that is in touch with the ground is therefore standardised – it’s basically sticks of a certain cross-section stuck into the ground. So, we don’t use coffins for durability tests, but the trial sites are nicknamed “graveyards” by some wood scientists.
But of course, you are probably more intrigued by Burke and Hare… (and what for a time was called ‘Burking’). Keep your eyes open when walking over Greyfriars Kirkyard to the next stop – you will see the cages above some graves that were installed to protect the dead from body snatchers.
Next episode: Grassmarket Community Project