One of the basketry styles I am experimenting with is the elliptical coiled basket with an inset lid. I have a lot of baskets bookmarked, but you have to start somewhere, so I made a short list of contenders for immediate project inspiration.
These are examples of one basket type that made it onto that list. You can click the pictures to go to the museum page for each item.
These elliptical storage baskets look like they are a good size to hold and transport a variety of things in an SCA setting, with sizes ranging from compact scribal kit to small feast gear set. They aren’t huge, and they have broad utility and could appeal to a lot of folks (which is important to consider if I don’t want my house to fill up with unused baskets).
There is a previous blog post where you can see the beginning of my first attempt and how it’s going so far. There is definitely a learning curve with the overall shaping and technique in addition to the behavior of different wrapping and core materials. The type of palm leaf I am using as wrapping material for my first experiment is too brittle to hold up to being split by stitches, so I had to switch to a different type of stitching pattern.
It is still giving me valuable information about shaping and the feel of the basket walls, so I am going to go ahead and finish it this way before starting the next iteration. The basket walls feel almost like a stiff padded quilt. I can see why they used this technique to make sandal soles! It doesn’t have the rigidity of wicker, and the baskets would pack for travel much more easily because of the flexibility.
I definitely need to experiment with more local materials to see what will give me a wrapper that behaves more like the palm leaf used in these examples. I am thinking blue flag iris leaves or some inner bark (bast) strips might do the job, but I will have to see what I can find.
Smash the Shell 
Responses to “Extant Elliptical Lidded Baskets from Egypt”
This looks like an extremely fun project! Two things: a suggestion and a question.
Suggestion: Would scraped yucca or cattail work for the material? I’m thinking of chair caning which seems like it uses similar material although handled differently.
Question: Have you seen this book? I’ve been delighting in it lately.
https://www.sidestone.com/bookviewer/9789464260922#page=1&zoom=auto,601,800
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I haven’t worked with yucca or cattail yet, so I can’t say for sure. My nerves can’t handle the amount of scraping that would be necessary to prepare enough wrapping material for a whole coiled basket, so that’s not a viable option for me to experiment with. I do want to play around with cattails in general once I have a safe and workable source, but I get the impression the leaf tissue is too thick/spongy to substitute well for palm leaf. No reason not to try it out and see, though!
The book has been on my list for a bit, but I haven’t gone through it in detail yet. I’m still slowly working my way through The World According to Basketry. Thank you for the link!
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Oh, of course! I hadn’t thought about how much problem the repetitive motion would cause.
Raffia might work, but at that point you’re getting pretty far afield of local production.
We have been snapping up the date palm fronds which are available for a brief moment in late fall if you get the timing just right; but they’re more suited to mats than coiled work.
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