[log in to unmask] wrote:

> we found a number of similar cups with the same Swedish base mark at a
> 1924-1925 dam construction camp in the northern Sierra Nevada, CA.  We
> weren't able to track the mark.  As far as the mark being from IKEA and
> post-1950... the artifacts from our site were innundated with fresh water
> soon after the dam was constructed (by 1926) and remained under 70+ feet of
> water until 1996 when the water level was lowered to repair the leaking dam.
> We were out recording the deposits before the mud dried and the site was
> closed off and patrolled before we arrived.  We had many examples with this
> mark in tightly dated mid-1920s deposits and found no "modern" material, with
> the exception of an occasional fishing lure.

And I can confirm that Ingvar Kamprad (the founder of IKEA) was born in
1926, and registered the corporate name in 1946.  The first IKEA
catalogue was published in 1951, and the first store opened in Almhult
(Sweden) in 1953.  Thus unless Kamprad had a time machine (built with
help from SAAB, perhaps?), any find from a sealed context pre-dating
1926 can't possibly be IKEA.  Incidentally, the first US IKEA was opened
in 1985; the UK followed two years later in 1987.

(and no, I'm not a secret IKEA fetishist)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alasdair Brooks
Department of Archaeology
University of York
King's Manor
York
YO1 7EP
England, UK
phone: 01904 433931
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border"
Sitting Bull