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The NDAS Pottery Day - Terry Green (Newsletter No 7 2004)
On 7th February 2004 NDAS held a ‘Pottery Recognition Training Day’ at the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon. Originally this had been scheduled for last October, but for a variety of reasons was transposed to February. The initial response to the October date had been poor, yet for February we had to turn people down. The day was very well attended with about 40 people crammed into a space that could only just cope.
As I’m sure you know, fragments of pottery provide archaeologists
with some of their most important dating evidence. In northern Europe
clay has been shaped and baked into vessels since the Neolithic period,
some 6,000 years ago. The earliest pottery we know from North Devon is
a handful of very crude, probably Neolithic fragments dug up by Townshend-Hall
on Baggy Point in the mid-19th century. Pottery, as we know, gets broken
and ends up as rubbish discarded onto or into the ground. Unlike organic
material, it is very durable and can stay in the soil for centuries or
even millennia. A comparison between the dog-biscuit-like fragments from
Baggy Point and the cup in your kitchen cupboard makes it very clear that
over time methods of manufacture have evolved, the functions of pottery
have changed and the “consumer” has looked for novelty. During
the last 150 years a chronology of this evolution has been worked out,
so that pottery found in association with other features can provide an
indication of date.
Sherds of pottery must be the “finds” that
we come across most commonly whenever we disturb the soil. The aim of
the “pottery day” was to help members of the Society to interpret
the sherds that they might find in their gardens, in the ploughsoil of
a freshly turned field or even on a local beach The problem in North Devon
is that we are still waiting for a detailed chronology to emerge from
the long-promised study of all the pottery that was dug up in Barnstaple
and Bideford during the 1970’s and 80’s. Nevertheless, John
Allen from the RAM Museum in Exeter kicked off the day by taking us on
a visual tour of the types of pottery that commonly - and less commonly
- occur in our part of the West Country. Oliver Kent, - who was instrumental
in reconstructing the 17th century kiln now on display in the Museum in
Barnstaple - talked us through methods of manufacture, firing and finishing
and discussed
the trade in pottery that in the past took North Devon wares to Ireland,
the Americas, the Caribbean and even to Australia.
The afternoon session was “hands-on”. People were asked to divide into small groups at separate tables where each group was handed a bag of assorted pottery sherds with dates ranging from Romano-British 2nd/3rd century to early 20th century. These they were asked to examine, discuss, and, with the aid of guidelines provided by our two experts, to attempt to identify. People quickly became absorbed in the exercise, and while they were working John and Oliver went from group to group assisting the discussion. As the whole day was a crash course, it would not have been fair to expect instant accurate identifications; a rough chronology was enough. Most groups did very well, managing to pick out the Roman material, to sort medieval from post-medieval and to identify earlier and later glazes. Most even managed to pick out the “Joker” included in each collection, a piece of Totnes ware from South Devon or Donyatt ware from Somerset.
People certainly seemed to enjoy the day and we hope that they found it helpful.We are very grateful to John Allen and Oliver Kent for their very valuable contributions and to Alison Mills for making the facilities of the Museum available to us.
Learning to Draw Training Day, Saturday 12th May 2007 - Derry Bryant
On 12th May a training day was held at Barnstaple museum
led by Alison Mills of the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon and Chris
Preece, archaeologist and NDAS member. The idea was to teach members how
to draw pottery sherds to publication standard, an invaluable part of
the recording process: (it's all very well to get down and dig it up,
but as we know, it is just as important to follow through with correct
recording and reporting, so the information can be passed on through the
generations).
Seven NDAS members made it on the day, and were relieved to hear that
no artistic skill was required, just careful observation and patience
with drawing fiddly shapes. Chris gave us helpful information on the best
tools (pencils, drawing pens, engineering callipers etc.)
We soon discovered that the most useful bits to draw are rim sherds or
bases, as from a small piece of rim you can reconstruct the dimensions
of a pot. We were given rim charts to place the sherds on, to find the
correct diameter of the vessel, then had to draw the profile of the sherd,
tracing over it on draughting film and reversing it to provide the opposite
edge of the pot. This was fun - most of us hadn't done any tracing since
infant school! It was amazing to realise how big some of the pots were.
We then had to note on the drawing any decoration, glaze, special features
(internal and external), and learned the techniques for doing this. As
we had been using already published material, we were then asked to identify
our pots from the published version. This was followed by a short presentation
which showed
how important the drawing of pottery is - drawing the sherds helps to
identify pottery types, which leads to identification of the age of the
pottery, which can identify the age of the site which may of course be
multi-period.
The afternoon session put us to the test: we were given sherds from the
recent river excavation in Barnstaple, and were asked to draw them properly,
as we had in the morning. Some were easier than others, but we managed,
and at the end of the day had produced some useful drawings - we put our
names on our drawings, with the "find number" and any other
useful information to help identify them. The drawings will now be included
in the report of the river excavations, once the museum (or more eager
volunteers, as we didn't have time) has identified their type, probable
area of manufacture etc.
We learnt a lot on a most enjoyable day. Many thanks to Alison and Chris
for their hard work.
Copyright © 2007 North Devon Archaeological Society