Potted History On Screen

In terms of media work, it's been a busy couple of years and I'll be linking to a few of the resulting videos in the coming months, this one was made for English Heritage, Stonehenge, for whom you may recall from earlier posts, I made the replica Grooved Ware and Beaker pottery displayed in the Stonehenge Visitor Centre Museum and in the replica Neolithic Houses. This obviously shows a very much speeded-up version of the creation of a Neolithic Grooved Ware pot, but it does give an idea of the processes involved. Early in 2019 I'll be starting a subscription Vlog in which I'll produce monthly lecture/demo videos taking you through all aspects of Prehistoric Pottery making. I'll go into detail on everything from the selection and preparation of materials, the making and use of authentic tools, forming and decorating many different types of Neolithic, Bronze-Age and Iron Age pottery and the firing process. If you'd be interested to hear more about this, or keep informed about forthcoming workshops and replicas, sign up to my Mailing List. Or to book onto one of my one day workshops have a look at our website Potted-History.co.uk  

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Skara Brae Neolithic Pottery Demonstrations

At Easter 2017 you'd have found me absolutely in my element, working for Historic Environment Scotland, at Skara Brae, the amazingly well preserved Neolithic Village on the Bay of Skaill, Orkney Mainland not far from the Ness of Brodgar, the Ring of Brodgar, The Stones of Stenness and Maeshow. Built about 5000 years ago, that's before the stones were erected at Stonehenge and before the first Egyptian pyramids were constructed, Skara Brae is a truly remarkable survival. Occupied for about 500 years it was abandoned around 4500 years ago and as relatively quickly covered with sand, preserving not only the structure of the buildings and some wonderful artefacts, but the flagstone furniture as well; beds, storage tanks and display shelving know as "the dresser".  Several of these houses are preserved almost to level of the roof, the exact structure of which is not known.  For conservation reasons it's not possible to enter the original houses, so Historic Environment Scotland have created a replica of house seven and it was here that I was stationed, inhabiting the space, making replicas and filling up the dresser with my pots.

During the five days that I was there, using tools that were based on finds from the site, I made several large Grooved Ware vessels and a few Unstan Ware Bowls. This was a great experience for me and it seemed to be much appreciated by the visitors, many of whom stayed for some considerable time, talking to me about the houses, life in Neolithic Orkney, but mostly the pottery. Two guides who brought several groups round the site during my time there, were most emphatic that I must stay permanently and that the dresser should remain filled with my pots. Unfortunately that's not going to be possible at present but i am hoping that Historic Environment Scotland will invite me back again.

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Replicating The Aldbourne Cup

I always enjoy what I do, but lately I've had some amazing commissions, here's the story of one of them: Towards the end of 2015 I was contacted by John Dymond and Alan Heasman, from the Aldbourne Heritage Centre in Wiltshire, asking if I would be able to replicate the Aldbourne Cup for display in their museum. I knew the pot well or at least I thought I did: It was excavated by Cannon Greenwell, in October 1878, from a Bronze Age barrow near the village. Normally my replicas recreate a pot as it looked on the day it was first made, however after some discussion and various meetings of members of the Aldbourne Heritage

I had replicated it on numerous occasions based on drawings and photographs but I decided to make an appointment to visit the British Museum, the cup's current home, and have a close look at it. I'm really glad that I did, because what hadn't been obvious from the images, was the fact that the perforations that formed the decoration, were circular rather than square. Many Bronze-Age beakers, food vessels and the like, are decorated by impressing a shallow toothed comb into the wet clay, forming dotted lines. These combs are almost invariably made by cutting grooves across the edge of a flat piece of bone or antler, this results in a row square or rectangular teeth. The Aldbourne cup on the other hand, had been decorated with a comb composed of round pins, probably three 2mm pins placed in a row and sharpened at the tips to produce 1mm holes spaced 1mm apart. As luck would have it the same burial produced 2 bronze pins pretty much fitting this description, which previous investigators had suggested may have been tattooing tools. A little research yielded images of Polynesian tattooing combs, that informed my reconstruction of a tool suitable for decorating the pot.

Another peculiarity of the decoration was that, while I knew that there were two holes passing through the wall of the pot, as there are with quite a few examples of accessory vessels, in this case some of the impressed decoration actually appeared to go right through the wall of the pot. I believe that this was accidental and occurred where impressions on the outside and inside, exactly coincided with one another.

One reason why such deep decoration might be desirable is if it was intended to be filled with some contrasting coloured material for decorative effect. When looking at the original, it did appear to me that this might be the case ad I thought that in some of the holes I could detect evidence of a lighter material. For this reason I went back to the Heritage Centre members asking the question “to inlay or not to inlay”. Warwick Hood, who had done considerable research, and presented a paper to the Aldbourne Heritage Group on the subject of the cup, kindly pointed out the following reference in Canon Greenwell's 1890 Archaeolgia article, entitled “Recent Researches in Barrows in Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, etc.”:

"There is one particular in which it is of much interest, and which has not hitherto, I believe, been observed in pottery from a British barrow. The impressions forming the pattern, and which have been made by a sharp-pointed tool, probably a bronze pricker, have been filled in with some white material like finely powdered chalk applied when in a semi-liquid state. This white material was certainly not the result of the vessel being in contact with chalk, for the surrounding earth was very dark coloured and without any admixture of chalk whatever."

The Aldbourne IV barrow had in fact contained two Aldbourne Cups and in this case Greenwell is referring to the second. Nevertheless the evidence suggested that this had been the case with both the cups and the decision was made, that in the case of the cup in original state, white chalk paste would be applied. This was done by crushing chalk to a paste with a little water, rubbing it into the decoration of the fired pot, polishing off the excess and sealing it into place with a layer of beeswax. I knew it would dramatically change the appearance of the pot, but I probably wasn't prepared for just how stunning it would look. I learned so much more but watch out for a paper later.

Although the Aldbourne Heritage Centre has been open during it's development, I was delighted to be invited to attend the official opening, along with Phil Harding of Time Team fame and Neil Wilkin, Curator, British and European Bronze Age Collection at the British Museum, where the replicas were officially handed over to the Centre.

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Neolithic Carinated Bowl: complex simplicity

At first glance a Neolithic carinated bowl, the earliest type of pottery in Britain, looks like a very simple pot. Certainly they were hand formed often from very coarse natural clay, to function as humble cooking pots. In fact when making an average sized bowl, up to about 20cm in diameter, its form flows almost naturally from the process itself. The curve of the bowl nestles nicely in the hand, the concave form of the upper body conforms to the curve of the thumb, while the fingers stretch down inside to push out the carnation.  All well and good, but when one comes to make a bowl as big as the one I made for Stonehenge, it's a different matter.  For a start there's the weight; at over thirty centimetres in diameter it requires nearly five kilos of coarse clay in its construction. This makes it virtually impossible to hold the soft vessel in one hand.  If I start building on a base (flat stone, grass mat whatever is handy) this gives it a flat base, which can only be expanded out once the clay has stiffened.  Alternatively working into the base of an old broken pot does allow one to make a round bottomed piece but only to a predetermined form and, as clay shrinks on drying it will easily release from its "mould" but will also be considerably smaller than the former.  Once the pot becomes firm enough to support itself it can be picked up and worked on but this brings with it its own problems, the stiffened clay becomes brittle, the least deformation of the rim and the pot will crack, a flaw which, in the firing, could result in total failure.  One possible solution to this is to add organic fibrous material which will act as reinforcement in the unfired pot and one of the most suitable sources of this is animal dung. Finally, once the pot has reached a leather hard stage, the entire inner and outer surfaces need to me slip coated by rubbing with a wet hand and finally burnished all over, again without putting undue stress on the rim.

Firing small pots in an open fire is a relatively simple matter provided a strict set of rules are adhered to, a large pot on the other hand is quite a different matter. That pot needs to be absolutely dry before it comes anywhere near to a flame. In a Neolithic hut it would undoubtedly have spent several days on the outer edges of the hearth, occasionally being turned to present a new face to the warmth of the fire.  Only once the potter was certain that all moisture had left the clay would the firing process begin: The pot would be moved a little closer to the fire, inverted, and with its rim supported on three stones a few embers from the fire would have been pushed underneath its dome, their rising smoke and heat filling the vessel. Replenishing and increasing this small glowing fire over the next couple of hours the potter would have carefully and steadily raised the temperature until, at around about 400 degrees C the organic matter in the clay would have begun to burn, turning the outer surface of the pot dark brown or black.  This would also be an indication that it was ready to move to the next stage of firing, surrounding the pot with embers and eventually immersing the pot into the fire, bringing up its temperature until at seven or eight hundred degrees, in the darkness of the hut interior it could be seen to glow deep red. The firing complete, the fire would have been allowed to burn down and go out and the pot would have been cooled while protecting it from sudden cold draughts that might cause it to crack.

Simple as that!

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Childlike Exuberance

One of the best things about running historical pottery workshops in schools, is seeing the uninhibited exuberance of the children's work. Unlike many adults, they are not afraid to express themselves in paint or clay and as a result the pots and sculptures they produce have a vitality, often lacking in the more carefully considered work of their seniors. When I return the fired pots to the schools, the children are amazed and delighted to see how the fire has changed and preserved their artwork. 

For more information about my pottery workshops for schools and museums see my earlier post HERE.

Egyptian Canopic Jars by Blackhill School Children

Egyptian Canopic Jars by Blackhill School Children 

Egyptian Shabti Figures by Blyth School Children

Roman Head Pots by Keilder School Children

Mediaeval Green Men by Bedlington School Children

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Pots for Stonehenge and Wiltshire

I take delight in every project that I undertake but being asked by English Heritage, to make all the replica pottery fro the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre and by the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes, to make replicas for the Gold from the time of Stonehenge have been a particular highlights of the past year. In each case making the pots not as they look now, after several millennia in the ground, but as they would have looked when new. The first part of the project was to produce a selection of large Neolithic Grooved Ware vessels, to be used in the prototype Neolithic Houses which English Heritage built at Old Sarum, as a precursor to building a group at Stonehenge. These pots were based on originals excavated at Durrington Walls. 

Grooved Ware pots based on finds from Durrington Walls

Next came a film role, at least for my hands. I was filmed making a replica grooved ware pot, from crushing and preparing the raw clay and grog, through building and decorating the vessel, to firing it on an open hearth and finally removing the finished pot from the fire. This video will be showing on a loop in the visitor centre, alongside one of Phil Harding making a flint axe and Neil Burridge casting bronze.

Grooved Ware pot glowing in an open fire

At this point I was invited to join archaeologist and curator Sarah Lunt at Fort Cumberland and at Salisbury Museum, to look at the originals pots that I would be replicating for the Stonehenge Museum display, and the education rooms. It is a huge privelage to have had the opportunity to see and handle such iconic pots as: The Wilsford collared urn, grape cup and Stonehenge cup, excavated by William Cunnington during his excavation campaign 1802 – 1810, along with beakers, carinalted bowls and the small grooved ware pot from Durrington Walls.

Back in my studio I began replicating these masterpieces of Neolithic and Bronze-Age ceramic art, for both Stonehenge and the Devizes Museum, here are some of the results.

Wilsford Collared Urn and Grape Cup along with "The Ceramic Object"

The beautiful collared urn here from the Wilsford G7 burial is one of the finest examples from the whole of the UK, here's the original . I'm not the first to attempt to replicate it, Josiah Wedgwood had a go, although in terracotta and over industrialised for my liking. The refinement of this pot and the care with which the decoration has been applied make it a real challenge to replicate. To a lesser degree the same is true of the grape cup with over 150 individually applied pellets and between each pair, a hole bored through to the interior, at only 6cm tall, that's a lot of detail packed into a very small pot. The third item here is the "Ceramic Object", found in the fill of Aubrey Hole number 29 and so called because no one knows exactly what it is.  

My replicas on display at Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes

The pots below are in the education rooms at Stonehenge

Early Neolithic Carinated Bowl, Grooved Ware Pot, Wilsford Beaker and Ceramic Object

My final job is to make the pots for the Neolithic houses so watch this space.


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Hebridean Bronze Age Replicas

Just finishing work on a replica Cordoned Urn and Food Vessel for a client.

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Potted History Public Events 2012

It's been a hectic summer and I've been all over the country demonstrating ancient pottery techniques, here are some of the main events I attended.

I had a great weekend at  the Bedford, River Festival on 21^st and 22nd July making replicas of ancient Greek Rhytons, Amphorae and Epinetrons. On Friday 3^rd August  I was on the Solway, at Senhouse Roman Fort, Maryport, Cumbria.  Demonstrating Roman pottery making with both the Potter’s Wheel and moulds, including the Senhouse Samian bowl. quite a few children had a go at making their own Samian Ware bowl.

On a very rainy Sunday 5^th August I was at Paxton House, celebrating Paxton "Before the House" with some Prehistoric, Neolithic and Bronze-Age pottery demonstrations.  I showed how the beakers discovered last year at Fishwick had been created, from the making of stone, bone and antler tools through processing the clay to decorating pots. I was joined by Kristian Pedersen the archaeologist leading the excavation, who demonstrated the ancient craft of flintknapping.

From Saturday 11^th to  Monday 19^th August, I worked my way along the middle section of Hadrian's Wall in the guise of Bellicus the itinerant Roman Potter demonstrating how the Romans made many different types of pottery and answering questions on how they used these pots.

Saturday 25^th to Monday 27^th August I was atop the dizzy heights of Dover Castle demonstrating Roman pottery making and giving children the chance to make a Roman Gladiator votive plaque.

Kirknewton Festival, in Northumberland on Saturday 1^st and Sunday 2^nd of September was an absolute joy and here you'd have found me  making and firing Prehistoric Bronze-Age pottery, While Paula Constantine demonstrated ancient spinning, dying and weaving.

On the 22nd & 23rd September I had my first opportunity to work at Beamish Open Air Museum.  In the wonderful surroundings of the Home Farm I made country slipware jugs, bowls and platters in the style of !8th and 19th Century potters.

And continuing the theme of Victorian Pottery on Sunday 30^th of September I’ll be at Preston Hall for their Parkmade Event, where I’ll be demonstrating the skills of a Victorian country slipware potter and even offering you the opportunity to have a go and possibly purchase some of my wares.

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Some Recent Replicas

It's been a busy few months for replica making and these are a few of the pieces that I've recently made for clients:

Replica Early Bronze-Age Grape Cup and Fenestrated Vessel from Normanton Down in the Stonehenge landscape. These vessels are diminutive being only about 10cm in diameter but the complexity of the design makes them very time consuming particularly the Grape Cup.   

A late Iron Age wheel thrown bowl

An Iron-Age pot that is now residing in New Zealand 

Roman Gray & Parchment Ware

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Making Bad Replicas??

The pots that I find most difficult to replicate are ones that have been made with little aesthetic consideration and only the bare minimum of technical ability.  In the field of ancient ceramics these qualities (or possibly lack of qualities) are rare, but there are exceptions.  I have been asked to replicate some Souterrain ware, a very rudimentary type of pottery from Early Mediaeval Ireland.  I had to make some very similar pieces for the Gefrin exhibition of Brian Hope Taylor's finds from Yeavering / Gefrin in North Northumberland so the type isn't limited to Ireland.

The problem is, I always have to fight the natural inclination to "improve" the pot because that's exactly what I mustn't do.  The pots we tend to see in museum cases are, by and large, the best examples of their types.  If you've gone to the effort of going to see them you'd probably expect no less.  But I have to admit that it was only when I had gained sufficient professional standing, to be allowed into museum store rooms, that I realised that there were bad Prehistoric, Roman, Anglo Saxon Mediaeval, etc., potters.  But there they are, represented behind the scenes of virtually every museum I've ever looked at, and sometimes I have to copy them.

Take a deep breath and forget the last 35 years of training and experience, grab the clay and just make the pot..... and here is one of said pots, made from unprocessed glacial clay, more or less as it was dug from the ground.  The surface pock marked with small cavities left behind when organic matter burned out during the rather uneven open firing, a firing that brought the temperature of the pot up to about 700C, only really just hot enough to be called pot.  The underside is deeply impressed with the grass matt upon which the soft clay was rotated during the crude hand forming process.

The mystery really is, where had the technology gone??  Ireland is responsible for some of the finest prehistoric pottery in the British Isles.  This pot was obviously made for practicality not beauty and I respect the original maker for that, but were I able to travel back in time, I might be inclined to try and pass on a few potters' tips.

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Wonderful Flint Tools

Taking a piece of soft plastic clay in my hand and forming it into a pot I understand, but striking a piece of flint with a piece of deer antler and controlling the way the the fracture passes through the stone just seems magical.  I'm sure that if I put as many hours into hitting bits of stone as I have into shaping clay I would get the hang of it but with people as talented as John Lord around I think I'll stick to the mud, if you'll pardon the pun.  I'm busy upgrading my handling collections for the coming year so I ordered a few bits and pieces for John's site www.flintknapping.co.uk  and yesterday they arrived.

A flaked Neolithic Axe Head, two Tang & Barb Arrow Heads and possibly my favourite a Beaker Dagger.  I'm just really awed by the beauty of them.  I'm going to be hafting them and putting them together with appropriate pots to display when I'm doing my demos. 

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The Team at Making the Bronze Age

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Making The Bronze Age; Bellwood Riverside Park, Perth, Scotland

Back in my own workshop, in Rothbury, Northumberland, after a weekend as part of a re-enactment event on the banks of the beautiful Tay.  What a great event this was and I am delighted to have been a part of is, organised by the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust (PKHT).  ‘Making the Bronze Age’ brought together Archaeo-Craftspeople and Re-enactors from the UK and Germany to demonstrate some of the skills that created the wonderful artefacts that have been found in Scotland and beyond. 

I spent the weekend, ably assisted by Sarah Winlow of (PKHT), teaching participants to make beakers and food vessels from natural clay and open firing Bronze Age replicas.  If you missed it and would like to see something like it take place next year contact me or the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust and let us know. Among those involved were:

Neil Burridge: Ancient Bronze Specialists http://www.templeresearch.eclipse.co.uk/bronze/index.htm

who ran several bronze sword castings during the course of the weekend.  Watching molten bronze, stream into a clay mould and emerge as a beautiful bronze sword is nothing short of wizardry.  It’s no wonder that people of the past saw founders and smiths as beings from another dimension, controlling forces that weren’t quite of this earth.  I know from my own discipline that the control and use of fire is still considered to be something magical.

Damian Goodburn: Ancient Woodworking Specialist, who along with numerous assistants including Trevor Cowie of the National Museums of Scotland and David Strachan of PKHT, created a replica of the Ballachulish Goddess or Ballachulish Figure.  The original figure, dating from the Bronze Age, was found on the side of Loch Leven in 1880.  While photographs taken at the time show a remarkable state of preservation, the Victorian archaeologists had no knowledge of conservation techniques for wet timber and in the process of drying out the figure has shrivelled to be virtually unrecognisable.  It can still be seen in the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh but working with replica bronze tools and guided by the original photographs, drawings and measurements, this replica attempted to present her as she would have looked when newly made.  

The Crannog Centre http://www.crannog.co.uk/ demonstrated the uses of some of the many plant species that have been excavated from Loch Tay, around the ancient crannog.  Nettle soup and hand dyed wool was the order of the day.

German re-enactment group Stamm Alauni www.stamm-alauni.at who, dressed in authentic replica costume and armour and using weapons, tools and utensils of the period, presented an insight into life in the Bronze Age across Europe.

Twist Fibre Craft Studio http://www.twistfibrecraft.co.uk/ demonstrated spinning and weaving and Archaeoloink http://www.archaeolink.co.uk/ showed how cord and rope was made from natural plant fibres and bark bast.

I spent the weekend teaching participants to make beakers and food vessels from natural clay and open firing Bronze Age replicas.  If you missed it and would like to see something like it take place next year contact me and I’ll pass on your comments to the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust.  If you were there let me know what you thought of it.

 Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk