Prehistoric and Anglo Saxon Pottery Workshops

When I talk about making Prehistoric Pottery, Neolithic, Bronze-Age and Iron-Age, or indeed Post Roman Anglo Saxon/Early Mediaeval  ceramics, I often get the response "Oh, that's coiled isn't it?".  Coiled pottery is a term that jars with me, it conjours in the mind images of primary school classrooms with pots made of little clay sausages, gradually falling apart as they dry. The range of techniques used by potters before the Romans introduced the potters' wheel to Britain and in the centuries after Roman Rule ended, are wide and varied, they are robust and were carefully chosen to create strong, functional vessels. The same is true of their choice of tools, materials and firing method.  In a one day workshop, I can't teach you everything there is to know about Ancient Ceramics, but I can give you a pretty good grounding in the basic methods, I can show you how to select the best materials for the job and I can get you to make a couple of decent replicas. The first three workshops at our Rothbury Studio, for 2019, are now available for booking on our website 

https://potted-history.co.uk/collections/workshops

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

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.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Roman Samian Ware or Terra Sigillata Pottery Workshop

Just had a great weekend running a Roman Samian Ware or Terra Sigillata workshop here in my Rothbury studio, and if you like the sound of it, you might like to join me on my next one. Email me if you're interested info@pottedhistory.co.uk.

A great group of participants have made their own set of Samian Ware punches based on designs from original archaeological finds. Punches were used by Roman potters; impressed into the inner surfaces of moulds in order to transfer their patterns onto decorated pots and bowls. That's exactly what the people at my workshop did, using their own punches along with some of my own to build up their own design. While some of the participants had a go on my momentum wheel, I'd made a blank mould for each of them, to ensure that everyone went home with a finished mould.

Now the next part of the process is to fire the moulds, but as it wasn't possible to get the moulds fired, as this can only be done after several days of drying, the participants used some of my own moulds for actually making their pot. As the mould spins quickly on the wheel, clay is firmly pressed into it to pick up all the decoration, then it is set aside to dry overnight. After a few hours the pot has dried to leather-hard and shrunk back from the mould, sufficiently to allow it to be removed. 

It now goes back onto the wheel, but this time upside down, a ring of clay is applied, shaped and smoothed to form a foot-ring. 

After drying again, the pot is dipped into the specially prepared colloidal slip, which dries to the beautiful satin sheen that makes Samian Ware so special. In addition to making some great replicas the participants learned about the history of Arretine and Samian ware, about the ceramic chemistry that makes this pottery so special, about the amazingly advanced kiln designs that made it so durable that it emerges from the ground looking brand new after two thousand years, about the slip trailing technique that decorated closed forms not suitable for mould making and hopefully much more.

Most importantly everyone had fun!

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Greek Pots for Dr Michael Scott

Having made the replicas used by Dr Michael Scott in his brilliant BBC2 TV series; "Who Were the Greeks", see my blog entry "TV Props, Greek Bronzes Made From Clay" , I was delighted when Dr Scott contacted me and commissioned some replicas to use in his teaching at Warwick University. Now I will say at this point, when Michael contacted me I had anticipated that I'd be making some fairly high status pieces but I wasn't quite prepared for the reference material that he eventually sent me. On a trip to the British Museum he'd taken some photographs of some of the most magnificent Greek pots that he could find: the Douris Cooler, the Berlin Krater, the Phrynos Kylix and the Sharpedon Kylix:

I've replicated Greek red and black figure pottery before but these pieces were the creme de la creme, they were high status when they were first created and they're still high status today. why? Well for the complexity of their manufacture, the refinement of their form and by no means least, the skill of the painter who decorated them. The pots shown here are my, or should I say our replicas not the originals. I made the pots, but my wife Lynda Taylor, a professional artist, decorated them, they required the best! 

The precision with which the pots are made, the perfect alignment of the stem of the kylix and the crispness of the foot, shoulder and rim of the krater, tell me not only that they were made by a highly skilled potter, but that the potters' wheel on which they were thrown was very stable indeed. This was no rough stone disk pivoted on a point of rock, it was a precise piece of machinery with smooth running bearings. The same is true of all of these pots and while the potters making cups and bowls for everyday use may well have made use of primitive wheels these craftsmen had access to the very best tools. They have used that technology to push the making process to new heights, creating forms that say "Look what I can do".

More to come later, watch this space.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

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.


Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Replica Egyptian Canopic Jars

A set of canopic jars with their storage chest made recently for Maidstone Museum's educational handling collection.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Hebridean Bronze Age Replicas

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

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Roman Antefixa for Grosvenor Museum

I've been making lots of replicas for museums and individuals in the past few weeks.  Today I sent out three Replica Roman Antifixa (Antefixes) which will become part of the new display at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester.  An antefix is a decorative terminal which finishes off the lower edge of a tiled roof, in this case a Roman roof covered with Tegula and Imbrex tiles.  From left to right they bear the following relief images:
The Boar emblem of the 20th (XX) Legion, the lion and Jupiter Ammun.  The making of these involved first calculating the shrinkage of the clay through each stage of the manufacturing process so that I could make punches, to make the moulds, to make the antefixa. Given the high quality moulding on the faces and the rather rustic approach to the rest of the decoration, I suspect that the faces may have been 'sampled' from something like a legionary standard.

Here you can see a set of Antefixa in place on a miniature Roman roof that I also made for the Grosvenor.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

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

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

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.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Replicas as Christmas Gifts

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a number of different replicas including Neolithic Carinated Bowls & Unstan Bowls, Bronze Age Beakers, Iron-Age Decorated Bowls & Roman Hunt Cups and these are now on display in Crown Studio Gallery, Bridge Street, Rothbury.  So if you need a special gift for the Archaeologist, Historian, Antiquarian or Re-enactor in your life, or even for yourself, I may be able to help.  Whatever festival you’re celebrating, be it Christmas, The Pagan Solstice, The Saturnalia, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (The Birth of the Invincible Sun, Mithras), or any other mid Winter Festival, I should have something that will suit.  If you can't get to Rothbury just ask and I can post items to you.

I take a great delight in the idea that I'm part of a potting tradition that stretches back thousands of years and try to make and fire the pots in ways that the original makers would recognise.  I take even greater delight in the idea that the pots will be owned and used by someone who truly appreciates their heritage, and will use them as they were intended.

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

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. 

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk

From Ancient Egypt to English Country Slipware

I think I've said before that my work can be quite wide and varied, well here's an example:  Over the past few days I've been working on sets of Egyptian Canopic Jars and some English Slipware.

Canopic Jar Set

Slipware Puzzle Jug

In this jar there is good liquor

Fit for either clerk or vicar

But to drink and not to spill

Will try the utmost of your skill 

A Slipware Harvest Jug

Good luck to the hoof and the horn

Good luck to the flock and fleece

Good luck to the growers of corn

With blessings of plenty and peace

Getting a bit nautical with this Mermaid Jug

Posset

A Health to King Charles

Visit my website at www.pottedhistory.co.uk