A4, colour and monochrome plates
Contents
Abstracts
Pottery and Identity in Saxon Sussex
Ben Jervis
This paper explores the ways in which pottery manufacture served to create and maintain feelings of identity in Saxon Sussex. The concept of identity is outlined before the archaeology of Saxon Sussex is introduced. A practice based approach to pottery manufacture caused people to perceive themselves in relation to their landscape, to each other and to pottery.
Conventual Pottery in Sarazana (Eastern Liguria) between the Middle Ages and the early Modern Age: a comparison between documentary and archaeological sources
Paolo de Vingo
In Liguria, the archaeological methodology applied in the excavation of monastery sites, both male and female, poses significant problems involving integration and comparison within what is certainly a more complex framework that emerges from the documentary sources. Obviously these sources refer to specific meanings for particular objects and, at the same time, describe the presence of entire categories of products that, for preservation reasons, are rarely or never included in the excavation documentation. The analysis of objects providing evidence of the communal behaviour in relation to usage and individual ownership of the material culture, so elaborate within written sources, must be limited solely to ceramic pieces. In this paper the author intends on examining such materials in order to reconstruct the economic trends in the religious communities, to determine the supply sources and therefore, through the pottery objects, to propose a social and not just archaeological interpretation of the religious context.
What did Medieval people eat from?
Robin Wood
Despite large numbers of pottery fragments occurring on most medieval excavations including many that are classified as ‘tableware’ the proportion of what could be described as ‘eating vessels’ is very small. The predominant forms are jugs, storage and cooking pots. This paper looks at the production, purchase and use of wooden eating and drinking vessels and compares and contrasts this with pottery.
A Late Medieval Whiteware from Clarence Street, York
Alan Vince
Excavations at 44 Clarence Street, York, by Anthony Dickson in 2006 produced an unusual late medieval vessel which could not be precisely paralleled in form or fabric. It was recommended that analysis of this vessel was undertaken and the present paper is a result of that analysis.
The vessel is identified here as a product of the North Yorkshire whiteware potteries located on the western foothills of the Hambleton Hills and appears to have been a copy of late medieval Low Countries types.
Normandy Whitewares from Ronaldson’s Wharf, Leith, Scotland
Alan Vince and Richard Jones
Samples of two whitewares from Ronaldson’s Wharf, Leith, both putative Normandy products, (Haggarty, G 2006), were selected by George Haggarty, courtesy of John Lawson the City of Edinburgh Archaeologist. The comparative data include samples of Rouen glazed wares, Rouen early glazed wares (10th/11th century), York Early Glazed Ware (which is probably a Lower Seine product) and La Londe ware from the kiln site (immediately south of Rouen on the south side of the Seine), La Londe ware from consumer sites in the British Isles (Vince 2006), Normandy Gritty ware from sites in Exeter (Hughes forthcoming) and various other French and putative French whitewares.
The use of ceramics in late medieval and early modern monasteries: data from three sites in East Flanders (Belgium)
Koen de Groote
Usually the average pottery assemblages from waste layers or cess pits in monasteries do not seem to have typical features to identify their origin. The research of three monastic sites in Flanders resulted in a large datset of late and post-medieval ceramics. It confirms the general picture of the use of pottery in abbeys, but it also revealed some special features, such as specific wearing marks on jugs and scratch marks, which give a link between the pottery and their monastic environment. The meaning of the specific presence of late-medieval Mediterranean tin-glazed wares in monastic sites from inland Flanders is another subject that requires special attention in this context.
An unexpected ‘catch’ for the Brixham Trawler Catear
Phillip Armitage and Kate Armitage
Among the items recently donated to Brixham Heritage Museum is an unglazed earthenware bottle with moulded decoration. According to the donor, Mr B.T. Stockton (Catear Fishing Co Ltd, Brixham), this item had been recovered ten years ago in the trawl net of Brixham trawler Catear whilst fishing ‘fifteen miles off Start Point, slightly to the east’. At the initial examination of the item both of the authors recognised its antiquity and considered the decorative style was non-European, probably Near Eastern (Islamic). Photographs and measurements of the bottle were then sent to ceramic specialists in London and Oxford, which results in confirmation of its provenance and revealed further details about its dating and function.