From the Iron Age to the modern day.

I was reminded today about how little the techniques of  pottery have changed over the years when I dug up a sherd of Iron Age pottery in the garden.

I don't suppose many people would have noticed it, but Gerry and I both studied early Archaeology at University, so I picked it up and washed it.

It was obvious  that this was a bit of pottery dating back over 2,000 years to the Iron Age.

Judging by the curve on it, it must have been a large pot. It has grit in it which would have made it thermally shock resistant - perhaps part of a cooking pot.

It was made by hand - probably by coiling and is  black so had been fired in a wood fired kiln.


Moving on from that I went on to look at a Roman pot I was given when a school was getting rid of a box of artefacts and wondered if I wanted the pottery.

This Roman pot is what we would call a waster - it has become damaged in the kiln. Perhaps the kiln got too hot and warped the pot, or maybe the clay had an air bubble in.

It is a beaker - one with a narrow foot that probably would have been held on the table in a tripod. But it is different from the iron age pot - it is more refined, thown on the wheel, and burnished on the outside to make it slightly shiney.

Once again it is black - fired in a wood kiln with a lot of smoke present.




Now on to the modern day with our wood fired pit kiln.

This is one we wood -fired a couple of days ago in our barrel pit experiments. It was subjected to  a lot of heat, burning without much oxygen present and a lot of smoke. This changed the nature of the white clay - making a pot not so dissimilar to the ones found 2,000 years ago.