Frances opens a box of pottery we haven’t seen before!

On Friday, despite the freezing weather,  Frances McIntosh, Dr James Gerrard and myself went out to Rolfe’s house to look at the Piercebridge pottery assemblage.  The task for the day was to persuade James (a lecturer in Roman archaeology at Newcastle University and a pottery expert) to be our pottery specialist and to devise a strategy for the study of all 50 kilos of pot from the site. Fortified by a continuous stream of sausage rolls and cups of tea (thanks, Rolfe!) we managed to achieve both.

Here’s what James has to say about the assemblage:

“I had an email from Philippa a few weeks back asking whether I and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Artefact Studies at Newcastle University might be interested in working on the Piercebridge pottery. So today we went to meet Bob and Rolfe and I had a good look at the boxes of pottery.

It was a pretty interesting collection. The first impression is that it’s all pretty fresh with sharp edges and breaks. This is important because it should indicate that the pottery hasn’t travelled far in the river. 

Some of the decorated Samian from Piercebridge

There’s a small but important collection of samian from Gaul, which includes some decorated vessels and sherds with makers’ stamps. There was even a piece with a rivet hole – this shows that it was repaired in antiquity and is an indicator of the esteem that samian was held in by the Romans.

 There are a few sherds from large olive oil amphorae from Spain and quite a few beakers and drinking vessels. Some of these are from the Nene Valley and include vessels decorated with hunting scenes.

Most of the pottery are black and grey kitchen and tablewares. Jars, bowls and dishes are present and the vessels range in date from the second until the fourth century. Some of the latest sherds are from BB1 jars and bowls. It was nice to see these because they come from Dorset and I wrote my PhD on this type of pottery!

James explains the dating of Black Burnished ware to Bob

It’s early days and the next step is to get the pottery up to Newcastle so I can study it properly. That said, one striking aspect of this pottery is the lack of any flagons (jugs). I’m not sure how to explain this but it’s a hint that these boxes of pottery have secrets to reveal.”

James, Philippa, Bob and Rolfe on pottery sorting duty