Hello readers!
As the semester comes to a close and we wrap up ANTH361, we wanted to reflect back on this project and the skills acquired, hardships faced, and lessons learned along the way. Firstly, we want to think back on the long, arduous, yet incredibly rewarding process that was our adventure into Medieval pottery! Our journey was broken into four important steps: harvesting the clay, clarifying and processing the clay, making our pottery, and finally firing our pieces, (hopefully) turning them into finished products. Each step came with its own learning curve – most of us had never worked with natural clay before, and it was definitely something to get used to.
Bridget taking a picture of Alex with the raw clay!
One major theme that we found ourselves reflecting on throughout the semester was a sense of proximity to the past, and how experiential archaeology provides a unique opportunity for not only anthropologists, but really anyone to be able to experience similar events to the communities which came before us. Simple details like listening to the wind blowing through the grass while picking rocks out of our clay, or the crackling of the fire as it toughened up our pots, are common experiences that our Medieval counterparts likely also shared; more than just an interesting project, our pottery project lent us invaluable and firsthand insight into what these Medieval processes might have looked like, and even felt like for those involved.
Beyond this, our adventure allowed us to reflect more on the process of Medieval pottery-making itself. In a modern, highly industrialized world, simple items like bowls and plates are everywhere around us, and are one of the things that many may take for granted. Whether it be the rows of colourful dish ware in Ikea, the racks of plates and bowls at the University of Victoria Cove dining hall, or even the festive mugs and cups at your local Dollarama, eating and drinking vessels surround our daily lives. However, this experience in creating Medieval pottery truly opened our eyes to the painstaking and highly skilled process that is pottery-making.
Despite having all the required materials and resources, completing even a single step takes a long time; it turns out your hands can get quite tired after breaking down dried bits of clay that are stuck in your working pile, and making sure no worms are harmed in the process! Even after the four steps are completed, your pottery isn’t out of the woods: some of our pieces unfortunately did not survive the firing process.
Getting our pottery ready to fire.
The unpredictable and messy nature of making Medieval pottery made us reflect back on how this arduous process might have affected Medieval individuals. The amount of skill it takes to be able to confidently create pieces that are able not only to survive baking but also function well as dish-ware likely necessitated skilled craftspeople and a functioning understanding of clay properties. Moreover, it must have taken a long time to create even a fraction of the dishware the average modern human goes through in a day; imagine spending days on a plate, only for it to break in the firing process, landing you back at square one!
Overall, this project was a thoroughly fun, thought-provoking, and special journey, and nothing like any one us had experienced anything before! Stay tuned for pictures of our final poster and some final thoughts as we wrap up the semester.
Thanks for reading!