Tag: medieval

Looking Back and Reflecting!

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! 

Step 3: Making our Bowls!

For our next adventure into the world of Medieval pottery, we had a big task to undertake: actually making the pieces! After having harvested, clarified, and prepared the clay, we left them out to dry for around 10-20 minutes or so. This allowed the clay to become slightly less wet, and combined with the sand, made for an overall more malleable medium for sculpting.

Our blocks of clay ready to be shaped into beautiful Medieval pottery. (Photo by Lily)

Then, we were ready to get creative! We consulted a source to get an idea of what techniques we should know or follow in order to get the most authentic pottery, as well as ensuring our pieces had the highest possible chance of surviving the firing process and resulting in successful objects.

One major resource which we followed closely was this video, created by the Youtube channel English Heritage, who utilizes methods employed by Stone Age potters to teach the audience the best techniques to create a Neolithic Grooved Ware bowl. Although the Stone Age predates the Medieval period which we are studying, the basic methods of creating a well-formed and sturdy piece of pottery was something we believed we should employ. 

Alex and Bridget watching the video with the prepared pieces of clay. (Photo by Lily)

Turning our harvested clay into actual pottery was such a large part of our experiential process, and we truly found ourselves transported into the experience of Medieval pottery making. Although we attempted to hand-purify our clay, it was definitely still natural; we had to work through small pieces of debris and dried chunks of clay while shaping our bowls.

TASK 1: ALL ABOUT THAT BASE (OF THE POT )

The first step in creating our bowls was to work out the clay. First, we tore a piece out of our chunk of clay and set it aside – our video said we would need this for later. Then, we began throwing the clay back and forth between our hands, patting it down and attempting to create a flat base for our bowl. English Heritage stated that this step would help get any air pockets out of the clay. We then started to form and shape the barrel-like portion of our bowl, so it began to resemble something like a pot. Then it was time to deal with the extra piece of clay that we separated at the beginning!

Lily working on the base of her bowl, and preparing for the next step. (Photo by Bridget)

TASK 2: THE MEDIEVAL SAUSAGE AND THE ART OF BONE SCRAPING

Following our first task. we turned back to the piece of clay we set aside earlier. Taking the “sausage”, as English Heritage calls it, we began to roll it and then add it to the tops of our bowls, to give them heightened and more stable rims. Instead of a bone scraper, which were used to smooth the outside surfaces of the bowls, Alex came prepared with a small knife which was incredibly similar. This allowed us to fine-tune our bowls and make sure they looked more uniform, much like those in Medieval times might have done.

Alex using a small knife to simulate the bone scraper. (Photo by Lily)

TASK 3: DECORATE THAT POT LIKE IT’S HOT!

Finally, it was time to get creative and add some decorations to our bowls. Using small nails, as well as our fingers, we all personalized our bowls, each with varying stylistic choices. We mostly opted for geometric designs, with sharp triangles and lines surrounding the pieces. The small tip of the nail made a great instrument for carving lines into the side of the bowl; however, with the fresh clay, we had to be careful not to poke through or compromise the walls of the pottery.

Our teams finished pots! From the left, we have Alex’s, Lily’s, and Bridget’s final bowls. (Photos by all)

FINAL TAKEAWAYS!

Overall, creating our bowls using the harvested and clarified clay was not an easy feat, but definitely a rewarding one. Being able to take a lump of material and turn it into a (hopefully!) fully functional piece of dish-ware was certainly an arduous but really interesting process! Fingers crossed to see how these beauties fire when we proceed to the next stage of our research.

Thanks for reading!

Final products! These are the three Medieval bowls created by our team, as well as some extra ones which we played around with. (Photo by Lily)

References:

English Heritage. (2017, April 3). How To Make Prehistoric Pottery | Stone Age Technology [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrI1LJbKIvk. 

Our Research Proposal

Here we will give more detail about the exact plan for our project, including each individual step we will take while working with the natural clay.

Our research questions:

  1. What was the experience of harvesting clay from the ground like?
  2. What was the experience of processing the clay like?
  3. How did it feel to shape and sculpt the clay? Will it be easy and intrinsic, or will it take a lot of trial and error?
  4. Will our clay objects survive being fired, and what changes will occur in the clay throughout that process?
  5. How does our experience in harvesting, preparing and firing the clay compare to medieval sources and what may have been created in those times? What are our limitations? Did our experience ‘feel medieval’? Why or why not?

Throughout our little clay adventure, we will keep these questions in mind to think about and reflect on during the entire process.

Materials:

  • Clay harvested from family farm in Duncan – Alex has harvested this clay and worked with it previously so we know where to look and how to dig for it
  • Sand from river bed as a temper for the pottery (If the river is too high to collect sand safely, we will use play sand purchased from Canadian Tire)
  • Firewood and fire pit (located at the farm) to fire the pottery in
  • Big bucket of water to rewet our clay and make it easier to work with
  • Our own hands!
  • Likely we will have some tools like stick and scrapers to add details and designs to our sculpted objects
  • Finally, we will need plastic bags to cover our objects to allow them to dry slowly

The steps we will take:

  • We will harvest clay from clay deposits located on Alex’s family farm using shovels and a wheelbarrow. At this stage the clay will be chunky and brittle. We will also try to collect sand from the creek bed nearby that will be used as temper for our pottery. If the river bed is too high to reach the sand, however, we will substitute with play sand from Canadian Tire.
  • Processing the clay – this involves kneading the clay and squishing it together to make it more workable and cohesive. We will likely need to pick some rocks/roots/debris out of the clay at this point. Allowing the clay to dry more and/or adding water to the clay will also make it more workable.
  • Shaping the clay – we will shape the clay into various objects yet to be determined. We imagine we will make some bowls, plates, cups, and maybe some other objects that will be more fun/decorative depending on how much time we have.
  • Allowing the clay to dry – from conversations with friends who create pottery in their own time, we know that it is crucial to allow the clay to dry slowly and completely before firing it. Previously, Alex has learned this through error that resulted in her clay objects breaking and exploding in the fire, and we are hoping to avoid that. We will keep our clay objects covered to let them dry slowly, and give them at least a week to dry out completely.
  • Firing (this will likely happen a week or two later so Alex will most likely take the lead on it at the farm) – we will create an outdoor fire in our fire pit and make it as large and hot as possible to allow the fire to reach a high enough temperature. When Alex has experimented with this in the past it was possible but required a lot of stoking and firewood, as well as carefully placing the objects as close to the embers as possible. We will most likely place the objects in the fire for a few hours and then let the fire burn down and cover it overnight so that the objects are trapped in the heat of the embers.
  • The final step will be the following morning, pulling the objects out of the ashes. There will likely be a colour change to indicate if the clay has become pottery; we will also be able to hear the difference by flicking the objects with a finger and listening to the sound it makes. Alex will bring the objects back from Duncan for us to assess and analyse. 

That is our plan! We have found a few YouTube videos we will likely consult whilst at the farm to figure out the best ways to shape our natural clay into bowls, plates, cups, or other objects commonly found on archaeological sites. The above video is more geared towards prehistoric pottery, but many of the techniques and information are still relevant, plus we just like looking at his silly little vest.

Wish us luck!