Dishwashing

One of the surprises of this experience is the volume of pottery that is found in these archaeological digs.  Hundreds of pieces of pottery are collected each day - thousands over the course of the dig season.  We are told to only keep it if a) it is a handle or a rim, b) if it is a piece larger than one inch square, or c) if it is unlike the rest of the pottery in the area.  Which means that there are countless pieces that just get tossed into the dump pile.  But every day you find a bunch of pieces that meet the criteria, which you put into a "find bucket" that is labeled with a locus number identifying the area and the depth of the square you are digging.  Each day I find dozens of pottery pieces that get tossed into my bucket.  

Pottery is so prevalent because once clay is fired in a kiln, it is amazingly durable and will not decompose.  It may break into pieces (all the pottery we find are broken pieces), but it won't disintegrate.  And because clay vessels were so common and could easily be replaced, they were often disposed of carelessly.  

Pottery is so useful to archaeologist because it is so distinctive.  Pottery styles and materials changed over time.  The color of the glaze, the makeup of the clay, the designs used, the thickness of the pot, and especially the shape of the lip and handle (which is why these pieces are so valuable) all changed over time.  

So because pottery is so plentiful, we have a large catalog of the different types.  And because pottery is so distinctive, we can use it to date the level we are excavating.  Our pottery expert was able to look at our bucket of pottery n the first day and tell us right away that it was almost all Byzantine (4th - 8th century).  She took the time to explain it to us - pointing out the patterns on the pottery, the color of the clay, and a couple of stylistic features.  Some of the pieces she was able to tell us the kind of vessel the fragment came from.  

So what do we do with all this pottery?  Each afternoon we have a pottery workshop.  At least that's what is says on our schedule.  Workshop is a bit of a stretch.  Truth is, we wash the dishes.  We grab a bucket of shards that has been filled with water and a scrub brush, along with a drying bin for the clean pieeces and we start to scrub.  We try to get all the dirt off the pieces so our pottery expert can get a better look at them.  She floats from bucket to bucket, looking over what we are cleaning up. This is the workshop aspect, since she is a wonderful teacher and she will take a pile of pottery and make it come to life.  She quickly highlights a few things that she notices and points our some features that could easily be overlooked. She has piles of books that she consults and is able to show us pictures of some of the vessels that we just have a little piece of.  One night she was looking over the pieces I had cleaned and got excited by a fragment that was the base of a bowl.  Right in the middle was a clearly defined fingerprint.  she said it's a small thing, but whenever she sees that she is reminded that this pot was made by a real person who stuck their finger in wet clay and left us a record for thousands of years later.

After cleaning, the pieces are set out to dry.  From there is it out of our hands.  The pottery specialist will determine which pieces to keep.  Each will be labeled, measured, and tentatively identified.  If there are pieces that obviously fit together, then she may do some conservation and try gluing them together.  The finds get entered into a database and placed in storage.  More research will be done to determine how this pots relate to other pottery finds in other excavations in the area. Conclusions will be drawn.  Dates for levels will be assigned. All this from broke pieces of pottery.

My two roommates and me cleaning pots

Another group working on cleaning their potsherds

When you have some pieces that you know fit together, you put them in that little basket inside the bigger basket (in the center left of the picture).  Sometimes we find enough to fully reassemble a pot.

More pottery drying.  

A large section of an oil lamp.