- Your Name and Title: Sulicena filia Vassurae (she/they) OM, OL
- Title of your Project: Iron Age Ceramic Tools and Pottery
- Location: The Province of Malagentia
- East Kingdom Wiki Link: https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Sulicena_filia_Vassurae
- Website/Blog Link: @sylvan.thorncraft on Instagram, or use this link: https://www.instagram.com/sylvan.thorncraft
- Category: Tools, Ceramics
The artifacts that inspired this project were found during the excavation of the Glastonbury Lake Village, a pre-Roman Iron Age community located in the Somerset Levels in southwestern England. The settlement was probably first established between 250-160 BCE (Minnitt & Coles and Marshall et al. 2020), and the main phase of occupation lasted for perhaps 75-135 years, before a gradual decline prior to abandonment sometime between 100 and 50 BCE, most likely due to flooding caused by rising water levels (Minnitt & Coles, 15-19). The village was built on an ever settling human-made island of clay, rubble, and bracken packed onto a foundation of brushwood and timber, all resting on the peat, in swampy wetlands in a bend of the River Brue (Cunliffe, 269).
The clay tools are made from deer antler tines. Both red deer and roe deer antlers were used for tools at the GLV. Antlers naturally shed by deer in the winter were used much more frequently than antlers from hunted animals. I made these tools with locally procured white tail deer antlers. I cut sections of antler with a jeweler’s saw, and used a small metal file to make a groove in the end of one tine to make the double line tool (H307). For the circle stamps (H19 and H75) I soaked the cut antler pieces in room temperature water for about 24 hours. The next day I used small metal woodworking gouges to carve out the ends of the soaked antler pieces until only the edge of the circle remained (Wold). Tools like these were used to mark the surface of damp clay. H307 is used to make a double line by drawing the tool along the surface of the clay. H19 and H75 are used to stamp two sizes of circle.
The pottery found in the GLV is handbuilt, rather than made using a wheel. A flat disc forms the bottom of the pot, then horizontal bands or coils of clay are layered on top of the edge of the disc to form the walls. Additional clay is rubbed into the seams between the bands and smoothed over. The pots are smoothed and burnished further when the clay has dried to leather hardness (Bulleid 1917, 500-1). I made a pot in the style of P106 using this technique. When the wet clay of the newly made pot started approaching leather hardness I began smoothing the body of the pot with my fingers, then applied the design with the antler tools and a stylus. I refined the design as the surface continued to harden, and burnished the pot with a smooth bone tool. No kilns and very few “wasters” (pieces of pots broken in firing) have been found in the GLV. This would indicate that even utilitarian, undecorated pottery is made off site and transported to the village. This work site is probably not far away, due to the number of the pots found, and that the main source of local clay is near Shepton Mallet, about 10 miles to the east (Minnitt & Coles, 26-7).
Additional Links:
These objects are part of my entry for Artifacts of a Life VI. The rest, including references, can be seen here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bJdjULN5P9bFb04tVnKZmcAliffqq2u6YB68MDJ-L9A/edit?usp=sharing
A short film showing the fabrication of a pot in this style and the use of these antler tools can be found here: