Hi Kendra,
If you are dealing with ballast, rather than a local Florida producer,  
you might contact someone in the Archaeological Ceramic Building  
Materials Group.
http://www.geocities.com/acbmg1/
You'll note that they are mostly anglophiles, but will have contacts  
with Dutch and Spanish scholars working on tile and brick.  They are  
also compiling a bibliographic index of CRM reports dealing with  
ceramic building materials.  Some of the officers are listed here:
http://www.geocities.com/acbmg1/member.htm
You might contact Phil Mills, the virtual secretary.  You can reach  
him at: [log in to unmask]
Cheers,
Tim

On Jul 15, 2008, at 11:34 PM, Kendra Kennedy wrote:

> Dear Histarchers,
>
> I'm searching for information on clay roofing tiles.  Specifically,  
> I am working on a submerged site (probably a ballast pile or dump)  
> in Pensacola, Florida in conjunction with my thesis on the maritime  
> landscape of the Pensacola waterfront.  The ballast pile in question  
> is covered with fragments of terra cotta roofing tile and little  
> else, besides rocks.  The age of the pile is unclear.  It is visible  
> on more recent aerial photos, but is not depicted on historic maps.   
> As of yet, no historic documents have been uncovered that mention  
> this pile.  Therefore, the clay roofing tiles may be the only age  
> indicator.
>
> The tiles examined so far appear to be flat, interlocking clay  
> roofing tiles.  Stamped into some of the broken tiles are  
> fragmentary imprints, maybe representing company names, tile style  
> names, or production location names.  These include "D ETIENNE" or  
> "B ETIENNE" and "RIOUE L" as well as a myriad of shorter fragmented  
> imprints.
>
> I have already searched Google, Google Scholar, JSTOR, Historical  
> Archaeology (SHA), Worldcat and Worldcat Dissertations.  Although I  
> did not exhaustively read the synopsis of every hit, I was  
> disappointed by the lack of relevant archaeological references to  
> historic clay roofing tiles.  Most of the hits referenced Greek and  
> Roman tiles or the preservation of historic building roofs.  Nothing  
> jumped out at me, other than a few sources only available from one  
> library in Australia. :)  I hope that there are numerous references  
> out there buried in non-indexed book chapters and gray literature.   
> If anyone has done a fair amount of research into clay roofing  
> tiles, I would appreciate your assistance in identifying these  
> tiles.  If anyone has compiled a bibliography of relevant sources  
> (especially about tiles commonly used in the South and the tile  
> companies that produced them), that would be amazing!  Please email  
> me off-list.  I'd be happy to provide my results to the entire lis!
> tserv once I've compiled the responses (if any).
>
> Sincere thanks,
> ~Kendra Kennedy
> UWF Graduate Student, Maritime and Historical Archaeology
>
> -- 
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