Alan Vince wrote:
>
> David Gaimster's 1997 book for British Museum Press "German Stoneware" has
> a section on scientific analysis but your description sounds very
> different from any Rhenish or English stoneware - besides which an early
> 17th-century date would be too early for any English source. Is the vessel
> a stoneware or an earthenware copy?
>
 
It is most definately a stoneware Bartmannkrug sherd.  From the front it
looks the same as any other Frechen sherd.  But the inside is covered in
what I assume to be pyrite grains (very shiny, blackish, and
cube-shaped).  They are also throughout the body, but are not visible on
the exterior due to the wash and glaze.  It has been suggested to me that
perhaps a potter's workshop was near a wheellock rifle manufacturing
workshop, and pyrite scraps were used instead of added quartz sand.
Possible...
 
--
Steve Boxley,  Ja.T., M.N.
The Virginia Foundation for Archaeological Research, Inc.
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