At 01:23 PM 9/17/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Listers -
>I'm looking for information on olive-glazed jugs or crocks. The
>fragments I recovered are from a mining camp site in northeastern
>Washington dating from 1908-1919. I have most of the base and the
>sides (which don't have any maker's marks), but am lacking the top.
>The exterior is white and the interior is olive, not the more common
>brown, but a deep, glassy olive. I've checked the literature, but
>can't find any info on this type of vessel. I suspect that the
>interior glaze is unusual, and may be a local stylistic (or
>functional?) variation. If anyone has any experience with this type
>of artifact, I'd appreciate the help. Thanks again!
>- Linda Goetz
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>
Linda,
Sight unseen, it is always a gamble to identify ceramics by written
description.....that said, here goes. It sounds like what you may have is
an industrially-manufactured type of pottery. I would first check to see
if there are any pronounced turning lines on the interior, (the exterior
would have been purposefully smoothed by the potter or mechanically, as the
case may be), to determine if the vessel is handmade or moldmade
(jiggered). By olive-glazed, I assume you mean olive in color. And the
exterior is white you said. I think what you may have is a white clay slip
coating on the exterior, sometimes generically called a Bristol glaze
(after some origin from Bristol, England). I prefer to call it a
zinc-emulsion. None-the-less it is opaque and whitish to light gray. The
interior, is most likely another form of clay slip, maybe darker in color,
which has taken an olive-color cast because being on the interior, it has
been reduced (or fired in reduction to be specific). If this same dark
slip was on the exterior, it most likely would have been brownish, but
still opaque, maybe even slightly metallic in sheen. Sometimes this is
referred to as an Albany Slip (again after its origin from the banks of the
Albany River in New York). These two types of slip clay glazes are
commonly associated with industrially-manufactured stoneware containers.
But dark clay slips made from local clays would also be possible, if there
was a pottery tradition in the area of Washington where you're digging.
Being a southeasterner, I ain't saying more on that! One more thing to
add, if the interior glaze/slip appears to have been colored by reduction,
then most likely the vessel you are looking at was a jug, or some
narrow-mouthed container which restricted the flow of air into the interior
during firing. Does your piece have a pronounced shoulder, or do you have
that much of the vessel? I'll be glad to forward references if you contact
me directly. Hope this info contributes rather than confuses.
Cheers,
Linda
Dr.Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton
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Archaeologist
Historic Sites Section
Division of Archives and History
North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
*****These opinions are my own.*****
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