I’ve been getting more into the Migration Era ceramics from Gotland, and while I have a handful of Gotland-specific stamp dies and plenty more that are motifs common to Gotlandic, Anglian/Saxon, and Langobardic pots, I wanted to make a few more that were based directly on finds from Gotland. This is Part 1 of a three-part set of posts, so stay tuned for the rest in the next week or so. I also wanted to take the opportunity to use some bone scraps – in addition to antler, bone is a great material for making stamp dies and there are many stamp motifs that match the cross-sections of bits of various animal bones, so I enjoy finding things in my scrap box that are just the right size and shape. In some cases, the match is so perfect that I suspect the early potters may have used the same approach.
I started with a pot fragment from Hellvi, Gotland (see image below). For the crescent-shaped stamp here, I’ve used a bit of deer tibia. This chunk is from the end of the bone; I cut the joints off both ends of the tibia to make a flute, and this turned out to be a great way to utilize this otherwise useless chunk. It required a little bit of shaping with a knife to taper the ends of the arc, and then I carved a line into the center of the curve. The second stamp that looks like a tire tread is made from a bit of antler with criss-crossed lines cut into it, and the ring is one I already had that was the right size.
My stamp dies and test impression at left; on the right, an original fragment from Hellvi, Gotland. Image from the Historiska Museet in Stockholm, 20826/266.
And here’s a finished pot using the design from the original fragment. There isn’t enough of that pot for me to reconstruct it precisely, but it has the typical form of many Gotlandic pots of the Roman Iron Age and Migration Era – a rounded lower half, a concave neck with an everted rim, and a very well-defined carination (the sharp transition between the upper and lower part of the form). So here’s a fresh (still wet) beaker that I made over the weekend.
farolfvs me fecit 