Someone recently asked me about what stamp dies would be the best for someone starting out with early Anglian/Saxon decorated pottery, so I thought I’d put a post together with some information on that. Although the decorated pots from Anglian and Saxon Britain from around 450 to 650 CE have an incredible range of differentContinue reading “Starter Pack”
Category Archives: Pottery
Migration Era Gotland: Part 1
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 aContinue reading “Migration Era Gotland: Part 1”
A most unusual bean: Northfleet Revisited
As a general rule, when reconstructing stamping dies I like to work directly from a photograph of the original pot. Looking at the way light hits a stamp impression is the best way for me to understand the way the die would have been carved: which portions are in higher relief, the order of cuts,Continue reading “A most unusual bean: Northfleet Revisited”
O (inverted) Christmas Tree…
After a run of mostly Anglian stamps, I thought I would mix it up with this Kentish pot. The triangular stamp has a leaf-vein motif, and the shape certainly puts me in mind of a silver birch leaf or perhaps a black poplar. The pot itself is in the collection of the museum in Maidstone,Continue reading “O (inverted) Christmas Tree…”
Magic Beer Stamp?
Runic inscriptions in Anglian and Saxon pottery are quite uncommon, but several 5th century urns were found in the cemetery at Spong Hill in North Elmham, Norfolk, bearing similar stamps comprised of three runes. They are stamped upside down on the exemplar, but the letters are Elder Futhark mirror runes (mirrored across the vertical axis).Continue reading “Magic Beer Stamp?”
Going to Gotland
I recently got an order for a dozen pots that will be based on some late Iron Age finds from Gotland, so I recreated a set of stamp dies using two groups of pot shards in the collection of the Historiska Museet in Stockholm. These were found at the same location in Grötlingbo parish, andContinue reading “Going to Gotland”
A Tale of Two Triangles
I got started with stamped pottery via an interest in Langobardic pottery styles, but once I began to branch out into the styles associated with insular Saxon and Anglian pottery traditions from the same time period, I started seeing a lot of similar general shapes and motifs. The gridded diamonds, for example, or some ofContinue reading “A Tale of Two Triangles”
Trefoil Time
There are a couple of very small trefoil-shaped stamps shown in the primary source for the Anglian and Saxon examples I work from, and today I decided to take a crack at one of the tiniest, fiddliest ones. The exemplar is shown here at the lower right, from a pot found at Newark in Nottinghamshire,Continue reading “Trefoil Time”
Gang of Five: Urn from St. Johns
I had the day off work and it was pouring rain outside, so I ended up spending more time than usual in my shop this afternoon. I took the opportunity to tackle a group of five stamps that all appear on one pot from the cemetery at St. Johns in Cambridgeshire. Myres attributes this urnContinue reading “Gang of Five: Urn from St. Johns”
The Girton/Newnham Potter
Continuing with the theme of specific workshops in East Anglia, here is a pair of stamp dies based on the ones used by a potter working in what is now Cambridgeshire. Examples of their work have been found in Girton and Newnham, and incorporate a triangular and cruciform stamp, both of which have a hollowContinue reading “The Girton/Newnham Potter”
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