Identifying an Interesting Ceramic

Last year while cataloging the artifacts recovered from the Port Tobaccos excavations around 1970, we came across this unusual ceramic sherd.  One of the surfaces was definitely scratch blue, but the paste was not stoneware.

One nice thing about ASM activities is that it draws a number of people knowledgeable about artifacts.  We took the sherd to the ASM Field Session last June and checked with a number of archeologists that knew a lot about ceramics.  Every time we mentioned scratch blue, the response was stoneware. Several people even touched the sherd to their tongue to verify it wasn't stoneware.

Then we took the sherd to the recent MHT/ASM  Workshop in Archeology since we knew Silas Hurry from Historic St Marys City would be there.  And he along with Kate Dinnel identified it as scratch-blue pearlware.  They indicated that this was rarely found.

So now we know it is scratch-blue pearlware.

Thanks Silas and Kate.