Historic Ceramics Workshop - Post Colonial Refined Earthenwares

Patricia Samford

At the October 19  Dr. Patricia Samford conducted a workshop on identifying post colonial refined earthenwares.   Rather than a presentation, Patricia provided each of us with handouts and brought lots of examples of decorated earthenwares recovered from archaeological sites.  She even brought a copper plate like that used in transfer printing as well as a piece of transfer printed paper.  So we sat in a circle and passed examples around.  And, of course, we asked questions questions.  Normally meetings last about an hour, but we stayed longer since there was so much to see.  We probably could have stayed even longer.  Definitely a really good workshop.

Patricia holding
printed transfer paper
and copper plate

Boxes containing
earthenware examples

Learning about post colonial decorated earthenware

Dr. Patricia Samford is the Director of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab.

Since workshops need to be small, attendance was limited to CCASM and ASM members.

Attendance: 8

Thanks to Ned for the additional photos.

Shenandoah Valley Pottery in 19th-Century Maryland

Jim Gibb

At CCASM's November 17 meeting Dr. Jim Gibb talked about the history of potting in Western Maryland during the 19th century showing examples of Weiss earthenware pottery sherds and photos of complete vessels published in Eugene Comstock's book on Shenandoah Valley pottery.  Jim also described recovering ceramic artifacts from the Reiff site in Cearfoss, Washington County that included sherds from these local made ceramics as well as more refined ceramics imported from the United Kingdom.  And he brought up various questions that these distributions could raise.  As always an interesting talk. 

Dr. James Gibb is the principal of Gibb Archaeological Consulting.   Jim also directs the Environmental Archaeology Lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.  He is a founding member of  the Charles County Archaeological Society.

Members and Visitors before the Meeting

 

Attendance: 9

 

Historic Ceramics Workshop, Part I

Patricia Samford

At the March 14 CCASM meeting Dr. Patricia Samford conducted a workshop on colonial ceramics, ceramics from 1600 to the Revolutionary War.  This was the first part of a Historic Ceramics Workshop Tricia has previously given, but there was not time at a meeting to cover all historic ceramics.
 
Tricia tried something different for this workshop.  Rather than passing around examples where the last person probably didn't remember what it was, Tricia brought ten bags containing examples of all the different types of ceramics.  So when she described a type of ceramics, we would try to find it in our bag and could look at it while she talked.  Of course, if we couldn't find an example, she or someone nearby would help.

Reviewing Flowchart

Looking at ceramics

Dr. Patricia Samford is the Director of Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum.

Attendance: 18