Ceramics
Perth High Street
One hundred
samples of pottery from the earliest phases of the Perth High Street excavation
(PHSAE) were submitted for chemical sourcing to University
College, London.
The results were then compared with Alan Vince’s chemical database to
see if it was possible to provenance the large amount of unidentified material
from the early phases. Included amongst
these were sherds of the shellywares for which we now have 11th century dates. Following his analysis, Alan Vince has confirmed
that the shellywares found in Perth originate in
the Thames Basin.
Derek Hall has secured a grant
from the Strathmartine Trust to aid his travel and accommodation expenses for a
trip to Bergen to sample shellywares there for 14C
dating, in order to compare results with PHSE and London.
With the support
of Historic Scotland and the National Museum of Scotland a seminar was held in
early October to discuss the thorny issue of the 14C dates of
the carbonised shellywares from Perth High Street. This proved a very useful opportunity to air
the various interpretations of the chronology of this fabric, and
recommendations have been made for the dating of material from tighter
stratified deposits in London
and further dating of material from the early phases of the Perth High Street
excavation.
Redware Sourcing
The Scottish
Redware sourcing project has continued apace with further sampling of tile and
pottery from a range of sites across Scotland. Permission was granted to sample some of the
material on display at the Historic Scotland museums at Glenluce and Melrose
Abbeys. A submission was made to the
Historic Scotland archaeology programme for the publication of all this
analysis as an occasional paper by the Medieval Pottery Research Group.
Back
to Contents