Vikings age pottery in Ireland

[oleg]

Hi!

I'm looking for the information about vikings age pottery. I checked Edwards( The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland) and Laing(The Archaeology of Celtic Britain and Ireland).
All I found there for the period is about Souterrain Ware. Functional part of souterrain ware is fine: there are cooking pots and tableware found. However distribution is rather surprising: finds are limited to north-east Ireland (or just east if you take into account finds from co Wicklow etc).

Writing about native pottery in early medieval Ireland, Edwards also mentions coarse black pottery from Lagore, sherds of similar type from Moynagh Lough and two different types of pottery from Reask.

May be the books are old enough and there are some new finds I didn't track yet?

EMAP report gives very interesting piece:

Imported Pottery:
There is little evidence for imported pottery for a large part of this period(AD 800-1150). This may partly be
due to the expansion of native-made material such as souterrain ware, everted-rim ware,
crannog ware and Leinster cooking ware. The suggested change from ceramic amphorae to
wooden butts for wine transportation would also have had a major impact on the spread of
exotic pottery in Ireland.

Do you have more information/sources to look at?

[brendan]

Oleg,
this is probably not of much help to you, but AFAIK the reference to lack of Irish pottery in the time period in question is correct.
The obvious question is 'what did they use instead?' but I am not sure that there is any clarity on this either

Brendan

[Swifty]

Oleg,
this is probably not of much help to you, but AFAIK the reference to lack of Irish pottery in the time period in question is correct.
The obvious question is 'what did they use instead?' but I am not sure that there is any clarity on this either

Brendan

According to Clare McCutcheon at a relatively recent lecture, it is surmised that wooden and leather receptacles were the norm. No real evidence for the latter has been yielded from an Irish-Viking context to date and most would have degraded so their exact form is unknown.

[oleg]

Thanks.
Confirmation about lack of information is also helpful. At least for making sure that we are on the same page with others.

[finnobreanan]

I just picked up the book, The Vikings: Voyagers of Discovery and Plunder, by Mark Harrison, M. Harrison, K. Durham. I don't have the book with me, since I'm at work today, but there is an illustration of excavated wooden vessels, or treenware, from a site in Norway.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Vi ... ey+vikings

[oleg]

Thanks, Scott. Let me know if there is something about native Irish or hiberno-vikings pottery.

[Celtic Britain]

Most pottery was made locally, but a lot was imported from the Rhineland too! Many findings from Scandinavia are quite similar as the pieces excavated in The Netherlands. Some pieces like http://www.celticwebmerchant.eu/a-26646610/medieval-pottery/early-medieval-pot-13-cm/ and http://www.celticwebmerchant.eu/a-26646682/medieval-pottery/early-medieval-pouring-jug/ are very common in Northern Europe.

An error that is commonly made in modern re-enactment, is that pottery until the 14th century didn't have the modern ceramic glaze, but used salt glazing instead.

[oleg]

It's quite tricky to use northen europe as analogy in ceramics. The Irish did not use wheel for pots, they were coil built. There is a Deer Park Farms excavation report which provides info about pots with datable context. However there is little information about fabrics: photos etc.

[vlasta]

Hi! Dr. Pat Wallace in one of his Aspects of Viking Dublin booklets writes: 'Pottery is the most commonly found of the surviving finished products which were brought to Viking Dublin. Most of this came from England through the port of Chester. Apart from Chester wares, pots from Thetford, Stamford and Winchester are also in evidence. Bristol wares also turn up in the excavations. Norman French pots became common in the course of the eleventh century. ' and further 'Soapstone bowls and handled saucepans were brought to Dublin from the Shetlands.' - so there's another alternative to pottery.

Edit: this link may be interesting for you as well: Mediterranean and Frankish pottery imports in early medieval Ireland by Ian W. Doyle