A delightful recent find from one of our sites in East London! This is a late 19th century spittoon; these went out of fashion when tuberculous became rife in the 1910s.
We’ve had another exciting find from one of our evaluations this week!
This semi-complete urn, with decoration which commonly occurs on middle and middle-late Bronze Age pottery, and also (although less commonly) on post Deverel-Rimbury late Bronze Age pottery, contained a cremation along with these two copper-alloy objects.
One of these, a hollow hexagonal tube approximately 15mm long, appears to have been cast, and may be part of an implement such as a socketed axe or small socketed hammer. The second item, a flat, irregularly shaped piece of plate scrap, measures approximately 31mm across at the widest point and has a rectangular cross-section; this item was recovered from near the base of the vessel and will require further analysis for a more precise identification.
The association of the urn with an adjacent ring ditch is unlikely to be coincidental and the vessel may turn out to be one of a number of such deposits on the site in which other metalwork has been buried. We’ll keep you updated if this turns out to be the case!
CBA London will be hosting the London Archaeological Forum online this year, on Monday 8th November at 6pm.
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A wonderful find from one of our sites yesterday!
This complete German Frechen stoneware Bartmann (or Bellarmine) jug has a benign face and a medallion with an unknown coat of arms. It dates from c. 1580-90 and was used for serving alcohol (probably ale).
Complete examples of these jugs are more frequent finds than other post-medieval pots because they are a robust stoneware and were often used as witch bottles buried whole, containing nails, hair, urine and other items. Witch bottles were usually buried on the threshold of homes and used to trap and stop evil spirits entering the home. Examination of the contents will reveal whether this is the case with this example!
The faces on Bartmann (which is German for ‘bearded man’) jugs may be a derivation of the green man motif.
Dr James Gerrard will be giving a talk in the Ballroom at Bedale Hall, on Friday 29th October 2021 at 7pm, on the results of our excavations ahead of the Bedale, Aiskew and Leeming Bar bypass in North Yorkshire. A selection of artefacts will be on display.
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This year’s conference, ‘Archaeology of the Church: perspectives from recent work in the South-East’, will be run jointly with CBA-SE and held as an online event on Saturday 27 November.
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The title of this year’s Autumn Roman Finds Group Conference, held in association with King’s College London, is Roman Finds from Infrastructure Projects. The conference be online, and will consist of illustrated papers (some pre-recorded and some live) on Monday 18th October.
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An online discussion via Zoom on Monday 18th October 2021, beginning at 7pm at The Rose Playhouse.
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We’re proud to have three interesting articles in this year’s proceedings with Streph’s photo of the Cherry Hinton pots, below, making the front cover.
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