00:00.90 archpodnet Checking It's working. Yeah good. So ah now that we know a little bit more about bellbeers than belllbeca culture I mean know more as with all of these episodes. Basically the final conclusion is that well we can. 00:02.29 sarah Oh. 00:15.36 archpodnet Try to infer quite a lot but actually we don't know that much at all about prehistoric cultures. Um, but so great. We did introduce you a little bit in the first section. But maybe we can go into a little more detail now about sort of how your experience relates to this object type or or kind of replicas and pottery in general. Um, do you find just out of curiosity when you are doing replicas for example or or selling replicas or or talking about people talking about replicas with people. Do you mainly have interest from for example, academics institutions those kind of things or. 00:45.28 sarah Before. 00:51.75 archpodnet Ah, the general public also still interested in that side of things kind of the replication process and the history history behind the objects. 00:59.94 sarah Yeah, and I mean obviously we make a lot of replicas for institutions you know we we work for most most of the big ones and ah, we just with Sarah and I just spent nine days down at Stonehenge. Ah. Strangely demonstrating Japanese German Pottery um which is you know? Yeah, it's ah so sort of ah that you'll have to go to Stonehenge to find out why? Um, but but yeah, we but we um, we do a lot of work for institutions. But we also. 01:17.97 archpodnet Yeah, oh yes. 01:28.41 archpodnet Ah, teasing teasing. 01:36.76 sarah Um, as you know we have an online shop and and and basically we send stuff literally all over the world and it is the general public it is it is collectors and people we we we actually we sent a a bronze age beaker to svallbad, not long ago. Um, ah, um, which is first. 01:49.17 archpodnet Oh well. 01:54.62 sarah First time we've sent inside the Arctic circle I think I'm not sure. Um, but ah, ah, um, so yes, ah general public and people archaeologists who obviously use them at fire as reference and handling collections and things like that. 01:55.93 archpodnet Okay. 02:13.85 sarah Um, because of course the the general public like to know more about the pots I've I've spent a lot of time doing demos and workshops in museums where I'll sit there and I'll make a bronze age pot or I'll make a Roman pot or or whatever. Um, and I'm very aware that. 02:32.43 sarah Bits of Broken Pottery in museum cases are maybe not as interesting to the average ponter as the yeah flashy gold and Jewels and whatever that are in the other case across the other side of the room. Um, and and ah. 02:49.73 sarah They're sort of treated as a you know bit of broke pot bit boring and I've always considered that our job is to stop them being boring is to bring out the stories of the people who created these parts. The people who used these bots and to demonstrate that these that this is the. Information this is the life of the average person in that time you know when I when I was at school it was all Kings and queens and lords and ladies and battles and and you went. Yeah, that's interesting, but actually I'm really much more interested in people like me. Four thousand years ago as it were. 03:27.12 archpodnet Yeah, definitely oh I'm very much behind that we I'm part of ah a book club an archaeology book club and we try to read books or novels that are sort of set in the past or that are involved with archaeology in some way and the problem is quite a lot of. Archaeological, especially the thrillers I suppose and and that kind of thing they do indeed focus on that idea that you have like oh this amazing object that you know was belonged to a king or oh this is something that will change the history of the earth as we know it. But actually there's been a couple of books that we've read that have done so well at showing indeed. Bits of broken pot and being like oh and look you can see here where they um I think it was murder and mesopotamia we were reading actually by Agatha Grisie and they were explaining in 1 paragraph how these bits of pop were fixed together with bitumen or something and and you know and it was really nice to see oh this is a popular work of fiction and it's actually displaying. 04:05.67 sarah Not right? ah. 04:11.89 sarah Not. 04:18.85 sarah yeah yeah I mean I'm I'm sort of you know I love a pile of shirts with the 2 wonderful and and and so often you you pick up a shirt. 04:19.39 archpodnet Everyday archaeology like everyday history which is yeah. 04:32.90 sarah And your your hand sort of falls into the impression of a hat of ah of a thumb or a finger that was made there sort of four thousand years ago and that's a very special moment that really sort of goes. Yeah, okay, that's that's a real connection now. Um, and and that's that's the sort of connection that I want to get over to people when I make replicas or when I demonstrate the techniques or whatever like that. 04:55.46 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, and it's also fascinating because like you said I mean when when you first started um and right at the beginning of this episode you know pottery and ceramics is one of these things that has been around for thousands tens of thousands right um of of years. Um, really, you know and. 05:10.84 sarah Um, yeah, yeah. 05:13.42 archpodnet I Mean Yes, of course the original ceramic objects or the original pots would not have been I Guess what they are now because I imagine firing probably took a while to get right? but um, but still, it's It's one of those things that really can connect us to. The past more So the metal or plastic or technology other kinds of technology because it's one of the sort of earliest forms of technology. 05:34.66 sarah Yeah, it's ah well, it's the it's the earliest um, synthetic material that we created. It's ah actually taking a raw material and converting it into something else which is which is what we do with clay because. Once you get it over about five hundred and fifty degrees you've changed it from being clay to being ceramic and it can never turn back to being clay. Well not unless it's ground down by another couple of vice ages. Anyway, then that might get somewhere. But of course the earliest ah earliest ceramic object that we know of is. The your venus of Don vate that that you were that you replicated. 06:14.51 archpodnet Which was ground down after being fired because it came out in pieces but no, but I'll actually on that subject I'm curious when you um, are ah working with clays for replicas because I imagine that also. Clay that we get now is not the same as as the clay that they would have used in the past. How can you? How how authentic are you able to get basically or how how much working of modern materials. You have to do to try and get close enough to past materials. 06:48.63 sarah When it's required and when it's needed for things like experimental archaeology where somebody's wanted to take a pot and try cooking in it and look at the residue that's left in that pot to compare it with residues in the past. We will actually use what what has become termed wild Clay I just love the idea of wild clay. You know? Yeah you have to take you have to take? Um, yeah, um, but ah, but yes, ah we do use natural clays. 07:10.45 archpodnet Roaming the wilderness. 07:18.97 sarah But we do make so many pots that it would be impossible for us to process all our own clay from sources all over the country. In fact, all over the world. Um, So what we do is we buy in. Ah we we seem to have masses of different. Ah, commercial clays that we've bought over this over time. Ah you know for this project or that project. Um, we're then mixing those and and often adding back into them the sort of contaminants and the the organic materials or the ah the grits and things that were the that would have been in the originals. 07:54.17 archpodnet Is. 07:55.80 sarah And I often think that the sort of people on so in stoon trying to spend their lives refining Clays would weep to see what I do to the clay that that they send me so nicely refined. But yes, but we try we tried to get as close as we can and as a consequence we have buckets full Of. Quartz Crystals and Calcine shell and flint and things all over the Workshop. So We we do have a lot of materials that we have to work with. 08:25.30 archpodnet Okay, and I'm speaking again as a complete um completely ignorant pottery person so in in Prehistory. For example, when they needed Clay was it kind of I mean you say wild Clay I mean I'm just thinking was it sort of raw. Clay gathered from the ground. How would they have worked it I remember vaguely learning about gro. not not grog that's something with rum ah or is it called grog where where you it is grog where you add in broken bits of of old parts or you know that kind of thing but how how would they have. 08:49.32 sarah Um, no no grogs Grey Yeah grogs go. But yeah, yeah, yeah. 09:01.36 archpodnet Created their clay or where would they have got it from. 09:04.20 sarah Well I ah think what? basically most clays that ah people in the neolithic or the bronze age or the I or indeed the iron age would have used would have come from easy walking distance of their their settlement. Um, and and certainly here in Britain. That's usually not a problem you basically over most of most of Britain there is there are clay deposits. Um and certainly in the north here left behind by the last ice age and they're usually very near the surface modern modern clays the the clays that we buy are often mined from quite deep. Quarries most of the clays that they would have used in the past would have been found very close to the surface and and when you're preparing your clay what you did and you when you're going to open fire. In other words, you go to fire your pots in just literally of a fire um of. Ah, again, bonfire firing is a term I don't like I think most domestic sized pots and beaker type pots could easily be fired in the hearth in the domestic home you you don't have to go outside. Um ah have actually done that in the hot in the replica huts at Stonehenge. We've fired pots. Well in the past. Um. 10:07.25 archpodnet Oh amazing. 10:11.82 sarah But when you're adding to that clay to make it but suitable for open firing. You need a more open clay. In other words, you need more grit in it and grog is one of the things you can add. You can crush down your old broken pots and add them back into into the clay that opens the clay up a little bit. And by that I mean it creates little channels within the clay through which moisture can escape because when you heat that clay up when you've obviously got what we call the water of plasticity the stuff that makes the clay moldable but you've also got chemically combined moisture in the clay molecule and that. That chemically combined moisture doesn't leave the clay until about 550 e hundred and fifty c um at which point it needs to escape the other thing that really helps with that is organic material and I think most ah sort of agricultural communities neolithic or bronze age. Who would be would have animals that they were driving in and out of their settlements and taking out to to gras etc as you did that you would drive those animals through areas where their feet would break the surface and reveal clay and indeed by doing that they would churn it up mix it up and of course they would. Add a certain amount of extra organic material to the yeah to the play um making a perfect material for making handmade pots. So I think that that you know we we maybe overthink sometimes the way potters would. 11:29.70 archpodnet It's very nice way of putting it. 11:42.79 sarah Harvest their clay because they wouldn't have needed huge amounts they would have needed reasonable amounts and you know if you to to shunt right? forward into the medieval period we have ah um court records from places like verwood in Dorset. Ah that. 11:44.29 archpodnet Move. 12:00.68 sarah Um, record potters being taken to court for digging play from the King's highway. Um, if you want to know where we get the term pothhole from there you go. Ah. 12:11.38 archpodnet Oh that's very cool. 12:16.91 sarah Ah, so ah, apparently they would sort of sneak out at night with a hand cast and just um, you know, ah they they'd noticed this nice patch of yellow clay being revealed revealed in the middle of the road. Let's go for it. So. 12:24.70 archpodnet Tickles. 12:27.61 archpodnet Yeah, unfortunately not the cause of it around to here with us anymore. But that would be a much nicer story enough. Okay, no, but that's yeah, that's very yeah, that's really interesting so it wasn't a and. 12:34.70 sarah Um, yeah, ah yeah. 12:46.80 archpodnet And that then also kind of makes sense then this Ah, this idea that's always been perpetuated in archaeology of kind of pots emerging around the same time that maybe agriculture is emerging I Guess it's just a natural thing if you're if you're taking your cows out and see some nice clay and think baby got got some time to kill let's sir. 12:56.13 sarah Um, yeah. 12:58.54 sarah Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely I mean I mean you do get pottery but but before agriculture in some places but not in um, not in many, it's true. You know this is ah ah, but yeah, so it it does go sort of hand in hand. 13:03.56 archpodnet Let's try and make something out of this. 13:12.26 archpodnet Yeah. 13:16.44 sarah Once you're settled and you're in 1 place you need so pots to store stuff in or cook stuff in that makes sense. 13:19.92 archpodnet True. Yeah, very true and going back a little bit to to the sort of replication process as well. So you mentioned firing a few times there So when you fire I mean I guess it's similar to what you were saying about the the material so is it in some cases you use. The. Open fire method and sometimes use a Kiln is it mainly Kilns How how does that work. 13:41.11 sarah Yeah, yeah I mean a lot of the pots we make for the public and free institutions What they want is something that's fairly robust that you can use in a handling collection. You can let the public pick it up. Put it down etc, etc. 13:55.38 archpodnet Um, age. 13:57.54 sarah And um, open firing tends to result in something which is relatively fragile. So yes, when need be or when we're trying to when we're demonstrating some ah we'll do the full open firing technique. Um, but again we make so many pots that trying to do that with everything would be impossible. 14:03.16 archpodnet Okay, okay. 14:16.47 sarah So we tend to cheat a little bit. Um what pots? ah but pots that are required for handing collections will often be fired to a higher temperature to make them strong So as they're they're resilient and can be handled. 14:18.84 archpodnet Fair enough. 14:29.49 archpodnet Um. 14:32.40 sarah Um, and then they'll go through a post firing ah to actually give them the coloration etc that that the originals would have had so they do go through a fire but in a slightly more controlled way. 14:45.97 archpodnet Yeah, no, that's interesting and ah do you find that there's a ah particular kind of object type or beel or whatever that is particularly popular either with institutions or with the general public. For example. 14:57.50 sarah Ah, your good old venus of Doni Vesenitsa come um, yeah, ah ah, um, but now. But. 15:00.89 archpodnet Oh it is a she just keeps coming back. 15:09.49 sarah Beakers are particularly popular in terms of vessels certainly and and in terms of prehistoric pottery. Um, certainly beakers and and things like that. Um, we do make a lot of Roman Pottery ah not I'm not sure I'm I'm allowed to mention the romans here. Um, but. 15:11.75 archpodnet This. 15:26.95 archpodnet Ah, we've had oh have we had a Roman one yet. Actually no I Don't think we have but I have one planned so we were open to all prehistory here. History. 15:27.69 sarah Ah, but there they go? yeah yeah prehistorians tend to hang garlic round their neck and things when I'm ah you know it? Ah, but yeah, but. Yeah I mean we we thought a lot of Roman lamps and and things like that. Um and and and very popular are often the Roman ones which are not really entirely suitable for family viewing. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so there we go. 15:56.40 archpodnet Um I was I can I can picture them now see fair enough. Our humanity never changes and um, a final question I had was what advice would you give to. 16:02.60 sarah And now not now. 16:12.49 archpodnet People listening in who are either potters themselves or who are interested in getting into pottery who have an interest in prehistory and who would like to try to make Replicas or sort of getting into that. Ah not market necessarily but into that topic shall we say. 16:25.89 sarah Um, well I I could go a bit of blatant self promotion and then say go and have a look at the Profit History Youtube Ja um. 16:33.45 archpodnet Go and see me. It is a very good Youtube channel though I was a like I say I was looking through it to try and get inspiration for my the time time travel segment. Um, and yeah, there's lots of really nice videos on there so I will be putting the link into the show notes if anyone wants to watch the videos. 16:45.13 sarah Yeah that's very nice ah that they'll build up nicely. But no I mean basically you know there are lots of books out there and I sort of came into pottery. Ah at a time when there was limited literature literature available. Um. Ah, but but even now ah ah things like Michael Cardew's Pioneer Pottery book it's great starting point it it takes you right back to the sort of basics. So of you know, digging your clay and preparing your clay and doing that sort of thing. Um, I mean obviously you know you can trot along to to an evening class and and do do pottery that way. Um, but but I do think getting down to the nitty gritty of actually how it can be created and and if you live in a reasonably tolerant neighborhood. You can you know you can build your own. Kill or firing pit or whatever in your back garden and and have a go at the sort of at the ancient methods and like ah ah you know that's the area that excites me and interests me. Ah you know I started my life making cups and sauces and and teapots. You'll be pleased to know? um. 17:53.86 archpodnet Yes. 17:55.80 sarah Lots and lots of teapots. Um, ah in stoneware but wood firered stoneware but it certainly is yeah it's always been sort of look at the the ancient techniques the the methods that come to us in the past. 18:14.40 archpodnet Yeah, and I must say I think that if you want to dabble an experiment archaeology relation to pottery. It's probably 1 of the least ah sort of horrible things you can do for your neighbors. You know speaking as someone who had to boil seals and stuff. Um I think he. 18:24.13 sarah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just the good. But yeah, just don't yeah just ah, don't do tanning or ah ohlthough or Garham making or anything like that. That's gonna yeah and I do have friends who do both. 18:31.38 archpodnet Least intrusive. Yes, yeah, that as well for another one. 18:43.80 archpodnet Or even I had one when I was doing my undergrad I was doing experiments with seaweed in metal working and so I had my whole backyard was filled out with seaweed left to dry and it smelt like the seaside which you know is lovely If you're by the seaside but maybe not so nice if you're in. 18:44.40 sarah So there you go. 18:54.69 sarah Um, yeah, yeah, ah ah we do we We just misunderstood. That's all it is just yeah yeah, you know. 19:01.28 archpodnet Suburban Aberde but ah, but ah, ah, exactly exactly it's it's ah yeah, it's a small niche of people who understand you when you say oh don't use that poly. It had a you know rat head in it or something teacher to. 19:17.72 sarah Ah, ah, ah, yes, been there? yeah yeah I yeah I was doing a workshop at ah Dublin ah to the dublin uni a little while ago in their experimental archeology section and I was midway doing so doing a demo. 19:18.96 archpodnet It's. 19:29.49 archpodnet So. 19:35.18 sarah And the fire alarm went so we all had to exit and as I left ah my hands were covered in clay. There was a bucket of water just outside the door and I decided to delve my hands into it and regretted it deeply I really did it was it had decomposing antler in the bottom of it. No, it was yes. 19:43.30 archpodnet Um, oh oh oh never trust a bucket of water in an experimental archaeology to but. 19:54.56 sarah Love No no, no absolutely not no. Ah. 19:59.67 archpodnet Well on that note that yumy note I think that marks the end of today's t break so it does sounds like you have lots to do so I will let you get back to work. But thank you very much for joining me today gray and I really appreciate you taking the time and it was lovely to chat with you. 20:16.77 sarah It's been a pleasure Matilda. Thank you. 20:18.28 archpodnet And indeed if anyone wants to find out more about Graham's work at potted history or beakers or anything like that have a look at the show notes I'll put a bunch of lovely links up on there on the podcast homepage I hope that you all enjoyed our journey today. See you next month for another episode of t break time travel.