Entry tags:
FINGERPRINTS.
Guys. I have nineteenth-century fingerprints in my living room.
I don't know what these things are, these little pinched bits of clay, maybe just toys or wasters; but there's two of them, and an obvious chip off a third (maybe more chips that I put in a different pile before I noticed), but there's something oddly familiar about them, like I've seen them before and I should know their purpose.
Maybe it's just that I've done that myself when playing with clay, which I have. Hmm.
So, this is what I'm doing for the artifact analysis part of my internship: describing and inventorying potsherds collected from a local site in 2002. This mostly consists of taking notes on every piece and putting them in a spreadsheet. (I also have another pile from a different site in 2007 (which I actually helped excavate), and I would dearly love to do both and make some comparisons, but as I need to return the artifacts on Tuesday - and I have many other things to do - I doubt I'll have the time, alas.)
This particular site is a brick kiln and pottery near Morrisonville, attributed to a free black potter named Ned Davis. I have conflicting reports about whether this was in the 1790s or ~1860s, or possibly there were potters there at both times. Davis though is pretty definitely from the later estimate.
But anyway: I have his fingerprints in my living room. How awesome is that?
( a couple more pictures )
I tried to meet people in Waterford today, but got there too late (or else they were invisible). Oh well; I had a nice drive through the town and along Old Waterford Road anyway! I saw lots and lots of baby (well, teenage) geese, some deer, a cat, and lots of birds and cows and horses.
I don't know what these things are, these little pinched bits of clay, maybe just toys or wasters; but there's two of them, and an obvious chip off a third (maybe more chips that I put in a different pile before I noticed), but there's something oddly familiar about them, like I've seen them before and I should know their purpose.
Maybe it's just that I've done that myself when playing with clay, which I have. Hmm.
So, this is what I'm doing for the artifact analysis part of my internship: describing and inventorying potsherds collected from a local site in 2002. This mostly consists of taking notes on every piece and putting them in a spreadsheet. (I also have another pile from a different site in 2007 (which I actually helped excavate), and I would dearly love to do both and make some comparisons, but as I need to return the artifacts on Tuesday - and I have many other things to do - I doubt I'll have the time, alas.)
This particular site is a brick kiln and pottery near Morrisonville, attributed to a free black potter named Ned Davis. I have conflicting reports about whether this was in the 1790s or ~1860s, or possibly there were potters there at both times. Davis though is pretty definitely from the later estimate.
But anyway: I have his fingerprints in my living room. How awesome is that?
( a couple more pictures )
I tried to meet people in Waterford today, but got there too late (or else they were invisible). Oh well; I had a nice drive through the town and along Old Waterford Road anyway! I saw lots and lots of baby (well, teenage) geese, some deer, a cat, and lots of birds and cows and horses.