The ways in which the surface of a vessel may be altered or modified are, on prehistoric ceramics, fairly limited, comprising generally colouring, addition or extraction of clay or the raising or compression of the surface to a greater or lesser extent. Though usually decorative, not all surface treatments need to be entirely so. Raised or applied cordons or the roughening of the surface using incision or impressed decoration may be purely functional, allowing better and safer handling of the vessels. This said, the majority of surface treatments on iron age ceramics are decorative, often elaborately so, even imitating the fine metalwork of the later phases of the period (Grimes 1952).
Uniformity of colour of open-fired vessels is difficult to achieve and, in instances where this uniformity is found, it is usually a result of a distinctive surface treatment such as a slip, a pigment such as haematite or the coating of the vessel in carbon by smoking or smudging after the main firing process. Once more Durotrigian and Black-Burnished Ware ceramics can be quoted as an example of this post-firing treatment. At the firing site, Farrar (1976: 50) noted that the water sherds were ‘black-burnished ware oxidised tile-red to light grey’. As a result of the difficulties in producing a uniform surface colour in a bonfire and from the presence of red wasters, Farrar concluded that the blackening process may have been a secondary technique.
Slip, a suspension of clay in water, appears to have been comparatively little used in iron age ceramics. However, pigments do seem to have been employed, particularly in the cases of haematite bowls. The bright red colour of some bipartite furrowed and cordoned bowls of later bronze age and early iron age Wessex (Avery 1981) led previous writers to assume that this redness was the result of a deliberately added haematite-rich slip which had been burnished onto the outside of the leather-hard vessel (Eisdon 1989: 18). Using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray analysis, however, Middleton (1987) demonstrated that the red or reddish-brown surface colour had been achieved by burnishing, either with or without an iron-rich pigment or by coating the vessel in a ferruginous slip: different techniques were used to produce an ostensibly similar desired end-product. Occasionally this red pigmentation may be highlighted. In Kent, for example, white or off-white paint may be used to highlight panels of, or paint designs on areas of, haematite coating (Maepherson-Grant 1991). This all serves to highlight the contrasts between the artificial and natural, untreated surface colours.
Burnishing is the most obvious instance of compression of the clay and is found extensively on iron age ceramics over the whole or just part of the pot (Figure 19.3). By rubbing a smooth, rounded too! such as a pebble over the surface of the leather-hard vessel, the surface clay is compacted and takes on a high gloss, the facets caused by the burnishing still clearly visible. Burnishing can be regarded as both functional and decorative. It may help reduce the permeability of a vessel and thus be functional but it also clearly gives a better finish to the vessel and it may also be used as a background against which to highlight other decorative schemes (Eisdon 1989: pi. It).
Figure 19,3 (A) Burnishing marks on the neck of a bow! from Glastonbury, Somerset, (B) Burnishing facets on a bowl from Hambicdon Hill, Dorset.
Related to burnishing yet significantly different is the execution of linear decoration by a technique known meaninglessly as tooling. More properly, the decoration is scored on the surface of the pot using a smooth, rounded instrument (Figures 19.4A and B; 19.5B). The resulting effect is that the clay is lightly compressed and the decoration is therefore very slightly sunk into the surface of the vessel. This differs dramatically from incised decoration, where the motifs are cut into the surface (Figure 19.4C and D). The lack of ridges of dislodged clay and the uniformity of the depth of the scoring suggest that this decoration was executed when the vessel had reached the leather-hard state. This technique is particularly indicative of pottery in the Glastonbury style and related southern decorated wares.
One of the most common methods of decorating prehistoric pottery generally is impression. This technique takes a variety of forms and motifs and is simply formed by impressing an object into the clay while the vessel is still wet or at any rate not fully leather-hard. Although iron age ceramics do not benefit from the large variety of impressed techniques and motifs used in the later Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age, nevertheless a large variety of tools and points, some specifically made, are used to create impressed decoration.
The simplest ‘tool’ whose use is demonstrated on iron age pottery is the potter’s own nail or fingertip (Figure 19.5 A). This form of decoration is particularly common on earlier iron age ceramics such as the large open jars from Staple Howe (Brewster 1963: figs 50-2), where the fingertip impressions are often used to highlight carlna-tions or rims. Although arguably one of the simplest forms of impressed technique, fingernail impressions can also be quite subtle, such as on the cable cordons of earlier iron age ceramics. Here, the fingernail is rotated to produce an S-shaped impression, resulting in a cordon’s having the appearance of having been twisted like a rope or cable.
Natural artefacts such as sticks, reeds or quills (Figure 19.6C) all seem to have been used to create a variety of different impressions in the clay, from random dots (Figure 19.5B) to complex geometric patterns; however, other tools seem to have been specifically made for pottery decoration. Broadly S-shaped stamps (Figure 19.6A) were used to decorate ceramics, most notably from hill-forts in the lower Severn valley, and were thought to be derived from continental ‘duck-stamped’ wares (Hencken 1938), although there is little real evidence for this (Kenyon 1953: 33). As well as S-shaped stamps, a variety of semicircular and wedge-shaped impressions, possibly made with the fingernail or a blunt, rounded stick, are also found on ceramics from this area (Figure 19.6B).
Stamps bearing concentric circles (Figure 19.6A) are used frequently on later decorated wares and actual examples of the stamps have been recovered from the waterlogged deposits at Glastonbury. The same cannot be said for ‘rouletting wheels’, whose use is frequently Invoked to explain lines of ‘hyphenated’ impressions (Figure 19.6A) used to infill or delineate zones of decoration. These lines of short, square, rounded or oblong impressions recall closely the combed decoration of early bronze age ceramics where examples of the actual combs have been found (Gibson and Woods 1990: fig. 19) and whose careful use can be used to create lines of varying length (Ward 1902; Gibson and Woods 1990: figs 80-2). There seems no reason why similar simple but effective tools could not have been used for iron age ceramics.
Figure 19.4 Differing degrees of scoring, incision and tooling on iron age vessels from (A) Corfe Mullen, Dorset; (B) Llanmclin, Gwent; (C) Subdrook, Gwent; (D) Hambicdon Hill,
Dorset.
V..''
Figure 19,5 (A) Fingertip impressions on a vessel from Ponders F, nd, Essex; (B) ‘tooled’ decoration and dot-stabs on a vessel from Margate, Kent.
•a - B
Indeed, if combs rather than roulette wheels were employed, then they might have been used not only to impress but to score the surfaces of pots, in which case a very different effect of multiple parallel incision could be created {Figure 19./A) and used functionally to rusticate the surfaces of some larger vessels: this usage would facilitate better handling. Random linear incisions are also used (Figure 19-7B). ...
In comparison to preceding periods, the used of plastic decoration, that is decoration which is raised or applied to the vessels’ surface, is rare in the iron age repertoire. Cable cordons of the earliest iron age ceramics have already been mentioned. A horizontal cordon, usually round the upper third of the vessel, is raised from the surface of the pot and decorated with S-shaped 6ngernail impressions. This decorative motif is particularly common on vessels from Staple Howe (Brewster 1963), though by no means restricted to northern England. Raised cordons arc used also to emphasize changes in direction of a pot’s profile and to emphasize zones of decoration. This is particularly common on the late haematite bowls. In Scotland, elaborate Impressed cordons, both raised and applied, arc found in the later iron age ceramics of the Northern and Western Isles, such as from the broch sites of Clettraval (MacKie 1971) and Clickhimin (Hamilton 1968). But the best known examples of cordons are those on the cordoned ware jars and bowls of the later Iron Age in the south-west peninsula (Threipland 1957).
Figure 19.6 (A) S-shapcd and concentric circular stamps and comb impressions on a sherd from Merthyr Mawr, Glamorgan; (B) incisions and impressions on a vessel from Twyn-y-Gacr, Gwent; (C) curvilinear incision and complementing stabs on a vessel from Brecdon-on-thc-Hill, Leicestershire, (Photo: Leicestershire Museums and Art Galleries.)
Arguably the most common decorative technique to be employed on iron age ceramics is incision, where blunt objects (perhaps ‘scoring’?) blades or points are drawn through the wet or leather-hard clay (Figures 19.3A; 19.4; 19.6C; 19.7). These lines can be broad or narrow, deep or shallow, uni - or multidirectional, forming orthogonal or curvilinear motifs. The tools employed may be the same as those used
B
Figure 19.7 (A) Parallel multiple incision to facilitate handling on a vessel from Walmcr, Kent; (B) random linear incision to achieve the same effect on a sherd from Brccdon-on-thc-Hill, Leicestershire. (Photo: Leicestershire Museums and Art Galleries.)
For impression, there being a simple difference in their usage. Incision is perhaps the simplest but most effective and versatile way to decorate the surface of a pot, an argument supported by the frequency with which the technique is encountered amongst iron age ceramic assemblages.
As with all decorative techniques, there is often a grey area between ostensibly different and distinct methods. This is most pertinent with incision, whether it is
Coarse and haphazard and is best assigned to the repertoire of rustication techniques or whether it is light and well-executed, when it is best described as ‘scoring’. The distinction is, perhaps, irrelevant, being only a matter of degree. The difficulty of definition serves only to illustrate the multiplicity and versatility of the technique. Compare, for example, the finely and lightly scored cross-hatching of Durotrigian Wares (technically a cross between incision and burnishing) (Figure 19.4A) with the concisely and deeply executed cross-hatching of Glastonbury ceramics (Figure
19.3 A). Similarly, its use can be singular, forming simple motifs in a single technique, or complementary, forming areas of contrast to undecorated or burnished zones or indeed defining zones decorated in other techniques. The best illustrations of this latter usage were presented forty years ago by Professor Grimes in his discussion paper on ‘The La Tene style in British early iron age pottery’ (Grimes 1952).
Arguably the floruit of the potters’ art in pre-Belgic Britain is to be found in the curvilinear decorated bowls of southern Britain (Figures 19.4D; 19.5B; 19.6C; 19.8). On these ceramics the decoration is usually by incision, with some circular impressions frequently forming dimples which augment and complement the design. The motifs can be formed by either single curvilinear lines, as in the case of the Flunsbury bowls, or by larger areas of curvilinear incised infilling commonly found in vessels of the Glastonbury or South-western style. Both styles play roughened against smooth surfaces to contrast light and shade and thus to highlight these non-plastic two-dimensional motifs (Figure I9.5B). Finding clear parallels in the metalworking art of the period, the frequently raised or embossed designs of the metalwork become translated into the two-dimensional planes of the pots’ surfaces.
A study such as this cannot do justice to the complexities and quality of the art of the iron age potters. Great varieties of patterns, motifs and effects are produced from a limited repertoire of techniques and tools. Not all the pottery can be claimed to be
Figure 19.8 Hunsbury bowls from Hunsbury, Northamptonshire. Scale = 10 cm. (From
Gibson and Woods 1990.)
Fine ware or carefully decorated, and crude, poorly executed decoration is present in all assemblages, but nevertheless, the finer pieces may rightly claim their place amongst the artistic masterpieces of the first millennium BC.
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