Medieval Pottery Kilns

Η παρούσα μελέτη αποσκοπεί στη συγκριτική παρουσίαση και την εξαγωγή συμπερασμάτων σχετικά με την τυπολογία, τα τεχνολογικά χαρακτηριστικά και την οργάνωση του χώρου των εργαστηρίων κεραμικής που έχουν εντοπιστεί ανασκαφικά στον ελλαδικό χώρο και χρονολογούνται από τον 4ο έως τον 15ο αιώνα.

This paper aims at the comparative presentation and the inference of conclusions about the typology, the technological aspects and the spatial organization of the light industrial ceramic production workshops that have been excavated in Greece and have been dated from 4th to 15 th century.

Η μεταπτυχιακή αυτή εργασία, που εκπονήθηκε στο πλαίσιο του Α΄ Μεταπτυχιακού Κύκλου Σπουδών του Κλάδου Βυζαντινής Αρχαιολογίας, του Τομέα Αρχαιολογίας, του Τμήματος Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης, αποσκοπεί στην συγκέντρωση την επεξεργασία και την συγκριτική παρουσίαση των ανασκαμμένων παλαιοχριστιανικών και βυζαντινών εργαστηρίων που έχουν εντοπιστεί στον Ελλαδικό χώρο και που κατά καιρούς έχουν παρουσιαστεί σε μεμονωμένες δημοσιεύσεις είτε ως πρωτεύον εύρημα, είτε ως δευτερεύον στοιχείο μιας ευρύτερης ανασκαφής.
Το πρώτο μέρος της εργασίας καταλαμβάνει ο κατάλογος των εντοπισμένων και δημοσιευμένων εργαστηριακών χώρων, ο οποίος συντάσσεται βάσει του τεχνολογικού χαρακτήρα και του προϊόντος της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας των εργαστηρίων. Βασική πηγή υλικού, ελλείψει συνολικών δημοσιεύσεων, είναι οι μεμονωμένες δημοσιεύσεις ανασκαφών εργαστηριακών χώρων σε αρχαιολογικά περιοδικά και πρακτικά συνεδρίων. 
Στο σημείο αυτό πρέπει να σημειωθεί η δυσκολία που παρουσιάστηκε στην συλλογή του υλικού, καθώς το μεγαλύτερο μέρος των εργαστηρίων της περιόδου που εξετάζεται, δεν δημοσιεύεται αναλυτικά ενώ πολλές φορές αποτελεί αντικείμενο δευτερευόντων σημειώσεων σε δημοσιεύσεις οικοδομικών συνόλων παλαιότερων εποχών.
Ο κατάλογος των δημοσιευμένων εργαστηριακών χώρων που εντοπίστηκαν ανασκαφικά στον ελλαδικό χώρο, χωρίζεται σε δύο κεφαλαιώδη μέρη, βάσει του τεχνολογικού χαρακτήρα των εργαστηρίων.
Στο πρώτο μέρος του καταλόγου εντάσσονται εργαστηριακές εγκαταστάσεις, κατά τη διαδικασία επεξεργασίας και παραγωγής των προϊόντων των οποίων είναι αναγκαία η ανάπτυξη υψηλών θερμοκρασιών μέσω λειτουργίας κλιβάνου για την τήξη ή την όπτηση της ύλης.
Στο δεύτερο μέρος του καταλόγου καταγράφονται εργαστήρια, κύριο χαρακτηριστικό των οποίων είναι η ανάπτυξη της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας μέσω ενός συστήματος υδραυλικών κατασκευών, αγωγών και αυτοτελών ή συγκοινωνούντων δεξαμενών.
Τα δύο κύρια μέρη του καταλόγου έχουν συνεχή αρίθμηση και συντάσσονται με βάσει το είδος της παραγωγής των εργαστηρίων, τα οποία καταρτίζουν μικρότερες θεματικές ομάδες. Τα λήμματα κάθε ομάδας εργαστηρίων καταγράφονται με γεωγραφική σειρά . Εργαστήρια που εντοπίζονται στην ίδια γεωγραφική περιοχή, καταχωρούνται με σχετική χρονολογική σειρά από τα πιο πρώιμα στα οψιμότερα παραδείγματα.
Ακολουθεί μια απόπειρα ανίχνευσης της οργάνωσης του χώρου των βιοτεχνικών εργαστηριακών εγκαταστάσεων βάσει των σταδίων της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας, καθώς και της επιλογής του χώρου οργάνωσής του, βάσει των δυνατοτήτων προμήθειας πρώτης ύλης, όπου αυτή είναι δυνατή, της δυνατότητας διοχέτευσης του παραγόμενου προϊόντος στην αγορά και της δυνατότητας οργάνωσης του εργαστηριακού συνόλου στο πλαίσιο ενός ήδη οργανωμένου ή υπό οργάνωση αστικού ή αγροτικού τοπίου. Γίνεται τέλος μια προσπάθεια  ανίχνευσης της εξέλιξης των τεχνολογικών στοιχείων της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας και του τρόπου οργάνωσης των χώρων των εργαστηριακών εγκαταστάσεων από το τέλος της αρχαιότητας και την παλαιοχριστιανική εποχή στην μεταβατική περίοδο και μέσω αυτής στους βυζαντινούς χρόνους.

The paper publishes the results of the rescue excavations held in 2013 on a site, situated in a close proximity to the Royal Center and Royal Church of Veliki Preslav. It aims at defining some specific features of everyday culture of Preslav during the Post-capital period throughout a detailed description of the stratigraphic layers, archaeological contexts and finds. The site is located in an area which is considered to be a part of a crafts quarter, generally dated in the period after the end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th until the end of the 13th c.

A lo largo de la última década, numerosas excavaciones arqueológicas –preventivas en su mayoría– han permitido la recuperación y el estudio de algunas estructuras de cocción de cerámica de cronologías medievales y postmedievales que se añaden al panorama conocido a finales del siglo XX. Sin embargo, se constata la ausencia en el ámbito catalán de visiones de síntesis que aúnen esfuerzos por superar el localismo propio e inevitable de las memorias de excavación en favor de una interpretación más amplia acerca de la ocupación del territorio y de las estrategias de producción.
En este trabajo, que no pretende ser exhaustivo, presentamos un somero estado de la cuestión en relación con el estudio de las estructuras de cocción y los talleres de producción de cerámica en la Cataluña de época medieval y moderna que nos permita ahondar en los problemas de fondo que dichas actividades plantean. Nuestro objetivo, pues, es poner sobre la mesa una reflexión acerca de la actividad alfarera y del modelo de implantación de centros de producción en un territorio determinado, así como a la propia evolución de los hornos durante los siglos medievales y modernos en aras de una mayor adecuación técnica.

A retrospective report on an unpublished community excavation of three medieval pottery kilns and ancillary pits at Marchants Farm, Streat, East Sussex conducted under the directorship of Con Ainsworth between 1979 and 1983. The report has been compiled from brief field notes, photographs and plans with the assistance of reminiscences from some of the volunteers who helped on the project. Given the incomplete, and at times conflicting, information and the loss of most of the finds in the intervening 30 years, this paper can only provide an outline of the excavation and its findings. Hopefully it will promote the inclusion of the Streat site in future research in medieval pottery production and distribution in Sussex. This will be greatly assisted by the analysis of the surviving pottery assemblage by Luke Barber which defines the main fabrics and stylistic characteristics of the pottery that can be reasonably allocated as products from this site.

Until recently, it has been generally stated that the Byzantine glazed wares were mainly being fired in two-storey updraft kilns that did not differ from the kilns used during the same period for plain wares. During the stage of the second firing —necessary in order for the lead-based glaze to be stabilized on the surface of the pre-fired, usually decorated, wares— the glazed wares were stacked upside down inside these pottery kilns; they were separated between each other by hand-made, mould-made, or wheel-made tripod stilts, which, even though they were leaving a triple mark on the inner surface of the glazed bowls or plates, prevented the adherence of the production.
However, the aforementioned statement corresponds only to the period after the early decades of the thirteenth century, when the tripod stilt seems to have been invented as firing device, in order to facilitate the production of Late-Byzantine glazed-wares in great quantities, since —probably due to the extreme urbanization of the Late-Byzantine community— the glazed table-wares became a mass-consumed trend. In this context and in order to multiply the quantity of the production, the potters did not mind about the triple mark that the tripod stilt was leaving in the inner surface of the table-ware; it seems that it was counted as an inevitable defect of the systematization and maximization of the production.
What was happening before the invention of the tripod stilt?
Based on the quantities of the glazed wares produced, consumed and consequently found in Middle-Byzantine contexts, the glazed wares until the late twelfth century were produced in less quantities, remaining a luxurious product manufactured in few urban centers and meant to be consumed by the byzantine aristocracy. 
The Middle Byzantine glazed wares, usually with more elaborate decoration than their Late Byzantine successors, were not objects of massive production, so their firing was accomplished with the intention to gain quality rather than quantity. 
New evidence from Thessaloniki and Ierissos in Chalkidiki, brought to light during the last decade, combined with earlier findings form Corinth, showcase the use of kilns with clay rods for the second firing of the Byzantine glazed wares as early as the eleventh century. Even though architectural remains of kilns with rods have not yet come to light or at least identified in Greece, these structures should be reconstructed as one-storey, updraft kilns with a unified chamber both for combustion and firing, following the morphological and structural characteristics of similar kilns found around the Mediterranean basin. The lower part of the kilns would be defined by a perimetric, either rock-cut or built bench, designed to confine the hearth. Over the hearth, shelves, made with clay rods, were arranged in series, projected in the interior of the cylindrical or latency conical upper-structure.
Even though the archaeological evidence of Byzantine kilns with rods is still rare, the fact that it was not possible to successfully fire a decent quantity of glazed wares in a regular Byzantine kiln without the interference of any kind of firing device that would prevent the adherence of the final products, points out that the Middle-Byzantine glazed wares were generally fired in kilns with rods.
In this, kiln type, the glazed wares were placed upright on clay-rod shelves, or sometimes hanging from sigmoid hangers that were applied on the clay rods. If placed upside down on the clay rod shelves —as it has been already proposed— the rim of the glazed plates and bowls would be repeatedly adhered on the upper surface of the rods, and consequently the production would be destroyed. 
This —common from the tenth century in the potteries of the Islamic world— kiln type seems to have been gradually acculturated in the Byzantine empire during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, remained in use until the fourteenth century, as evidenced by the glazed ware potteries in Serres and Mosynopolis.
Even though the combined use of clay rod shelves with tripod stilts cannot be excluded, in the two Late Byzantine workshops where the operation of kiln with rods has been evidenced (Serres, Macedonia and Mosynopolis, Thrace) only the use of sigmoid hangers and (or) standoffs has been attested.
Evidence of both these firing techniques seem to have been carried out by the glazed wares themselves, since apart of the existence of tripod-stilt marks, usually preserved on intact bowls or plates, the way the liquid glaze flowed on the surface of the ware before its final stabilization—information that is usually drawn even from a shred—shows if the product was fired upright or upside down, and consequently gives away the firing method and the kiln type.

Lo studio della produzione ceramica altomedievale rappresenta un momento fondamentale per la comprensione della cultura materiale attestata nella penisola italiana tra il VI e il IX secolo d.C.. Sono state create, negli anni, tabelle tipocronologiche per il confronto morfologico delle differenti forme; particolare attenzione è stata data agli aspetti artistici e stilistici delle decorazioni, mentre recentemente le produzioni sono state indagate attraverso strumentazioni archeometriche. Dal punto di vista dell'autore, però manca un approccio di tipo sperimentale, che possa permettere di comprendere gli aspetti tecnologici della produzione, e che sia in grado di ricostruire l'organizzazione della bottega di un ceramista attivo nell'Italia altomedievale.
La ricerca qui presentata e ancora in corso, vuole focalizzarsi sull'analisi delle informazioni archeologiche, allo scopo di ricostruire le singole fasi del processo produttivo della ceramica, dal reperimento dell'argilla alla realizzazione dell'oggetto finito. L'obiettivo è quello di comprendere le i singoli aspetti del processo tecnologico, attraverso l'indentificazione degli indicatori artigianali.
In particolare, il lavoro qui esposto vuole presentare la ricostruzione di una fornace rinvenuta in un sito archeologico piemontese, datata all'VIII secolo; la costruzione della struttura, realizzata in graticcio intonacato d'argilla, ha permesso la comprensione delle modalità di funzionamento dell'impianto, contribuendo allo sviluppo di ipotesi interpretative in merito al lavoro del ceramista.

RESUMEN
En este trabajo abordamos una primera aproximación
a uno de los periodos más desconocidos de
la historia de la producción cerámica en el cuadrante
noroccidental de la península Ibérica, a través de los
primeros talleres descubiertos y sus estructuras de
fabricación más representativas: los hornos cerámicos,
que revelan al menos entre los siglos V y VII-VIII
d.C. una notable fidelidad a los conceptos constructivos
de época romana, al tiempo que una extraordinaria
diversidad en los tipos de sistemas empleados.
Sobre su continuidad o transformación durante los
siguientes siglos altomedievales el vacío de conocimientos
sigue siendo absoluto en este vasto territorio.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Cocción cerámica, complejos
artesanales, alfares, técnicas de construcción.
ABSTRACT
A first approach to one of the most obscure periods in the history of pottery production in Northwestern Spain is addressed in this paper. It will be
achieved by presenting the first discovered workshops
and their most distinctive features. The pottery
kilns show, at least from the 5th to the 7th-8th centuries,
a remarkable fidelity to the roman patterns, but
also an extraordinary diversity in the productive systems.
A complete knowledge gap persists with regard
to the continuity or transformation of these craftmanship
during the following centuries throughout
this vast territory.
KEYWORDS: Pottery firing, crafting workshops, pottery
kilns, construction techniques.

Ermelo a medieval pottery centre on the Veluwe? With this publication, we can give a positive answer to that question. The discovery of several potter’s kilns and thousands of shards of ‘misfired’ objects and other pottery production waste at the Branderskamp area, proves that pots were fired here on a large scale around 1300 AD. We may assume that more pots came out of the kiln ‘in good order’ than as unsalable misfired examples. Therefore, we know for sure that people in Ermelo did not only produce pottery for their own parish, but for the entire region. A true pottery centre for all your cooking and pouring utensils!

Bragging? No, the pots from Ermelo were found during various archaeological excavations in Harderwijk and Putten. Pots, pans, bowls and jugs of various sizes were made here. In addition to pots and pans for domestic use, spindles were also produced here. They were used for the traditional spinning of thread from sheep’s wool. And they also made dipping pots for the candle makers in the neighbourhood.

Although all the pottery produced here is grey, this does not detract from the fact that Ermelo, as a pottery centre, has given colour to the medieval history of the Veluwe!

In 1987 two Carolingian pottery kilns were excavated in Bornheim-Walberg. They are part of the pottery producing Region of the Vorgebirge west of Cologne. The paper presents finds and Features of the kiln site, which was producing 9th century Walberg ware.

Rescue research carried out in Vlašská Street in Malá Strana, Prague in 2012 provided an
opportunity to investigate a previously unknown pottery workshop specializing in the manufacture of redpainted
pottery. A large kiln unearthed on the site contained clay material as well as several body fragments
that proved suitable for reconstruction. The fragments confirm that light pottery was also produced in
Prague. Taking into account further production equipment uncovered in Malá Strana before and available
material sources, it appears that the site might have had a specific importance for Prague pottery in the
Middle Ages.

Brown-glazed ceramics are commonly found at Angkorian period sites yet our knowledge of production and distribution of these wares has been limited to kilns in Thailand and along the Angkorian roads west of the capital. Recent survey along the road connecting Beng Melea with Preah Khan of Kompong Svay has identified the first evidence of brown glazed ceramic kilns east of Angkor. Nearby Angkorian temples suggest that the kilns were in operation at least by the beginning of the 12 th century. This confirms that brown glazed ceramics were made locally and not imported from northeast Thailand or western Cambodia. The proximity to the Angkorian road also suggests that ceramics from these kilns were redistributed along this route to provide local communities and, potentially, the capital. The implication of these new discoveries is that the Angkorian transport system served as an important mechanism for industrial and commercial activity and not just connections between major temple centres.

In an undisturbed bed of the main commercial road of Byzantine Thessaloniki —dated according to numismatic and ceramic evidence in the late eleventh or early twelfth century— numerous fragments of clay rods with pointed edges were found along with small sigmoid clay objects of circular section, which evidence the operation of a Middle Byzantine kiln with clay rods for glazed pottery production in the vicinity.
The clay rods form a shorter conical nib on the one edge and a longer, gradually thinner and pointed part on the other. The conical edges would be inserted in holes opened in successive rows in the internal walls of the kiln, while the elongated pointed parts of the clay rods were projected from the wall surface and formed series of shelves whereon the glazed wares were placed for firing. The smaller and significantly thinner sigmoid clay devices have been considered as standoffs, used to keep the glazed wares separated on the shelves and prevent their adherence. However, two sigmoid clay devices —adhered during the second firing procedure around the body of one clay rod— showcase their use also as hangers for the suspension of small-scaled glazed wares from the firing rods.
The recent findings from Thessaloniki — along with the firing rods that have been discovered in eleventh century layers in Ierissos, near the entrance to mount Athos provide evidence for the use of Byzantine kilns with rods as early as the eleventh century and clarify the purpose of the few sigmoid clay yokes found in the Middle Byzantine ceramic workshops of Corinth, where a fragment of a similar firing device was found adhered around the stem of a glazed goblet. The findings from Thessaloniki, Ierissos and Corinth comprise the earliest evidence of kilns with rods in Middle Byzantine potteries in Greece and the Balkans. So far in this geographical area this —common in the Islamic world and the western Mediterranean— kiln type had been securely documented only in two thirteenth-century glazed pottery workshops in Northern Greece  (Serres and Mosynopolis). Similar recent findings from the Studenica Monastery showcase the operation of a glazed-pottery kiln with rods also in late thirteenth Serbia.
It seems that the type with rods was probably introduced in the Byzantine pottery workshops from the workshops of the Islamic world, where it was in common use from the tenth century. Furthermore, based on the suggestion that the use of tripod stilts for the prevention of the glazed wares adhesion was not invented in Byzantium before the thirteenth century, it seems that this —
little documented so far— kiln type was probably the main one for the second firing of the Middle Byzantine glazed wares.
Architectural remains of kilns with rods have never been traced —or at least identified— in Greece. Based on the morphological and structural characteristics of similar kilns found in the Hispan-gaulish, the Levantine and the African shores of the Mediterranean basin, the Byzantine kilns with rods might be hypothetically reconstructed as one-storey furnaces with unified combustion and firing chamber. The lower part of the kilns would be defined by a perimetric, either rock-cut or built bench, designed to confine the hearth; over that, the clay rod shelves would be arranged in series, projected in the interior of the cylindrical or latency conical upper-structure of the kilns.

This short paper was delivered at the annual 'Pottery in Archaeology' conference at Doncaster Museum in 2016.  It will eventually form part of a much longer re-evaluation of the evidence for medieval pottery manufacture in the town of Doncaster which is currently in an advanced state of preparation.

Abstract Here we report a detailed archaeomagnetic and rock-magnetic study of a pottery kiln from Burgos (Spain) to reconstruct its burning conditions and date its last use and abandonment age. During the course of a rescue archaeological excavation carried out in 2015 in the center of Burgos city, a medieval pottery workshop was discovered. Two well-preserved kilns appeared and archaeomagnetic analyses were performed on one of them. In addition to a large amount of pottery remains, some numismatic and documental evidences provided a general chronological estimation, but the abandonment age of the workshop remains unknown. On the basis of the existing archaeological information we carried out an archaeomagnetic study in order to date its last use. 69 archaeomagnetic samples were collected from the combustion chamber and the kiln's fire tunnel. Stepwise alternating field and thermal demagnetization of the natural remanent magnetization (NRM) were carried out to retrieve the mean direction. Additional experiments consisted in the acquisition of isothermal remanence (IRM), low-field magnetic susceptibility and its anisotropy as well as thermomagnetic curves. Despite the high temperatures expected in the combustion chamber, it appeared that the bricks´ samples from the fire tunnel exhibit the most successful directional results. Magnetite and variable contributions of hematite are the main ferromagnetic minerals observed in the thermomagnetic curves. The type of lithology studied, its previous magnetic history and their location in the kiln strongly condition the observed directional and rock-magnetic results. Additionally, AMS data revealed the manufacturing fabric of the fire tunnel's bricks, showing moderately high anisotropy degrees, but not enough to casts doubts on the directional NRM record. In order to test the reproducibility of the dating results, archaeomagnetic dating was carried out using different geomagnetic field models and the Iberian secular variation curve. The small differences observed in the dating results are mainly due to the density and type of input data of these records. The combination of the archaeomagnetic analyses with the archaeological and documental suggests that last kiln's usage took place during the first half of the XVIth century CE. Overall, this paper illustrates how the combination of archaeological data and archaeomagnetic analyses may improve our understanding about the manufacturing processes, use and age of abandonment of archaeological combustion structures.

Η διάλεξη παρουσιάστηκε στο Διαχρονικό Μουσείο Λάρισας, την Πέμπτη 11 Οκτωβρίου 2012 και ώρα 19:00 μ.μ., στο πλαίσιο της δράσης πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας της Γενικής Γραμματείας Πολιτισμού του ΥΠΑΙΘΠΑ «Περιβάλλον και Πολιτισμός 2012, Παντέχνου πυρός σέλας - Λαμπερές ιστορίες φωτιάς».
Αναζητά ποικίλες, αρχαιολογικά τεκμηριωμένες, εφαρμογές της πυροτεχνολογίας, στην παραγωγική διαδικασία βιοτεχνικών εργαστηρίων της ύστερης αρχαιότητας και των βυζαντινών χρόνων, και ανιχνεύει διαχρονικά τη χωροθέτηση των  ρυπογόνων λόγω της φωτιάς εγκαταστάσεων τους στο πλαίσιο του ήδη οργανωμένου ή υπό οργάνωση οικιστικού ιστού.
Στην κατηγορία βιοτεχνικών εργαστηρίων, κύριο χαρακτηριστικό των οποίων είναι η δια πυρός ολοκλήρωση της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας μέσω χρήσης κλιβάνων ή καμίνων για την τήξη ή την όπτηση της ύλης, συγκαταλέγονται τα εργαστήρια κεραμικής, υαλοποιίας ή υαλουργίας, μεταλλουργίας και ασβεστοποιίας.

WILLOT (J.-M.), MERKENBREACK (V.),  AGOSTINI (H.), ANDERLESSE (L.), BOCQUET-LIENARD (A.), BIREE (L.), CERCY (C.), GALLET (Y.), GUIDI-RONTANI (G.), MEURISSE-FORT (M.) – Fiennes, Rue du Tilleul, Rapport final d’Opération de diagnostic, éd. Centre départemental d’Archéologie du Pas-de-Calais, Dainville, 2014, 504 p., 207 fig.

Editor: Sorin FORȚIU (cu mulțumiri pentru ajutorul punctual acordat lui Andrei STAVILĂ, Cristian OPREAN, Adrian CÎNTAR și Simona REGEP) Coordonator: Dorel MICLE DVD-ROM: Adrian CÎNTAR WEB: Sorin FORȚIU și Claudiu TOMA Coperta: Alice DUMITRAȘCU Foto copertă: Tudor VREME-MOSER, http://ideatm.ro/wordpress/ Această lucrarea a apărut sub egida: © ArheoVest, Timișoara, 2017 Președinte Lorena SMADU www.arheovest.com ISBN 978-963-315-358-1 (Összes/General) ISBN 978-963-315-359-8 (I. kötet/volumul) Avertisment: Acest volum digital este o imagine cât se poate de fidelă a celui tipărit.

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