Clifton College Scientific Society. 27 



THE MANUFACTURE OF POTIERY. 



The four great divisions into which the ceramic art of this 

 country is to be divided are those of the Celtic or ancient British, 

 the Eomano-British, the Anglo-Saxon, and the medieval periods. 



In the Celtic period the pottery consists mainly of cinerary or 

 sepulchral urns, drinking cups, food vessels, and incense vases. 

 They are formed of the coarse common clay of the place where 

 manufactured, and are occasionally mixed with pebbles and gravel. 

 These, you must bear in mind, are wrought entirely by hand, 

 without any wheel, and the larger vessels especially are very thick. 

 From their very imperfect firing, the vessels of this period are 

 usually called sun-baked or sun-dried. This, however, is a grave 

 error, for if the vessels were merely sun-dried, their burial in the 

 earth would soon soften them, and they would long ago have re- 

 turned to their old consistency. As it is, they bear evidence of 

 the action of fire, and are indeed sometimes burned sufficiently for 

 the clay to have attained a red colour. 



The cinerary urns of Staffordshire — i.e., such as have contained, 

 inverted or otherwise, the burnt bones and ashes of the dead — vary 

 considerably in form, like those of Derbyshire, from those of any 

 other districts. They vary from nine to eighteen inches in height, 

 and their ornamentations, which are always produced by indent- 

 ing twisted thongs into the pliant clay, or by simple incision, is 

 often very elaborate. This ornamentation usually consists of 

 diagonal lines or of herring-bone or zigzag lines, arranged in 

 different ways, and producing a remarkably good efiect. Of these 

 interesting vessels some excellent examples have been found in 

 Staffordshire, which were no doubt made on the spot. They are 

 therefore the very earliest sort of Stafi'ordshire pottery, dating back 

 to the time when that district was in possession of the Cornavii. 



The Celtic drinking vessels found in the Stafibrdshire and 

 Derbyshire barrows are generally from about six to nine inches in 

 height, tall in form, contracted in the middle, globular in their 

 lower half, and expanding at the mouth. They are usually very 

 richly ornamented with indented lines in different patterns ; are 

 carefully formed by hand, of fine and well-tempered clay mixed 

 with sand, and are well fired. 



The food vessels are usually very wide at the mouth, tapering 

 downwards gradually, and quite small at the bottom. They are 

 formed of clay of much the same quality as the cinerary urns, and 

 are baked to the same degree of hardness. 



The incense cups of Staffordshire, like those of Derbyshire, vary 

 in form and in style of decoration. They are very small vessels, 

 not more than from an inch and a half to three inches in height. 



