Planning an experiment.

Not only am I running the Neolithic pottery workshop with Alan Bruford, I’m also running a few experiments at the same time.  Part of this is to make several small pots with the same base clay and different refractory/ thermally resistant materials, and film them while they are being fired, and the pot without any temper/ grog starts to spall in front of the fire where the others will remain intact. I carried out this experiment a few years ago with 2 pots but never filmed it.  It’s like a Ceramics installation - if it’s not filmed there and then , the moment will  be gone for good.  This blog article is the start of this process

This little pinch pot has crushed quartz in it which I will add to clay to use as a temper/ grog. I will make a pot with no grog, and one with sand. They will be in a row by the fire and whilst drying by the fire the one without any grog will start to spall. They won’t  look any different from each other and it’s one of those things , you think, OMG why is that happening?  It’s because the sand or quartz tempered pots are more thermally resistant than the pot with nothing added.

So this sherd comes from the Hembury assemblage, it is burnished and has a small fraction of quartz in it. The burnish marks can also be seen across the pot. It looks as though its been carried out quickly with long strokes which are crisscrossing. This sherd is almost a complete profile of a pot. This is unusual, Its lasted longer than many of the more abraided sherds in the assemblage.  this is in my opinion due to the small fraction of quartz temper/grog. One of the Neolithic potters at Hembury was trying something very different.  This small fraction of quartz is produced by smashing up quartz,