Skáholt 2002 - Nabo

CERAMIC
Pottery
A rapid assessment of the ceramics was conducted which involved basic sorting and
quantification by sherd count according to fabric type; notes on forms and decoration and
other attributes were also made but a full analysis based on vessel counts will only be
done at a later stage. Pottery comprised the principal category of ceramic finds, and the
majority was late 19 th and early 20 th century industrial refined earthenwares , the
frequencies decreasing backward in time (see Table 4). This later pottery was
predominantly composed of whitewares, a large proportion of which were simply plain
(c. 60%), though there was also a large number of decorated vessels. Three main types of
decoration occurred – transfer prints were the most common (c. 40% of all decorated
vessels), followed by sponge wares (21%) and banded wares (18%). The remaining types
included slipwares, decal or lithograph prints, hand painted, and rare luster wares, but all
in small proportions. Other industrial refined earthenwares included creamwares,
pearlwares and yellow wares, as well as some 19 th century colour glazed vessels. Some
late stonewares and also bone china porcelains were also present.
Sourcing most of this material is near impossible without makers marks, but three
factories were identified, all from England – Scott brothers of Southwick (Sunderland),
Wedgwood & Co of Tunstall (Staffordshire) and Furnivals of Cobridge (Staffordshire).
The latter were clearly a major exporter of the ‘Blue Fluted’ pattern which was also the
most popular output of the Danish Royal Copenhagen factories – perhaps Furnivals
provided a cheaper alternative geared specifically to the Scandinavian market, as the
mark logo incorporates a Viking ship. This pattern formed the most common transfer
printed design by far on the site. One base of a bone china vessel was marked as ‘Made
in Czechoslovakia’, with a D under a crown; this can only date after 1918. No Czech
factory mark could be correlated with this, and indeed the mark may refer to a decorator
firm, Helena Wolfsohn in Dresden who used blanks from other factories (chiefly
Meissen). Between 1882 and the 1930s, their mark was a D under a crown.
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