Basement goods
Basement ware is a poorly decorated, qualitatively poor, early medieval (about 7th to 12th century) pottery that occurs in Ireland primarily in the province of Ulster , in basement , mostly in small pieces . However, the pottery is also found in settlements. The term "basement goods" describes only one aspect of the findings. Most of Ireland was almost aceramic during the early Christian period, meaning that little pottery was used.
The relatively short-lived (easily destructible) pottery is an important tool for archaeologists (one speaks of a key fossil) if they are to determine the time of a find or site. The ceramic, which can possibly be dated by thermoluminescence dating, can, if necessary, be subdivided into different styles of shorter or longer duration. In the ideal case, this allows the development of the ceramic (in terms of material, shape and decoration) and the age of the various finds to be determined. The thin-walled ceramic is white, red-brown, gray or black. The shape is simple, with occasional charred food scraps. It appears that the early specimens were undecorated. Later, there were individual strips of strips near the edge, sometimes decorated with fingertips. A common feature are grass marks on the stand area. They should come from the fact that the unfired product was placed on chopped straw or grass so that it does not stick to the ground. The material was pressed into the soft clay of the base. During the firing process, the organic material was burned off and left impressions. This largely accepted explanation is not completely convincing, because there are also indications that the grass marking was not created during the drying phase, but rather during production.
There may be a connection between the early medieval pottery tradition of the Western Isles and the basement ware in northeastern Ireland associated with the Kingdom of Dalriada . The basement ware, according to Ian Armit, can be seen as part of the spread of the Scottish western pottery style in the 7th and 8th centuries.
See also
literature
- Mark Clinton: The Souterrains of Ireland. Wordwell, Bray - Co. Wicklow 2001, ISBN 1-869857-49-6 .
- Alfred EP Collins: A basement at Tobergill Co. Antrim. In: Ulster Journal of Archeology. Vol. 3, Vol. 23, 1960, pp. 80-81, JSTOR 20567565 .
- Laurence Flanagan : Ancient Ireland. Life before the Celts. Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 2000, ISBN 0-7171-2433-9
- Richard J. Ivens: A note on grass-marked pottery. In: Journal of Irish Archeology. Vol. 2, 1984, pp. 77-79, JSTOR 30001587 .