The temperatures are heating up, there’s Christmas decorations in shops around the city and we’re on the countdown to summer holidays. In our penultimate blog post for the year we’re going to look back on some of our best artefacts from the past year. Enjoy!
Big is always better, or at least that’s the case when we’re talking about meat platters. Whoever threw away this gorgeous Royal Cottage patterned meat platter really must have needed the cupboard space, because how could you just chuck out such a beautiful piece. Image: C. Watson.
Meat platters aren’t the only ceramic artefacts we’ve found complete this year. Here’s a small section of the many complete or near-complete ceramic vessels we’ve uncovered during our excavations in 2019. This year we’ve analysed two assemblages from well-to-do families, and there definitely seems to be a correlation between wealth and willingness to throw away perfectly good dishes. I’m half of BURN THE RICH mindset, because how could people just throw these out, but also praise the rich because wealthy people throwing out vessels in the 19th century trickles down to archaeologists digging them up in the 21st century (like what I just did there, see last month’s blog for more witty socialism puns). Image: C. Watson.
And while we’re on the subject of ceramic vessels, we can’t ignore that we’ve found THREE vessels this year that are fruit and vegetable themed. I give you the Pineapple Jug, the Eggplant Flowerpot and the Corn Jug. I don’t really have anything else to say other than they’re all a big yes from me. Image: C. Watson.
Whilst bigger is always better in the case of meat platters, the opposite is true when we’re talking about children’s artefacts. Here’s a few of the various dolls, marbles, miniatures and other things we’ve uncovered this year. No matter what expression is on a doll’s face, they always seem to be blushing. Image: C. Watson.
I am notoriously bias for being a big ceramic lover, but we have found plenty of bottles as well. SO MANY BOTTLES. Far more than ceramics. And many more that were complete. But also lots of fragmented ones as well. Here’s a few. Image: C. Watson.
I probably shouldn’t be so hard on bottles, there are some cool ones out there. Take this bad boy for example. We’re pretty sure it’s an ink well that is shaped like a baby carriage (but open to other suggestions on the shape). Why? Who knows. But if you need a corn jug to serve milk (or water, or something else- I’m not sure if there’s a specific connection between corn shaped jugs and the specific task they were used for), then you damn well definitely need a baby carriage shaped ink well. Image: C. Watson.
This bottle is also very cool. It’s a hock wine bottle (typically assumed to hold wine), but it’s got a label for vinegar on it! This was cool for two reasons. Firstly, because the label meant we knew what the bottle held. Here’s our blurb from the report (because when it’s less than four weeks to Christmas you bet I’m copy and pasting).
The malt vinegar bottle was a hock wine bottle with a label reading “SIR ROBERT B…/ MALT V…/ VAUXHALL D…”. Sir Robert Burnett and Co. were distillers and rectifiers, wine and spirit merchants and vinegar brewers operating out of the Vauxhall Distiller and Vinegar Works in London. The company was initially established as Fassett and Burnett in 1770 and were best known for their product Burnett’s Old Tom Gin (Grace’s Guide 2019). The Burnett’s brand was first advertised in New Zealand in 1863 (Southland Times 30/10/1863: 5), with the malt vinegar first advertised in New Zealand in 1872 (Lyttelton Times 2/07/1872: 4).
Now the second reason why the bottle is cool is all to do with this advertisement here. It tells us that George Warner was the SOLE AGENT for Sir Robert Burnett and Co’s Malt Vinegar (which is what the bottle was). We found that bottle on the site of the business George Warner ran, called Walton, Warner and Co. Which means, we can 100 percent, for definite (no maybes or it’s likely or is strongly possible here), link the bottle with the occupant of the site. And that’s cool. Image: Lyttelton Times.
We found an almost complete ginger jar. It might not be anything that special but I’m including it because I love ginger jars and it’s my blog so I’ll do what I want. Image: C. Watson.
Here’s a heart cut out of leather. I don’t know why someone made this, but I love that they did. Image: C. Watson.
Yes, you’ve all seen this glass basket a million times before. But I love it and it’s still my favourite artefact of the year (the cartridge shell from Metro Sports is a close second though), so here it is one more time. Image: C. Watson.
Clara Watson
Dear Clara,
No copies were made nor cut, and noone got pasted herewithin this reply.
Yep I did see wot you done did (very trickly), but please forgive me as self-imposed hastenings prevented me from following linkages to more good stuff.
Glad to see a smattering of complete (poetic license applied to the actual ‘almost’ here) artifacts uncovered this most eventful year. I can see why excitement is appropriate.
Thankyou so much for morethanonce mentioning the encroaching Festive Christmas Season. It’s very hard not to bite my tongue whilst saying I was totally oblivious to that rapid approach. After all, none of us ever get to notice the tons of deforestated trees turned into junk mail landing in our letter? boxes. (Mine usually goes straight in the bin).
If I don’t get the chance again Clara, all the very best to you and the team, and all your families, for this Special Time of year.
Keep safe, and maybe, just maybe, some future trowellings will lead to one; that needs cracking! 🙂 ~ ~
Thank you for sharing all the good bits! Love seeing what you find. And I like the ginger jar a lot too!
Before I read the caption, I thought the glass ink well looked like a headless man with a beard riding a tricycle – still odd but see what you think, and thanks for all the great posts this year.