Category Archives: Artefacts

A few interesting finds

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If you recall our 2020 end of year blog, I made a new year’s resolution to ensure that we were updating both our social media accounts and the blog regularly. If you follow our blog and our other accounts, you’ll have realised that I’ve completely failed in fulfilling that resolution for most of the year. It’s been a busy 2021 at Underground Overground so far. We’ve been all over Christchurch and wider Canterbury working on a range of archaeological sites, from early Māori sites to later European sites. We’ve also been busy in the lab analysing and cataloguing artefacts. Today on the blog, we’re going to take a look at some of the interesting historic artefacts we’ve seen so far this year. As with any cool artefact blog that I write, this blog is mostly pretty ceramic vessels because they are my favourite!

Blue and white transfer ware dinner sets: a 10/10 for me. If you were a #1850skid, then you would have grown up with plates like these at the dinner table, oh the memories. Up the top we’ve got the Pekin pattern- a lovely oriental style floral pattern. Down the bottom we’ve got the Bosphorus pattern, which ticks all the boxes of a standard romantic pattern (trees, body of water, oriental/classical/gothic buildings in the background). Both patterns were named for far-away places, suggesting maybe the owner had a bit of #wanderlust going on. We don’t know who made the Pekin plates, but we know the Bosphorus plates were made by James Jamieson and Co., meaning they date from sometime between 1828 and 1855. Image: C. Watson.

This delightful pattern really shows the pain in the horse’s eyes as he realises that his rider is about to shoot the unsuspecting ducks. Transferware patterns that feature animals are some of my favourites, as they never quite get them right. The horse and dogs are just a wee bit too muscular, while the ducks are very well rounded. The pattern is part of the Field Sports series, introduced by Copeland and Garrett in 1846, and continued by their successor, W. T. Copeland, into the 20th century. Image: C. Watson.

Speaking of the pain in someone’s eyes, I can’t tell if this doll is angry, sad, or just a little bit constipated. It’s the Mona Lisa of the 19th century. Image: C. Watson.

At first these jug fragments might not look like much, but when you see the whole picture, you can really appreciate what a cool pattern it is. The pattern is called the India pattern and it was made by Robert Cochran and Co. of the Britannia pottery in Scotland. It depicts a man, possibly the viceroy, riding an elephant. A woman in the crowd gathered around the viceroy holds up her baby to the man. It’s a super cool scene and quite different to what we normally see on transferware. I must admit, I am gutted that only a small piece survived, and that small piece wasn’t the bit that had the elephant on it. Image: C. Watson and Transferware Collectors Club Database.

Now for a brief interlude in the ceramic posts. These Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce bottles are incredibly common, we find them on most sites in Christchurch. On one hand I just enjoyed these four because they were all found in the one feature and were all complete. On another, more theoretical hand (perhaps one holding a thinking hat), I feel like they convey how food represent culture and how the continuing consumption of quintessentially British condiments by 19th century migrants to New Zealand and their descendants, shows a continuation of British culture and customs in a foreign place. If Britain did a Buzzfeed quiz to find out what condiment it was, it’d probably get Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. Image: C. Watson.

We also found this- which falls into the wonderful artefact category of ‘I have know idea what this thing is, but it looks cool’. It’s moulded milk glass in a terraced shape with a dragon’s head on top. I’ve wondered about a jelly mould- but it does have embossing on the inside (…ARTERLAN…LONDON), which I feel rules out at a jelly mould as you probably wouldn’t want the name of the jelly mould’s manufacturer embossed onto the side of your jelly. No doubt I’ll see something similar some time in the future and go “oh, that’s what that thing was!”. Image: C. Watson.

While we’re on the glass train, did you know that we excavated the site of a 19th century doctors surgery and found heaps of cool medical artefacts? I feel like I’ve been harping on about this site a lot, but it was super cool and the artefacts are still on display at the South Library so definitely do go and check them out if you’re based in Christchurch. And if you’re not based in Christchurch- then listen to the talk that I did on the site for Archaeology Week- we posted it last time on the blog and it’s available here. Image: C. Watson.

Enough with the bottles, back to ceramics! This was one of several similar chambersticks we found in a feature. This feature was chock full of ceramic vessels that we were able to refit to be complete or near complete. When we looked at the artefacts in the feature, we were able to date it to sometime around the late 1880s – 1887 at the earliest. The man who lived at the house died in 1886, and his daughter took over ownership and leased it out. We’re pretty sure that the feature represents the daughter cleaning out her father’s stuff, before she tenanted it. Image: C. Watson.

This artefact photograph is brought to you using the magic of photoshop. As you can see, the bowl is nearly complete, but is missing its base. I photographed it upside down, and then rotated the image to show it the right way up. I really like yellow-ware bowls like these. The decorative style of the bleeding blue wavy lines is called dendritic mocha. These bleeding lines are achieved using a chemical reaction. An alkaline base colour was applied to the vessel (the white band). An acid colour was applied over top of this (the blue). The acid reacted with the alkaline to form tree-like growths (the bleeding of the blue line). #science. Image: C. Watson.

Lucky last, how cute is this wee teacup! The perfect vessel for sipping a nice cup of tea on a cold winter’s night. Image: C. Watson.

Clara Watson

 

 

A Curry Paste Jar, a Keepsake, a Symbol of British Colonialism

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Hello loyal blog readers, welcome back to another year of posts on the history and archaeology of 19th century Christchurch. I thought we’d start the year off by looking back at one of our more interesting finds from the very end of 2020 and talking a bit about how we catalogue and research the artefacts we find, and how we then interpret them .

The artefact in question is this ceramic jar. The jar is made from earthenware and is glazed inside and out. Ware-type is one of the main attributes that I record when cataloguing ceramic artefacts. It describes the fabric of the vessel, what it is made out of, with there being three main ware-types: earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. These main ware-types relate to the temperature at which the vessel was fired at, which in turn affects the fabric of the vessel. As well as recording the ware type, I also record the glaze and form of the vessel. In the case of our jar here, it has a clear (or clear with a slight tint) glaze inside and on the rim, and a teal-coloured slip-glaze on the outer body. The form is a jar, which I would describe as having a rolled rim, a concave neck, a convex shoulder and body, and a flat base.

The jar in question: Shaik Fyzool Kurreem’s True Bengal Curry Paste. Image: C. Watson.

Once I’ve recorded the fabric and form of the vessel, I then record any decoration and marks. In the case of our jar here, it’s not decorated as such, but the body is textured, like a golf ball, and so I recorded that as decoration because it’s unusual. Written on the body of the jar is: SHAIK FYZOOL KURREEM’S/TRUE BENGAL/ CURRY PASTE. There were no other marks on the base of the jar.

A close-up of the writing on the jar. Image: C. Watson.

To say I was surprised at the jar would be an understatement. When it landed on my desk, I had no idea who Shaik Fyzool Kurreem was, and I wouldn’t have had a clue that it was a curry paste jar if it hadn’t been labelled as such. Everything about the jar, from the ware type and glaze to the decoration, was unusual. Almost all the ceramic jars we find on our archaeological sites are stoneware or whiteware and if they’re decorated, it’s only with a simple moulded band.

A selection of more typical 19th century stoneware and whiteware jars. Image: C. Watson.

As part of our artefact analysis process, we research any marks on the artefact to help us date it. Normally with ceramic vessels, this means looking in Geoffrey Godden’s Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks. The book is essentially a bible when it comes to ceramic marks and it makes my job very easy most of the time (if you have ceramic marks that you want to date but don’t have a copy of Godden, then Steve Birks’ The Potteries Website is a close second). In the case of our jar though, the mark isn’t describing the manufacturer of the jar, but rather the contents, which makes things a bit more complicated.

Whenever I come across something I haven’t seen before, I always begin my research by looking through UOA’s internal artefact databases to see if we’ve found the artefact/mark/pattern before. These were of no help for researching my jar, and just confirmed my initial view on the artefact that it was ‘cool but strange’. If it isn’t something we’ve found before, then I turn to our trusty friend Google. This returned a whopping three results.

Hot tip for searching on google, if you include something in quotation marks it searches that phrase. When Google searches without quotation marks, it searches for the words but not in relation to each other- meaning the bottom two results were not relevant.

The top Google search result gave me my first lead! This was a jar, similar to mine, that was posted in an antique bottle forum. The jar was the same form as my one, but was a different shade of blue and had written on it: SHAIK FYZOOL KURREEM’S TRUE BENGAL MULLIGATAWNY PASTE. The poster on the bottle forum was asking for information on it. Sadly, nobody on the forum had any information, only the advice to give it a rub to see if a genie came out. Image: BeachComber, AntiqueBottles.Net.

This told me that whoever Shaik Fyzool Kurreem was, he was making multiple types of curry pastes. Unfortunately, Google wasn’t very helpful with figuring out who he was.

PapersPast is invaluable when researching 19th century artefacts. A lot of the time if I can’t find something on Google, I can find it in old newspapers. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here.

When something cool lands on my desk, generally other people in the office will stop by and have a look. I can’t remember who suggested that “shaik” might be a different spelling of “sheikh”, but whoever it was, was bang on the money. Sheikh is an honorific title in Arabic that literally translates as “elder”, but was commonly used for chiefs, royalty, and religious scholars (thanks Wikipedia). I re-tried my Google search, and this time had a bit more luck.

A 166.67% increase in results by just searching “fyzool kurreem”. The top hit was the Mulligatawny paste jar that I’d already seen. The second and fourth results were from a British newspaper search engine that I needed to pay to access, so I ignored them. It was the third and fifth results that proved most interesting.

The third (and fifth) result was from Peter J. Atkins article “Vinegar and Sugar: The early history of Factory-Made Jams, Pickles and Saucers in Britain” in the book, The Food Industries of Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The relevant page of the book was talking about Crosse and Blackwell, a British foodstuffs company that is still around today. “The products named in Crosse and Blackwell’s own advertisements came and went in a rapid cycle of innovation. In the 1830s it was Soho Sauce and Dinmore’s Essence of Shrimps… By 1845 Abdool Fygo’s Chutney and Fyzool Kurreem’s Currie and Mulligatawny Pastes had been added to the list.” (Atkins 2013: 46).

Now, up until this point, I had been picturing an old Bengali man in India stirring large earthenware pots of paste over a fire and bottling them into jars that he carefully painted his name on (ugh how colonial of me). I should have known that it was British. Crosse and Blackwell’s products are pretty common on our sites. They were a foodstuffs company based in Soho, London, who made products for both the domestic and export markets. The company was founded in 1829 when Edmund Crosse and Thomas Blackwell bought West and Wyatt, located at No. 11 King Street, having been apprentices there since 1819 (Jeffries et al. 2016).

We are lucky enough to have a book specifically on Crosse and Blackwell that covers the excavation of their factory. This is Crosse and Blackwell 1830-1921: A British Food Manufacturer in London’s West End by Nigel Jeffries, Lyn Blackmore and David Sorapure. The book discusses Crosse and Blackwell’s Indian products: “…by taking an unusual step in sending a representative with the first troops that were shipped out to India by the East India Company. This unnamed individual sent back new spices and other ingredients for the firm to experiment with. This resulted in Crosse and Blackwell’s Captain White’s Oriental Pickle and Curry Powder. Col Skinner’s Mango Relish also appears to have been developed at this time, together with Abdool Fygo’s Chutney and Mulligatawny Pastes” (Jeffries et al. 2016: 44).

I decided to google Abdool Fygo, since both books made reference to the product. What do you know, another jar with an ‘oriental’ appearance. This one says: “BENGAL CHUTNEY PREPARED BY SHAIK ABDOOL FYGO CALCUTTA IMPORTED ONLY BY GROSSE & BLACKWELL 21SOHO SQARE LONDON”. The style of text on it is almost identical to that of our jar and the mulligatawny paste, and the rolled rim and glazed body is also very similar in style. Image: WorthPoint.

At this point in my search, I’d successfully identified that Crosse and Blackwell were the manufacturer of the jar’s contents (which pottery made the jar for them remains a mystery). From the Atkins article I knew that the curry paste was introduced in or around 1845, but I didn’t know how long it was made for. Searches on Papers Past for “fyzool kurreem” and “abdool fygo” resulted in no results, while those for “curry paste” and “mulligatawny paste” returned hundreds. I tried similar searches on Trove, the Australian version of Papers Past, but these were also a dead end. I returned back to my google search results for “fyzool kureem” and clicked into the newspaper results.

From what I can gather, British newspaper archives are hidden behind a paywall and you have to pay to access the original- a big disappointment when you’re used to the free access from Papers Past. Even though I couldn’t see the original articles, the search engine gave the newspaper name and date along with a short snippet of where the phrase occurred in the newspaper. Scrolling through these previews showed that Abdool Fygo’s chutney was advertised alongside Fyzool Kurreem’s curry and Mulligatawny pastes. What was most interesting though, was that the advertisements began in 1845, and ended in 1850. Atkins said that Crosse and Blackwell cycled through product names quite quickly, and it seems as though Fyzool Kurreem’s curry paste was only produced for approximately five years, between 1845 and 1850. The newspaper advertisements also show that Crosse and Blackwell were advertising the product in British newspapers, but clearly not Australian and New Zealand newspapers, suggesting the product might have only been made for the domestic market.

It was at this point I ended my search. I had learnt that the jar was made for Crosse and Blackwell and likely dated some time between 1845 and 1850. I think that the jar epitomises some of the reasons why I find historical archaeology so interesting. There’s the research process itself. Being able to use tools like Google and newspaper archives to research products and people is something that’s unique to historical archaeology. Then there’s what the artefact says about the occupants of the site. This jar came from a small cottage on Barbadoes Street. The cottage was built in 1865/1866 and rented out for most of the 19th century. Assuming that the jar was deposited by one of the tenants, it was likely at least 20 years old by this time, if not older. It’s safe to say that any curry paste the jar held had long been eaten, and that the jar probably had a secondary function. Maybe as a small vase, given its decorative appearance, or possibly a keepsake. Regardless, the jar seems to have been brought over from Britain, suggesting it must have had some sentimental value for whoever owned it. Unfortunately, the tenants that rented out the cottage changed regularly, meaning we weren’t able to match the jar with a specific person.

There’s also what the artefact says about culture and society in the 19th century. While we’re excavating the archaeology of Christchurch, in many ways we’re also excavating the archaeology of the British empire. Crosse and Blackwell, a British company, were selling Indian style pastes and condiments, and were doing so in a way that commodified Indian culture to make their product seem authentic. The jars were deliberately designed to look foreign, especially with the blue glaze and textured surface. The brand names are Indian names, which were probably foreign “funny sounding names” (to quote NZ politicians from a few years ago) to British citizens, likely adding to the “authenticity” of the product. Which leads me to the final reason why I find historical archaeology so interesting, the impact of 19th century (and earlier) colonialism on our own culture and society. If Crosse and Blackwell were to release ‘Shaik Fyzool Kurreem’s Cury Paste’ today, people would probably call it out for what it is, cultural appropriation.

Back in 2018 some British breweries started selling New Zealand inspired beers and used Māori culture as part of their branding. They were called out for cultural appropriation, and commercialising Māori culture at the time. The comparisons with our jar are easy to make- especially with the Indian names and oriental inspired jar forms. Image source: TheSpinoff.

A curry paste jar, a keepsake, a symbol of British colonialism. One artefact, but multiple different stories and perspectives on what it represents.

Clara Watson

 

 

2020: what a dumpster fire of a year

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This is the third end of year blog post that I (Clara) have written, and just as I started writing it one of our interns dropped her lunch all over the floor as she was putting it in the microwave: if that’s not a metaphor for 2020, then I don’t know what is… This year I’ve decided to divide our final blog post for the year into four parts.

A distant golden past

January and February feel like a lifetime ago. We farewelled our 2019/2020 interns Bex and Christy and welcomed our new archaeologist, Jon, from the UK. We excavated sites, analysed artefacts and I wrote about bottle use on the blog.

Jon from the UK. The first photo I took of him was holding a chamber pot- there’s definitely a joke about 2020 in there somewhere…

Jamie taught Rebecca how to record buildings.

We excavated a site that contained several rubbish pits chock full of medicinal bottles. We later worked out that a pharmacist was living on the site in the early 20th century, and that the pits were likely commercial dumps from his business.

I think Angel is cracking Michael’s back in this photo (but really who knows what’s going on here).

Michael had a chicken show up on his site. Kirsa questioned whether or not a chicken showing up on site was a highlight of 2020, but we decided that it definitely was.

As was the mummified rat that Jamie found, which now lives on top of the bookshelf.

Overall, this year has been a pretty good one for artefacts, but everything I analysed during the first couple of months of the year was pretty standard.

It’s the Coronaaaavirus

We started the week of the 23rd of March trialling working from home and by the Wednesday we were in Level 4. Some of us loved working from home (mostly those with pets), others missed the malaise of the office. We all learnt to use zoom and to organise our workday around the 1pm Ashley Bloomfield Show. Luckily for us, for every hour we spend in the field there’s several spent in the office drawing up plans, writing up reports and analysing finds, so most of us were able to work right through.

Did you really work from home if you didn’t attend at least one zoom meeting?

NZ Archaeology Week was held during lockdown. As part of our online events, we posted daily colouring in photos of artefacts. Kurt Bennett came up with this great masterpiece.

I got creative in how to maximise productivity when working in a confined space (while trying not to ruin the landlord’s carpets).

And Angel discovered evidence of aliens* while working on an essential project during Level 4.
*not actually evidence of aliens- we think these rings are from potato clamps.*

There were some cool artefacts analysed during this period. Most interesting was a site occupied from the 1850s that contained ceramics made between the 1840s and 1860s. It’s not often that we get features dating to the start of Christchurch’s (European) settlement. Within that site, the Fox and The Lion pattern based on Aesop’s Fable of the same name was a highlight (top left). Other cool artefacts included a slate tablet with writing still legible (bottom left), a pipe section with finger impressions of the person who made it (bottom right), a Vanes Patent bottle (interesting because I hadn’t come across that patent before; top centre right) and a 1902 coronation medal (top centre left).

Post-lockdown world

Between the 27th of April, when we moved down to Level 3, and the 8th of June, when we went down to Level 1, we packed up our home offices and moved back to the office in drips and drabs. Fieldwork resumed and we headed back out to site armed with facemasks and the contact tracing app. Over the following few months life went back to being relatively normal. During this time we farewelled Jon from the UK, who moved back home after 2020 turned out not to be the year to shift to the other side of the world.

Tristan showing off his post-lockdown baking body.

Wendy wasn’t thrilled about Michael’s new hobby being brought into the office.

Megan got to break the bubble and do some scenic fieldwork.

We learnt about asbestos.

Earthworks finally got underway at the Cathedral site. Kirsa monitored the work from the safety of a purpose-built cage.

Angel found this gorgeous Sicilian patterned ewer (and was definitely thrilled about it).

It was during this time that I analysed my favourite site of 2020. The site had many complete or nearly complete artefacts and lots of children’s artefacts. Highlights within the assemblage included a kyusu, a plate made for the American export market and this classical shaped glass vase.

And while we’re talking about artefacts, this clay pipe stem would have to be my top artefact of 2020. It might not look like much, but there’s an amazing story behind it and if you haven’t read our blog on it, then I highly recommend that you do (link here).

Holy Smokes It’s Busy

Much as the New Zealand housing market has spiralled out of control these past few months, we’ve also seen our workloads increasing. Projects that were delayed due to lockdown resumed, as well as new ones starting. From around September on it’s been a bit like ships in the night with people passing by the office on their way to and from sites. Even I abandoned artefact analysis and spent much of October and November in the field. This has meant that our social media outreach has dropped off a lot these past few months. Our new years’ resolution for 2021 is to actually stick to our posting schedule… Christchurch Heritage Festival fell during these busy months, and we partnered with The Arts Centre to host an exhibition showcasing artefacts found during the restoration works. The exhibition was a success, with hundreds of people viewing the artefacts on display.

Jamie and Rebecca ended the year the way they started it, recording buildings together.

I kid you not, Angel found a Turkish Bath from the 19th century a few weeks ago. This is probably the coolest feature that we found in 2020 and I promise you that we will definitely do a blog post on it next year.

In other cool finds, Megan found a boiler. Unfortunately, it was a bit too big to fit in an artefact bag…

I found a gully (among other things- if you know, you know). The gully matched the location of one shown in an 1850s map and looked to have been infilled around the 1860s-70s. The site it’s from had an interesting history and we found some cool stuff, so this is another site that I promise we’ll do a full blog post on next year.

Jamie found a time capsule in the form of a pickle jar embedded in the foundation stone of one of her buildings. We enlisted the help of the contractors to get it out.

Our exhibition at The Arts Centre.

We still found time for some office malaise. Here Angel is teaching us how to metal detect.

We welcomed back Bex, who interned with us last summer, and we welcomed Neda, our new intern. Neda was thrilled to be given the job of setting up our unique Christmas tree.

Kirsa decided she was done with 2020 and took a nap in the meeting room.

While we put Annthalina in a box.

The Colleen Bawn pipe was my favourite artefact of 2020, but this chicken waterer is definitely my second favourite!

There’s been some cool finds just the past two weeks- lots of lamps, a military button, a spinning top, tiles with mutant dolphin ship sails and a curry paste jar. Other interesting finds from the latter months of the year have included a creepy dolls head (because creepy doll’s heads are always cool) and wooden skipping rope handles. Again, probably more on these next year!

From everyone here at UnderOver, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Clara Watson

It’s All Child’s Play

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When I think of childhood in the 19th century, my mind goes back to visits to museums and heritage parks with rooms and displays set up to replicate key spaces in Victorian society: the household, the blacksmiths, the doctor’s office and the school. Visits to these places always instilled me with the opinion that the 19th century was not a good time to be a child.

This opinion had a multitude of influences. Tales of high child and infant mortality rates, with the impression of an accompanying belief that it was a waste of time to invest love and attention into children when they would most likely just die, coloured my perception of children’s home lives. If the child did survive, then they were most likely put to work as a chimney sweep or in a factory, where they would probably die because the industrial revolution was not known for its health and safety practices (at least not in the first part of the century). If they were lucky enough to go to school, then they probably got put in a corner with a dunce cap or were beaten with a cane. Various sayings like “spare the rod and spoil the child” and “children should be seen and not heard” enforced this opinion.

There is truth in this view. A quick search through the death notices in old newspapers, or a wander through an old cemetery, will very quickly show that many infants and children died at a young age. This is confirmed in infant mortality rate statistics, with the infant mortality rate fluctuating between 7.1% and 12.6% in the 19th century (in comparison the modern infant mortality rate is 0.4%). Tales of children working in factories will come up in almost any summary of the industrial revolution, as will stories of strict teachers in summaries on Victorian schools. But to say that life was completely awful for a Victorian child would be a mistake, and it is certainly not the impression given by the archaeological record here in Christchurch.

If I had to think of an artefact that encapsulated the worst aspects of Victorian childhood, then it would be this. This unassuming artefact is the stopper from an infant feeder bottle, later given the nickname “Murder Bottle”. This name comes from the design of the bottle, which was difficult to clean, resulting in a build-up of bacteria that was only made worse by household guru Mrs Beeton recommending they were only cleaned every two to three weeks. Funnily enough, the bottles stopped being popular near the end of the 19th century when the medical community condemned them. Image: C. Watson. 

Infant bottle feeders aside, most of the artefacts relating to children that we find in Christchurch can be divided into three categories: play, education, and foodways, with some overlapping between categories. But before we have a look at these, I first want to delve into what we specifically mean by childhood. On one hand, childhood is simply that fun period of your life with no responsibilities before you have to work, pay bills and worry about the inevitable collapse of society as a result of climate change – i.e. a developmental stage on the way to being an adult. On the other hand, childhood is a social construct, and different societies differentiate the differences between childhood and adulthood in different ways, and at different ages (this video here gives a quick summary of childhood as a social construct, but if you really love theory then check out this thesis here, which takes a very detailed look at the theory of childhood). Childhood itself is influenced by many factors, (the child’s biology, the environment they grow up in, the education they receive), with the overall view that these factors influence the type of adult they will become. In this way, the child can be seen as either a passive receptor (being influenced by the factors that contribute to their childhood), or an active agent, engaging in and influencing their childhood (Vlahos 2014).

One of the key aspects of childhood is play. Play is a culturally universal phenomenon, observed across all societies as a significant and distinctive activity (Vlahos 2014: 260). It’s also what we see most frequently in the archaeological record in Christchurch, when we’re looking at the archaeological evidence for the presence of children.

Dolls are probably the most common artefact relating to children that we find on archaeological sites here in Christchurch. This is probably related to the fact that most of the dolls we find in Christchurch are made from ceramic, which tends to preserve well. We generally find two types of dolls. The first are jointed dolls. These had a cloth body to which a porcelain head, arms and legs were attached, with the limbs and heads surviving. The second are Frozen Charlotte Dolls. These were small naked figurines, inspired by ballad Fair Charlotte which described the story of a young girl who froze to death in a sleigh on her way to a ball. Most of the dolls shown here are Frozen Charlottes or jointed doll parts, although there are two more decorative figurines. Also pictured down the bottom is my personal favourite, a jointed doll’s head with inlaid teeth. Image: C. Watson.

Also relatively common are marbles. We find a great variety of marbles, ranging from cheap clay “commies” to glazed bennington marbles to glass marbles with various swirls and patterns. Image: C. Watson.

The artefacts that inspired this blog post: miniatures. Most of these artefacts come from one assemblage, which was quite unique for both the quantity and variety of miniature vessels it contained. Prior to this I had never found a miniature ladle before! Image: C. Watson.

These artefacts tell us much more than just that there were children present at the sites – they tell us about childhood in the 19th century. All of these toys were likely made by adults, and probably chosen by adults for the respective children. As such, childhood is often heavily influenced by the adults surrounding a child.  Many of the toys were likely intended to be played with in a manner that would prepare the children for adulthood. Dolls and miniature tea and dinner sets would prepare girls for their future role as mothers and homemakers, and let them mimic activities that they saw their own mothers doing. Whilst there were a variety of different games to be played with marbles, most of them had the main objective of obtaining all the marbles. The intricacies of marble trading, with some worth more than others, prepared children for the capitalist society they were entering (Vlahos 2014).

The education factor of childhood is more explicit in other artefacts, often those also associated with food, such as plates and cans intended for use by children. And of course we also find artefacts specifically associated with education itself, such as writing slate and slate pencils.

Cans and plates intended for use by children were often printed with educational designs (along with other fun patterns). These could be an alphabet printed as part of the pattern, encouraging the child to learn to read. Or they could have a morality theme. The can on the bottom right depicts two men gardening, with a sailboat shown in the background. The pattern refers back to one of Dr Benjamin Franklin’s maxims, specifically his maxim “industry needs not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting, there are no gains without pains, then help hands for I have no lands”. The illustration was taken from 24 scenes of town and country life illustrating Franklin’s “lessons for the young and the old, on industry, temperance, frugality &c” by Robert Drighton, published by Bowles and Carver, London in 1795 (Riley 1991: 270). These illustrations and maxims were probably familiar to children in the 19th century, and vessels decorated with them were intended to help with children’s moral education. Image: C. Watson.

And, of course, we find artefacts associated with education itself. The Victorian child’s schooling was slightly different to that of modern children- slate tablets rather than iPads! Also different was the inclusion of things beyond the three Rs, skills like needlework and woodwork were also taught to prepare children for adulthood. Image: C. Watson

How well the perception of childhood based on the archaeological record matches reality is something we can’t really tell from the archaeological record alone. If we view children simply as passive actors, then we can assume that if a girl was given a doll, then she played with it as if it was her own child, as was intended by the adult who gave it to her, and then she grew up to be a good mother. But if we view children as complex individuals and active agents, then the girl may have played with it as if it was her own child one day, but on another day sacrificed it in a witch’s spell make believe game, or given it to her brother to play with, or used it in any other type of play other than what was intended. Intended function versus actual function is a bugbear of archaeology – is the ceramic cup we found actually part of a tea set, or is it from the flour bin where it was used as a scoop? And, of course, while we’re talking about bugbears of archaeology, I can’t really assume that the toys we’ve found mean that there were children at the site (Mills 2010). They could represent mementos collected by adults to remind them of their own childhood. In the case of children, I think it’s safe to assume that whilst children may have played with toys as intended, they also likely used them imaginatively and played all sorts of games with them.

Unfortunately, I can’t go back and ask any of the children from my sites how they played with their toys. But what I can say is that play was likely an important part of childhood in 19th century Christchurch. A quick survey of the assemblages I’ve analysed over the past couple of years revealed that just over half of them contained artefacts relating to children, and that those which didn’t were generally small assemblages (2-20 artefacts) from sites that only had minimal excavation, indicating that artefacts relating to children are relatively common finds. Reading 19th century newspapers and manuals on the management of children (which didn’t make it into this blog after it somehow took a very theoretical turn) also frequently refer to play, and clearly indicate that it was an important part of childhood (Barrett 1883; Royal College of Physicians London 1889). And so my view that the 19th century was not a good time to be a child has changed. I have revised it to that the 19th century was an okay time to be a child, provided that you survived and weren’t employed as a chimney sweep.

I went into researching for this blog with the preconceived notion that I was going to be astounded by Victorian parenting advice. Instead, I found that most of what I read was relatively relatable. I thought this piece of advice on how to keep children occupied was a nice way to end the blog- I certainly remember whining to my mum as a child that I was bored and that there was nothing to do, but being all too happy to go off and play if I was made to bring the firewood in. Image: Daily Telegraph 04/04/1891: 2.   

Clara Watson

References

Barrett, H. 1883. The management of infancy and childhood, in health and disease. G. Routledge, London. Available: https://archive.org/details/b21931574

Riley, N. 1991. Gifts for Good Children: the history of children’s china, 1790-1890. Richard Dennis, Somerset.

Royal College of Physicians of London. 1889. Suggestions to mothers on the management of their children. Churchill, London. Available: https://archive.org/details/b2398434x

Mills, R. 2010. Miniatures in historical archaeology: Toys, trifles and trinkets re-examined. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Leicester, School of Archaeology and Ancient History. Available: http://www.firesofprometheus.org/dissertation_1.pdf

Vlahos, M. 2014. Developing an Archaeology of Childhood Experiences in Australia 1788-1901. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Queensland, School of Social Science. Available: https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:344451

All Sherds are Equal

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Modern archaeology, in New Zealand at least, is a democratic science. By this, I mean that as archaeologists we investigate and record ALL deposits, features, and artefacts we come across on sites. We don’t cherry pick our sites to only excavate those that represent the wealthy and elite of society (looking at you classical archaeologists *cough* Heinrich Schliemann *cough*). Instead, in Christchurch, we excavate sites where the working classes lived, along with those from the middle and upper classes.

This means we don’t privilege any people of the past, or at least not when we’re looking at artefacts (buildings are sometimes a different story). The archaeological deposits we find that relate to a butcher and his family who lived in a small four room cottage are equally as important as those we find that relate to an ex-mayor who lived in a large house. I personally think that this is important, as whilst we typically view our sites in an archaeological and academic context representing the history of New Zealand and Christchurch (and discuss them as such), they can also hold a personal connection for any descendants wanting to learn more about their ancestor’s lives (hot tip for anyone doing family research, archaeological reports are now available online from Heritage New Zealand if you know where an ancestor was living and want to see if any archaeology has been done at the site).

It also means we are able to do comparative research. How can we say (using the archaeological record) that a person was wealthy and that this is demonstrated in what they have thrown away, if we don’t have deposits from working-class sites to compare with? How can we know what items were typical for a period if we don’t have a representative sample from across society? From this viewpoint, everything is important. The rubbish pit containing unusual complete and near-complete vessels from a household clean-out event has as much information potential as the small pit with a few broken fragments of common items. Both can provide specific information on the occupants of the site and how they lived their lives, as well as being used to look more broadly at life in Christchurch through comparative studies.

This has been a very long introduction to basically say that today’s blog is show-casing some of the artefacts we’ve found over recent months. But unlike previous blogs, where we normally focus on complete or unusual objects, today I’m going to be sharing the small, broken fragments that we don’t normally talk that much about, because they’re just as important as the unusual artefacts.

Ooooh yeah, Asiatic Pheasants. We couldn’t do a blog talking about ceramic sherds and not include the Asiatic Pheasants pattern. We find this pattern on almost every archaeological site in Christchurch. It doesn’t matter who you were, what you did for a living, how much money you had, if you lived in Christchurch from the 1860s onwards then you probably owned Asiatic Pheasants patterned vessels. One of the best things about the pattern being so common is that it also doesn’t matter how small the fragment is, we can almost always identify the pattern. Image: C. Watson.

 

Fragments can also be frustrating though, in that you get a tiny glimpse into the pattern but it’s too small to work out what’s going on. Take this flow blue pattern for example. The figure in the centre of the sherd is clear. But is she facing another figure who’s much larger than her? Does that mean the central figure is a child and the larger figure is her mother? And why does the central figure not have legs? Is she a ghost? Has she come back to haunt the figure on the right? Have I been watching too many horror moves? So many questions, but unfortunately with such a small sherd we’ll probably never know what the pattern was. Image: C. Watson

 

Sometimes a fragment will have distinguishing elements (like a lot of the patterns pictured below), meaning that there’s something to start with when trying to identify the pattern. Others, like this one, I generally won’t even bother searching for. There were literally thousands of different patterns made by the Staffordshire potteries that had floral elements, meaning that unless you’re super familiar with a pattern (like Asiatic Pheasants), it’s near-impossible to identify a sherd that just has the edges of a flower on it. Image: C. Watson.

 

I think this sherd is made 100% better by the fact that the horse and rider are missing their heads *insert headless horseman pun here*. Image: C. Watson.

 

When it comes to random patterns on sherds then this is definitely the best. My favourite part is the smoking pipe the figure on the right is holding- that’s one long pipe stem. We weren’t able to identify the pattern, but I imagine that it’s probably based on an 18th or early 19th print that was adapted into a ceramic pattern by a Staffordshire pottery. Image: C. Watson.

 

Houses, but miniature, so they’re better. This is likely from the background of a romantic pattern. Image: C. Watson.

 

It’s very satisfying when you’re able to identify a pattern from only a small sherd. This plate is decorated with the Royal Exchange pattern and the central scene (which was missing) shows the third Royal Exchange building, opened in 1844 (Coysh and Henrywood 1982: 311). Image: C. Watson.

 

And what is perhaps even more satisfying than identifying the pattern from a small fragment, is identifying the manufacturer. All my time spent lurking in pottery groups on Facebook is paying off because when I saw these sherds my gut instinct was that this was Mason’s Ironstone with Imari pattern. A google search revealed a near-identical dinner set, with details like the small spines on the gilt spirals and slightly uneven painting of the flowers exactly the same as the fragments we found. The best part though was that the dinner set had the Mason’s Patent Ironstone China mark, making me pretty confident that my gut instinct was correct. Image: C. Watson.

 

And to end the blog, a scene from where we would all rather be: at home, lounging on the couch, patting a dog. Image: C. Watson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clara Watson

References

Coysh, A. W. and Henrywood, R. K., 1982. The Dictionary of Blue and White Printed Pottery 1780‐1880, Volume I. Antique Collectors’ Club, Suffolk.