#sherds

(via "Wandering Archaeologists" Magnet for Sale by Trowel-Tales)

Egyptologists have recovered more than 18,000 inscribed sherds in ancient Athribis—the remains of vessels and jars that served as writing material some 2,000 years ago. The sherds, known as ostraca, document lists of names, purchases of food and everyday objects, and even writing from a school, including lines written by pupils as a punishment. It is very rare to find such a large volume of ostraca. They were recovered during excavations led by Professor Christian Leitz of the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tübingen in cooperation with Mohamed Abdelbadia and his team from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Sherds of willow-pattern from the banks of the Thames

The willow-pattern has a story behind it.

Once there was a wealthy Mandarin who had a beautiful daughter, more beautiful than a flower. She fell in love with her father’s humble assistant notary, but was already promised to a nobleman. Her father built a high fence around his house to keep the lovers apart, and arranged her wedding to take place on the day the blossom fell from the willow trees. Her grand fiancé arrived by boat in good time to claim his bride, bearing a box of jewels as a gift. But on the eve of the wedding, the heartbroken notary disguised himself as a servant, slipping into the palace unnoticed. As the lovers escaped with the box of jewels, an alarm was raised. Running over a bridge, they were chased by the bride’s enraged father, whip in hand, and a little army of men in boats. The gods, moved by the couple’s plight, transformed them into a pair of doves locked in a perpetual kiss.

In the early 20th century the ruined medieval city of Raqqa in Syria, was excavated by Circassian refugees looking for bricks. They discovered a large number of fragments, called sherds, as well as many nearly complete vessels. These were sold to dealers who then restored them, “improving” them for sale on the international market. The goal was making the pieces look as complete as possible.

This lobed cup, for instance, has been untreated since it entered the Museum’s collection in 1908 and appears to be in relatively good condition, for an archaeological ceramic. When viewed in ultraviolet light the extent of its restoration becomes strikingly apparent.

The many sherds of the object have been glued together and any gaps spackled over with plaster. Large areas were covered in paint, now yellowed, in order to disguise damage to the glaze. Flakes of glass, possibly harvested from other archaeological finds, were liberally sprinkled over the restored areas to make them match the degraded glaze on the original. The handle is a compete invention on the part of the restorer. When x-rayed from the side it’s easy to see the braided wire that was used as an armature for the plaster handle. This doubled wire is very distinctive and appears in a number of works in the museum’s Raqqa ceramic collection.

For more information on these ceramics, see our earlier post about the wasters discovered in Raqqa.