Tides of Celadon: Glaze Developments in the Edgefield Pottery District, SC

Summary

Large alkaline glaze stoneware vessels from the Edgefield District of South Carolina have long been studied by ceramic historians and collectors. Manufactured by enslaved laborers in the antebellum period, these vessels were sold throughout the South. Historians and collectors have speculated that a lighter green glaze, called celadon, was manufactured earlier than a darker green-brown glaze. This assertion has not been tested systematically using available archaeological evidence. Excavations in 2011 and 2013 at Pottersville (38ED11) produced thousands of alkaline glaze stoneware sherds that illuminate this topic. I analyze percentages of different sherd colors by layer for the kiln floors and outbuildings at Pottersville to test these historians’ observations. The results show that dark green-brown glazed sherds are less common in older layers, while the frequency of celadon sherds remains relatively stable throughout stratigraphic layers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Poster Session 3

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 285