Potters Leaving their Mark: Thumb Marks

Recently, mudlarking on the Thames, I purposely sought out pottery where hands have left their mark. Poignant reminders of their makers. Impressions left by the maker’s thumbs, whether part of shaping the object, fixing a handle to the main body or in decoration have to be the most moving of all. 

Fragment of Medieval? Pot Found Mudlarking on Thames Foreshore

When following the potter’s decorative thumb mark on the piece above yesterday, I noticed clear finger prints captured in the clay, at the top of the indentations.

Close up of thumb marks on Medieval? Pot, showing finger prints. 

Perhaps a bit of a rushed job, the shapes are not quite as uniform as they are on the second  and third sherds below.  All I suspect  are  from the rims of storage jars, all have traces of glaze.   The curves on two are very shallow, they must have been enormous. My uneducated guess is the first is hand formed red ware made between 1250-1450. The second  and third are both wheel made, the second perhaps redware from 1600-1700,  quite possibly made in London as the redware industry was firmly established in London from end of 15th Century. The third could be Surrey whiteware made between 1240-1500.  

Sections of Pot Redware and White Ware Pot Rims found Mudlarking on the Thames 

Just now I noticed what could be 500+ year old finger prints on the reverse of the whiteware. The potter must have held the inside of the wet pot whilst they created the indentations on the outside, magic. Double click on the photo for a better view. 

Close up of border whiteware sherd, showing  potter's finger prints. 

The last example is a tree trunk of a handle base, decoratively attached to the body of a cooking pot with confident thumb presses.  Are the blackened areas the remains of the fires that cooked countless meals?

The base of a redware cooking pot handle found on the Thames Foreshore

I prefer not to dwell on the hours I’ve spent googling trying to identify these finds, with only partial success. Clearly something best  left to the experts and my up and coming visit to the Museum of London’s Finds Officer. Meanwhile,  I’ll  continue with this series of posts, it’ll be interesting to see if I get any of this right. 

Pipkin

Sounds like it should be a character from a children’s book and on googling found out it’s the name of  a kids TV programme.  I had never heard of a pipkin until I was browsing through the Museum of London’s online catalogue and matched a find. A pipkin is an earthen ware cooking pot with three legs and at least one handle. Glaze is usually only found in the interior and can be clear (showing yellow) or less commonly green. Late 1500s and 1600s. Likley to have been  produced from potteries in Surrey/Hampshire, hence this type of pottery is called border ware. These manufacturers supplied most houses in London with pottery goods for 150 years.

Mudlarking on the Thames foreshore, I’ve found what I assume to be a couple of pipkin handles. I can’t avoid the inevitable comparison, which the kids and  teens immediately supplied when I asked them what they looked like, ‘small penis’, or the more colloquial equivalent.

Pipkin handles found Mudlarking on Thames foreshore

Pipkin 1636- 1700, Height 14cm from Museum of London 

Each is hollow, so a stick could be inserted to lift the pot. The handles are short, one is 5 the other 6cm long. One has green glaze on the base, from the inside of the pipkin,  the other tiny remains on the outside. Movingly, you can still see the marks of the potter’s thumbs as they smoothed the handle onto the main body. 

Hollow pipkin handles 

Pipkin base showing green glaze

Is this from a 400 year old money box?

To my surprise my web trawling suggests the small green glazed knob I found on the Thames foreshore topped a ceramic money box. The 'inside' shot shows  the potter's rather pleasing twist, used to create the lid.  

Money box lid found Mudlarking on the Thames, London 

Probably made from Surrey/Hampshire border ware. They were made between 1550- 1650, covering the life time of Shakespeare. Apparently, often found at theatres where they are thought to have functioned as box offices - could it have come from the original Globe Theatre, across the river from where I found this? 

Money Box from Museum of London 

A couple of weeks after posting this, I've just seen one of these money boxes in the Globe Theatre's exhibition,  it is so much smaller than I thought from this photograph, even though the Museum of London's photo above has the dimension. You could easily fit it into your hand.