Two porringers (handled bowls) we excavated two years ago from a tenant farm site in Delaware, circa 1740 to 1760. The one on the left is coarse red earthenware, possibly American, the on the right Staffordshire slipware from England. I was just reviewing the figures for our final report and I was struck by this image. Porringers were a very traditional part of northern European culture, used for eating porridge or soup while sitting in front of the fire rather than at a table. When eating meals at a table became the norm in the Victorian age, these were largely phased out. Now my children use large coffee cups the same way, although around the television instead of the fire.
Always nice to see some colonial era artifacts. Seems like most of the archeology I read about online deals with relics from the Renaissance or earlier, and typically from more developed regions rather than from frontiers.
ReplyDeleteGranted, most frontier artifacts were made from cheap and non-durable materials and hence most of them no longer exist, so it's only natural we hear about them being found less often, but still...