Viking Pottery Pit Firing
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 июн 2018
- Experimental archeology pit firing of Viking Age style pottery, using terra sigillata slip finishing.
5' pit was 12-18" deep (deeper next time), lined with clay, charcoal, sawdust and dung. Hardwood for firewood.
It burned for around 6 hours before covering, and it should have been longer. Covered with dung and dirt. Uncovered 20 hrs. later. We should have just removed the dirt layer and let it sit another 12 hours to be totally cold.
Pots came out silver, black and gray.
Total blast, in more ways than one. Let's do this again! 
Хобби
Really informative , great tips and info. I’m making Viking/ Norse beakers and jugs for a wedding soon and will be pitching firing ! Tim in Cornwall 😀
That's some really pretty stuff! Thanks for the video!
Very cool! If you can find a lid ,only to cover the hole 2/3 , and a vent hole to the bottom of the fire opposite the open side, you can put all the pieces tucked towards the the sides under the lid, and build a more massive burning pile in the center, filling the hole space , your lid will lock in heat during the firing,the breather hole like a dug tunnel to the back,closed side of the hole will allow the air in and creat a vacuum, and the hole on the other side out the top of the pit will be more like a torch, you could even stuff more wood or coal into it to allow a longer and even greater temperature reached , the you have smaller holes to close for the reduction and way less diging!!! A large metal sheet will work as a lid, or even branches across the top tightly fitting and stacked,not covering one end of the hole to the pit ,will also work to lock in heat, but you'll need to at branches to keep it closed up through the firing, but still will be waaaaaay hotter! Thanks for the slip info, I'm just a fire tech learning to do pottery. Y'all did very pretty work!!! Great video too! You tube Dakota pit fire for a visual of what I was saying. Or natural rocket oven...same principal. Greater temps,all natural.
I'll pass that on to him. Hopefully we'll do another one in the spring, he's been using his electric kiln lately.
Super interesting process--you got some really exquisite pots! Nice work!
The video is amazing!
Your super talented at throwing. Your bowls are so clean....
Great job. 👍👍👍👌👌👌
Nicely done. Combine this with a solid write-up that records your project and you'll have something truly special!
Poke Thorsol, that's his department. I just hosted & handled the picture/video aspects.
Friday why do you say that?
I have to get a losd together so I can do this in the fall! Thank you for the video.
load
I would love to do this in The kingdom of Atlantia!
Do it!
We made a few mistakes, but overall it was a great learning experience all around. If you have good clay soil that worked very well for holding the heat. Our main mistake was not having a stacking diagram and oxygen, but also pulling the pots too soon, they really needed another 4 or 5 hours to cool.
You would have a much higher success rate if you pre heated the pots around the fire for 2-1/2 hours. Slowly heating them and rotating them 1/4 turn every 15 minutes. Gradually inching them closer to the flames. When they are ready for full Emerson in the flames, the color of the pottery will change. Then, you will know it is ready. At that point, allow the fire to burn to coals. Take the coals back from the center. Then, lay a bed of sticks on the hot ground parallel and touching, making a platform to place the preheated pots on. This must be done quickly before the sticks can catch fire prematurely. Stack the pots mouth down on the sticks. Then, lay sticks tee pee fashion all around the stack of pots. Put enough sticks around to conceal the pots inside. Let it burn down and build the tee pee again. Let it burn down and THEN cover the pots with organic matter, (sawdust, dry leaves, dung). Then, dirt to smother. Next day, you will have beautiful black pots!
Note: By burying the pots in sawdust at the beginning cold stage, you insulated the pots from the heat you needed to do the job! Then, prematurely throwing on the dirt, you smothered the fire before it could burn down to the bottom. If you had left the sawdust to burn down to the bottom, it would have worked. But, sawdust firings do not burn near as hot as wood firings where oxygen can get to the process, thus hotter fire. Use the sawdust at the end to furnish the carbon for a beautiful reduction fire.
Respectfully, a Cherokee potter.
Very awesome! Now if you didnt have a very interesting collection of 30yr old cow dung..I'm guessing just regular manure dried out would be acceptable? This was very fascinating. I'm not a potter but I love the art. Thanks for doing this - THLady Eeva the Restless of Ealdormere.
As long as it is dry, it will work just the same. Any animal dung will work; horse, pig, goat, sheep, cow, etc. though I'm not sure about carnivore waste. You are after the broken-down grass & hay.
We just thought it was funny how old it was. That was one of the only barns we never cleaned out after the animals went to new homes.
Vince Pitelka in appalatians has a recipe for the terra sidgellata levitation. You needed a bit more heat to burn all your sawdust. Don't remove pots until they are completely cool! Even warm your pots before loading.to reduce breakage.
well done
Crush your cow dung up ,use smaller pit ,heat your pottery over coals and slowly add fuel ,the metal helps heat the pottery and as it burns cover you fire with doing then sawdust let it burn and smoulder, you'll get some amazing color, great video and experiment
Hi from Japan. Thank you for your generosity in sharing this with us. (Are you by any chance in upstate NY... Alfred, perhaps? Rochester? Trying to pin down the accent... ; ) Anyway, your firing technique can be seen in all ancient civilizations where they did pottery, and I am so glad to see it being practiced and you (we) are so excited about it! (That piece that reached "stoneware" (at 22:53 or so) seems similar to our bizen-ware.) Thanks again.
Alfred yes, and Finger Lakes region (so yes, Rochester NY). We really appreciate our R's here.
@@auroraasleep Ha! I just KNEW the Vikings made it to Western NY!
Wondering if you know Rochester ceramicist Stephen Merritt...
@@mikeu5380 Know, no. Know of, yes. IDK if Keith knows him, I can ask.
I knew the painters in Rochester, not the potters, but I've lived far enough away for long enough that I'm totally out of touch with all but a few of them. Sometimes I miss the art scene, but it was very peopley and rather expensive. I'm happy with the experimental archeology and doodle art and small farm... no artist statements ROFL!
Great experiment! What do you mean by Viking style pottery and terra sigillata? Scandinavians didn't use the potter's wheel during the Viking period. For archaeologists terra sigillata is more a type of Roman pottery then a kind of clay slip that you show. Also the Romans lived in the south, the vikings in the north but not at the same period... Romans were using potter's wheels and elaborate kilns, while the Vikings were hand-building and pit-firing their pottery, right?
My understanding of the project was limited to hosting and camera work, and it has been a few years... but I think he based some of the cups/bowls on Roman finds, and some on Scandinavian finds. The clay slip finish was late Roman, and the pit was also supposedly based on a Roman design, but TBH I'm hazy on the details and there should have been some internal ventilation structures that he did not do.
Bea's interest was in pottery shards and ceramic failure in relation to a pit fire site she had helped excavate. She needed to see certain firing and breakage patterns.
I was surprised that you used all hardwood and fired without much fuel under the pots. Gotta try it.
There was a layer of dung and sawdust underneath, probably about 6-8" deep. Some of it did not burn, but most did.
We noted down some modifications for the next round, and one of them was a wick system to make sure everything burned properly. Thorsol has the documentation on it, I cannot remember if that was Roman or other.
@@auroraasleep Thank you for answering, I noticed the layer you had put underneath, but thought it too compact for air flow. I also thought that since Scandinavia has so many conifers that they wouldn't use all hardwood, which though burns hotter and slower is harder to cut and takes longer to catch on.
I saw the Alfred sweatshirt, are you folks out of their ceramics program, or just the woman who was wearing it?
@@thomascorey2676 I just provided the land, wood, cow dung & sawdust, and filmed it. Thorsol & Bea went to Alfred, he took ceramics and made all the cups & bowls. She studied medieval history & archeology, and writes for a few history journals. This was his project, though she gained some insight into pot shards. You can ping him on Face Book under Thorsol Solinauga.
Yes, there was definitely an issue of airflow.
Flynn lyngaard
Danish potter
Published several books on pitfiring
Raju and kilnbuilding
nice work. please try it again. sift the rocks out of soil think it would help
Thank you for the tip! I'll pass it on.
We're trying to schedule another sometime this fall.
@@auroraasleep will any of your work be for sell
@@Jeremy-km4dj all I can take credit for is filming and video editing. This is Thorsol Solinaga's work, you can find him on FB. He sells at certain historic events, but I'm not sure if he has anything in stock, he started a new job recently.
awesome firing I want to know why the man isn't digging up some of those pots, why the lady is doing it all. :-|
Because Bea stuck her hand up in the air to do it. We all took turns digging, just didn't make it on film.
Don't be sexist
Linda Douglas pulling the pots out of the pit is easy light work. Digging the pit would have been work.
I know a lot of women who love to get dirty.
I haven't seen that many peopke with white belts shoveling the s*** since the last moot.
BAWHAHAHAHA!
Isn't it always nice when a knight cleans the barn for you though?
You guys remind me of some amtgarders ive met
Hedda high tar
Burns hot
Lots of hedda in denmark at tha time
Of vikings
That will give intense black
So straw and hay
Cool enough to handle with gloves
Melt beeswax with cloth on the pot
The higher temp
Pot would make the pot less tolerant to heat as cooking in the pot
Think of jydepotte
Jutlandspots
Low fired get defeated by cast iron
Stove and cast iron pot
A farmer on the moore
Would look for a wife who could make the pots to add to little
Yield from the poor
Soil