I was dead wrong about those 'pottery washing stations' at digs

For years I thought setting up a dedicated washing station at a dig site was a waste of time and water. Figured you could just toss the sherds in a bucket back at the lab and call it done. Then last summer at a site in New Mexico, our crew found a bunch of really fragile painted bowl fragments. The dirt was caked on hard and I started rinsing them roughly with a hose. One of the field techs pulled me aside and showed me how a simple setup with soft brushes and a flat screen lets water run through without scrubbing the paint off. After three days of doing it their way, I saved about 15 pieces that would have been totally ruined by my old method. Has anyone else had a 'aha' moment about some basic field technique they thought was unnecessary?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant1557d ago

...and my buddy runs a crew up in Montana and he told me the same thing happened to him with some old clay pipes. He was all about speed washing until one of his volunteers showed him the soft brush and screen trick. Saved a bunch of pieces that had pigment you could barely see until the mud came off slow. He still bitches about all the stuff he wrecked before he learned that one.

mark_green7d ago

Oh man, that's a bummer to hear but I gotta say I think the clay pipes might actually be a different thing! The old clay tobacco pipes from the 1700s and 1800s are usually pretty tough and the glazed ones can handle a more aggressive wash without losing much. But the soft brush trick is definitely the way to go for anything with leftover pigment or paint on it. I've seen guys hose off old pottery shards with a powerwasher and just destroy the whole design in seconds because they didn't realize the paint was only held on by dirt. Your buddy isn't wrong about the regret though, once you mess something up you can't undo it and that feeling sticks with you.