- Chapter Nineteen -
Related to burnishing yet significantly different is the execution of linear decora-
tion by a technique known meaninglessly as tooling. More properly, the decoration
is scored on the surface of the pot using a smooth, rounded instrument (Figures
19.4A and B; 19.5B). The resulting effect is that the clay is lightly compressed and
the decoration is therefore very slightly sunk into the surface of the vessel. This
differs dramatically from incised decoration, where the motifs are cut into the surface
(Figure 19.4C and D). The lack of ridges of dislodged clay and the uniformity of the
depth of the scoring suggest that this decoration was executed when the vessel had
reached the leather-hard state. This technique is particularly indicative of pottery in
the Glastonbury style and related southern decorated wares.
One of the most common methods of decorating prehistoric pottery generally is
impression. This technique takes a variety of forms and motifs and is simply formed
by impressing an object into the clay while the vessel is still wet or at any rate not
fully leather-hard. Although iron age ceramics do not benefit from the large variety
of impressed techniques and motifs used in the later Neolithic and earlier Bronze
Age, nevertheless a large variety of tools and points, some specifically made, are used
to create impressed decoration.
The simplest 'tool' whose use is demonstrated on iron age pottery is the potter's
own nail or fingertip (Figure 19.5A). This form of decoration is particularly common
on earlier iron age ceramics such as the large open jars from Staple Howe (Brewster
1963: figs 50-2), where the fingertip impressions are often used to highlight carina-
tions or rims. Although arguably one of the simplest forms of impressed technique,
fingernail impressions can also be quite subtle, such as on the cable cordons of earlier
iron age ceramics. Here, the fingernail is rotated to produce an S-shaped impression,
resulting in a cordon's having the appearance of having been twisted like a rope or
cable.
Natural artefacts such as sticks, reeds or quills (Figure 19.6C) all seem to have been
used to create a variety of different impressions in the clay, from random dots (Figure
19.5 B) to complex geometric patterns; however, other tools seem to have been
specifically made for pottery decoration. Broadly S-shaped stamps (Figure 19.6A)
were used to decorate ceramics, most notably from hill-forts in the lower Severn
valley, and were thought to be derived from continental 'duck-stamped' wares
(Hencken 1938), although there is little real evidence for this (Kenyon 1953: 33). As
well as S-shaped stamps, a variety of semicircular and wedge-shaped impressions,
possibly made with the fingernail or a blunt, rounded stick, are also found on
ceramics from this area (Figure 19.6B).
Stamps bearing concentric circles (Figure 19.6A) are used frequently on later
decorated wares and actual examples of the stamps have been recovered from the
waterlogged deposits at Glastonbury. The same cannot be said for 'rouletting
wheels', whose use is frequently invoked to explain lines of 'hyphenated' impressions
(Figure 19.6A) used to infill or delineate zones of decoration. These lines of short,
square, rounded or oblong impressions recall closely the combed decoration of early
bronze age ceramics where examples of the actual combs have been found (Gibson
and Woods 1990: fig. 19) and whose careful use can be used to create lines of varying
length (Ward 1902; Gibson and Woods 1990: figs 80-2). There seems no reason why
similar simple but effective tools could not have been used for iron age ceramics.