That old ceramic bowl I use for mixing batter turned out to be a 200-year-old artifact from a dig site near my town

I was baking cookies last Sunday and noticed the stamp on the bottom matched the ones from a local archaeology report I read, so I took it to the university and they confirmed it was from an 1800s potter's workshop, has anyone else found something super old just sitting in their kitchen?

3 comments

3 Comments

jake6387d ago

I gotta push back on this a little bit. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's some priceless artifact. You found a mixing bowl with a stamp that matches a local dig, that's cool and all, but the university probably just confirmed it was from that potter's workshop, not that it was actually dug up from the site. Lots of old pottery from the 1800s is still floating around at antique stores and in people's houses. My grandmother had a whole set of crocks from the same era that she used for pickling, nobody thought they were anything special. Unless that bowl has some documented history linking it directly to the dig site, it's probably just an old piece of kitchenware that happened to be made in the same town. Still neat to have, but I wouldn't call it an artifact.

carter.gavin7d ago

wait @jake638 hold on, your grandmother had a whole SET of those crocks and nobody thought they were special? lmao that's wild. i mean come on, a full set of matching 1800s pottery that's been just sitting around being used for pickling? that's actually insane to think about from a historical perspective. like yeah maybe not every piece is a museum artifact but still, having something that old still in daily use is kind of amazing in itself. i can't even keep a set of matching tupperware for more than a year without losing a lid lol

jade_johnson6d ago

Oh man, you're really making me think about this differently... I was kind of on jake's side at first but you bring up a good point about the full set thing. Like, imagine finding out your grandmother's pickling crocks were actually from the exact same potter that supplied half the town back in the day. That's not just some random old bowl, that's a piece of living history that's been used every year for a hundred years. I mean yeah, it's not a museum piece with a little plaque, but it's still way more than just "old kitchenware" if it's got that connection to the local potter's workshop. It's like finding out your family's old rocking chair was made by the same guy who built the chairs for the town mayor's house in 1850... that adds a whole layer of meaning to it.