Highlights of the British Collection: East Oxford Archaeology

Object Biographies: The Collared Urn - A Story

by Gillian Mellor

Summer

It is so hard keeping the children out when I am working. I have to keep them entertained with pieces of old pot and damp clay. They like to make patterns of finger prints and nail marks as they have seen me do.  I make sure I notice what they are doing so I will know which ones will be the best to teach in future.  Some already have a feel for it and I help them make small pots.  At least it stops them unwrapping the damp clay! It is easier when some of the older children come to learn.  They help keep the smaller ones in order.

I have a small workshop where I keep suitable clay and also old pots to be broken up and ground for re-use.  Some of these have been prized but people want them incorporated in the new style.  Beakers are no longer as important as they were to our parents and my style of pots with their collars and decoration is popular so I make them for other people as well as my own family.  In return, neighbours will watch our beasts or weed our plot.  Today I have shaped some of the new style pots and left them to dry.  Tomorrow I will put them in the fire. I will add one or two of the children’s pots so they can see what happens - not ones that might explode!  Binni is making nets and has a supply of new lime bark cords so I have used those to decorate them. The children love that part and they are a real help grinding up the old pottery. I shall keep the pot I like best and exchange or give the others.

Autumn

In the house, the sun is bright through the door so that the fire looks faint.  I kneel by the fireside watching a pot of soup until my eldest daughter comes back with nuts and fruit and I set her to watch the fire and the pot.  My new pot is on the shelf and contains a gift of curds.  I put the fruit and nuts aside in other pots.  Later, I will roast some of the nuts and serve the curds with some of the fruit. With the soup, it will make a fine meal.  Just now, I clear the old bedding and put it to keep dry for the fire.  My sons are gathering fresh bedding.  This afternoon, the men will be back with the cattle for the winter – one of the younger ones came to tell us this morning.  Next year the boys will go with their father so the bedding will be another job for the girls.  I am lucky I have such strong, fine children.  One is a little lame but it makes him more determined to keep up.  Only one child of ours had to be given to the river.  That was a bad time.

When the men are back, the preparations will start for the feast. The proper Rituals will be undertaken.  There will be processions, fires, lights, gifts to the Ancestors and the Powers of Stone, Earth, Wood, Water, the Powers of the Sun and the Moon.  Then we will settle into winter and wait for Sunreturn.

Speaking of the Dead

She was a good woman, a strong woman and had a long life.  Her eldest granddaughter will soon be choosing a mate.  From her long partnership with Ubni, who valued her above all others, she reared fine children. They were taught her skills and now they teach others.  Many others among us now were also taught by her and we remember her as a good and patient teacher.
It is also as a fine potter we remember her.  Many of us have her work in our houses.  We will remember her when we use them.
We have collected up her bones and will place them in a pot of her own making to be put into Earth.  Now she is one with the Ancestors.  We ask the Powers to care for them.
Let the Rite begin.

Collured Urn

Collared Urn (AN1934.59)

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July 2014