A Sharpe Kiln

As I have written in the past, I've been corresponding with archaeologists and researchers in England to get ideas about what Thomas and Sarah Davenport might have known about pottery making, kiln building, clay processing, and other related skills.  I need to know as much as I can about this in order to judge the local adaptations that the Davenport's created to Southern Utah's new landscape.

Most recently, I was tracking down excavations of pottery kilns in the Derbyshire region.  I found the website of the Sharpe's Pottery Museum that included a mention that the kiln had been archaeologically excavated in the 1990s.  Philip Heath answered my email inquiry.  Mr. Heath is the Heritage Officer for the South Derbyshire District Council.  He has put me in touch with the archaeologists involved and also sent me a digital image of one of the interpretive panels at the site.  He said that I could post the image on the blog, and more information about the Sharpe's Pottery Museum is on their website at:

http://www.sharpes.org.uk/

Thomas Sharpe established his pottery in 1821.  The Sharpe's Pottery operated as a company, making Mocha ware and Rockingham-style ceramics. These pottery types are also known as yellow ware because the stoneware body has a strong to pale yellow colored paste.  These ceramics were often decorated with annular banding and the dendritic patterns for which Mocha ware is famous.

The kiln photo above shows one possible configuration with which Thomas may have been familiar.  The picture above shows the archaeological excavation inside the standing hovel-- the bottle-shaped chimney that surrounds a kiln in most English traditions.  In this case, all the bricks were removed, leaving only the stained soil to mark the structure itself.  While a later foundation wall cuts right across the kiln foundation, you can still clearly make out the circular footprint of the kiln and most of the fireboxes that surround it.  In the English tradition, the kiln is round and the fireboxes are generally below the floor surface and evenly spaced around the outside edge.

Academic industrial archaeologists used to talk about "ethnic" or "national" technological styles, which was a way of explaining why the English immigrants to Utah built round, up-drafting kilns, while the Danish immigrants built rectangular, cross-drafting kilns.  I look forward to talking with the students about this and making more posts about this in the future.

Life in Camp

I thought I would post some more pictures of the future field camp, along with notes about what to expect while living there in your six weeks as a project member.

The picnic area used to be the Vermillion Castle Campground, but the USFS converted it to a non-camping picnic area and the City of Parowan manages the site.  All the groups involved issued us a special use permit so we could camp at the site.  We will be the only overnight residents at Five Mile, but picnic-ers and hikers will pass through there during the day.

Bowery Stream and Vermillion Castle:

Tables and fire rings in the group camping area.  Probably our archaeology lab!  You will need to bring your basic camping gear, and we'll have potable water brought to the camp (potable means you can drink it, unlike the fresh and clean, but untreated stream water).  

Each student/volunteer is responsible for their own food during the project. We'll have some basic cooking gear.  There is a supermarket in Parowan, a few minutes from the camp, and we'll make visits periodically after the work day before we head up the canyon.  Students often organize into a group to cook meals and clean up each day.  It is more efficient when everyone shares the work. 

Because the picnic area used to be a campground, there are toilets on the site.  That means no port-a-johns!  There are facilities for men and women.  You will need to use solar showers, but since Utah's sun heats them up nicely, we'll have plenty of hot water.

The picnic area has other basic facilities, including this shelter.   Like all camping situations, we'll have to keep an eye on the weather and Bowery Creek.

We will be staying between two mountain ridges that vary from 800 to 1,000 feet above us on either side.  That means that while it will be light early when we wake up, the sun won't break over the mountain ridges until later in the day.  The canyon faces west however, so we'll have plenty of sun in the afternoon when we return from fieldwork.  The valley and creek are full of the plants and animals that make these mountains famous as part of "Utah's Color Country"! The winter water will result in beautiful spring for us.

The drawback of being in a deep canyon surrounded by beauty is that there will be no cell phone service at camp.  To use your cell phone, you'll need to either go down to town (about 5 miles on paved roads) or hike up to the top of Vermillion Castle or Noah's Ark (although I didn't test this yet because of the snow).  The latter hike is only a mile, but it is up about 1,000 feet. This picture is from the trailhead in camp, looking up 1,000 feet to Noah's Ark:

I plan on climbing up the trails for sunrise and sunset (at least one time for each) during the six weeks of field school! Probably not on the same day, however, since that would be a lot of climbing for a work day....

Camping Details are Official!

It is official!  The 2009 field camp will be in the beautiful mountains above Parowan and it will be free to students and project participants.

We will camp at the Five Mile Picnic Area up First Left Hand Canyon in the Dixie National Forest.  The camp is offered at no charge to students and project participants. Several people worked in support of the research effort to make his happen, including Todd Prince at the Iron Mission State Park; Joe Melling and the City Manager's staff the City of Parowan; and Steve Robinson, Marian Jacklin, and Gretchen Merrill from the Cedar City Ranger District of Dixie National Forest.  

I thought that the enrolled students would like to see some pictures, so I hiked up to the picnic area this weekend.  Here are some of the pictures of my hike up First Left Hand Canyon on the way to the site:

 

  

Next are some stitched panoramas of scenes from the campground.  The camp will be at the trailhead for two hikes, one up to Vermillion Castle (left in photo) and the other to Noah's Ark formation (right in photo):

This is a view from the campground itself:

I'll post some more images from around the campground in my next post.