11th February 2013, 12:52 PM
Potgeek Wrote:The trimming of bases is reasonably common in both later prehistory and the Roman period – people using bases as stands, platters, coaster etc. – sometime making spindle whorls out of them. It's had to say for certain, but the finger impressions on the one on the far right - no. 4 - look kind of like the moulding marks you see on some pots, i.e. when the potter was pushing the clay down after attaching the lower wall to the base on the interior. In other words, it might not be decoration, unlike on the exterior of no. 2.I think maybe the pics aren't clear enough. The dimples extend across what appear to be the internal surfaces of both in a relatively even distribution on each and they're all oriented in the same direction. If they were forming marks I'd expect them to be less organised and pointing in different directions, maybe concentrating near the walls? It's a shame there are none of the original edges remaining so we could confirm whether/how the marks related to the wall attachments.
As we're seeing them, both sets of finger marks appear to have been inside their "parent" vessel (if they came from vessels), so would only have been decorative if the vessels were open forms. Which is something I'd not considered. Interesting.