I'm Awake!

It started as a gentle shake...
           Then I was AWAKE...

Excuse my manners, it's been a while since I've been awake! I've been underground for so so long. My name is Herb and I am a potsherd. Do you know what a potsherd is? Here take a look:

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I use to be whole, I'm sure of it, but over time got worn out and broke apart, and thrown out.

It's been a while since I've seen the sun. Why? Well, I might be a little older than you imagined...

I was found in this place called Ancient Egypt. Ever heard of it before?

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I'm sure you're thinking King Tut and mummies... and you're right! But there so much more to Ancient Egypt than that!

It's actually me, and other pottery and things used by the common people of Egypt, that are the most plentiful!

I'm here to tell you my story, from beginning to end. I am also going to tell you about how these funny people, called archaeologists, figure out my story.

Maybe not the most glamorous... I'm sad to say there is no gold in my story... but...

I promise you will learn a lot!

Find me!

At first, archaeologists didn't know where to find me. Egypt is a big place! They weren't even looking for me.

Actually, a farmer found the first clues that I might be hidden under the ground. When he was clearing a new plot of land, he uncovered some layers above me, and saw pottery. He didn't know how old it was, but just to be safe, he called archaeologists. NEVER DIG ON YOUR OWN! You need to leave this part to the professionals or little hints of history like me can be lost.

Archaeologists focus on sites. A site is simply an area where artifacts (like me) are found. Artifacts can be anything really! They just need to have been used, made, or even touched by humans, and then they can hold a lot of meaning for archaeologists... but that's for later!

When the archaeologists got to my site, the first thing they did was a ground survey. It's really simple actually, and just looks like this:

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Archaeologists and other people on the site just walk in as straight of lines as they can, and note what they see on the ground. They try to cover as much land as they can, so that they can see where the best place to dig will be and to see what the surrounding landscape may hold.

From the ground survey, they didn't find anything. The only place where they saw pottery was in the area above me, because the farmer had accidentally dug it up. They knew it was possible that there could be pottery everywhere buried, but since my area was already partially dug up, they decided to focus here first. Lucky me!

The next step for them was to try to see what was under the ground without digging. For this, they use... big word alert... magnetometry! It's not scary I promise! It uses a device like this:

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The device reads the earth's own magnetic field (because the earth is magnetic!) and looks for disruptions in the magnetic field. By walking in straight lines over an area, and putting all of the readings together using a computer, archaeologists create maps that look like this:

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This map shows archaeologists that there are things under the ground, but doesn't tell them what the things are, how deep they are, or what they are made out of. Things made out of metal make big disturbances, because metals are magnetic.

But, believe it or not, I can create disturbances too! Although I'm not as magnetic as metal, there is a little iron in my clay that when fired becomes a very weak magnet, which causes a disturbance that can be picked up by the magnetometer.

So, that's how the archaeologists decided to dig above me and call the area around me and above me a site! They saw disturbances in the map and wanted to check it out. Archaeologists don't always chose to dig a site because sometimes there may not be enough time, money, or need to dig. But, when they do dig, they like to make sure they have enough time, money, need, and of course a super awesome and special site. And my site is all of those, so they chose to dig!

I'm so cool, right??? Let the real fun begin!

The Great Uncovering

It started as a gentle shake...
               Then I was AWAKE...


Who shook me awake? An archaeologist of course!

Archaeologists' jobs are to uncover the past, and the past is me!

I felt them coming for me, but it took a while because they can't just dig super deep at once and see what happens!

Sand is everywhere in Egypt, because Egypt is mostly desert.

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However, the Nile, the longest river in Egypt, also brings a very rich mud called silt to the land.

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Over time, the wind, as well as people on the land, covered me with sand, silt, other garbage, rocks, and more. It happened very slowly, but over the thousands of years, all of these layers really began to add up. Not all the layers are the same, because over time the place I was buried was used for different things. Because the layers aren't made up of the same things, archaeologists can tell between different layers, and know different layers represent different times in the past.

These layers create stratigraphy. Big word. I know. But, all it means is the layers that have formed above me over time. Take a look!

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The different layers are really easy to see, right?

But, before they can get to me way on the bottom, they have to go through everything that's on top of me. I mean EVERYTHING. And unluckily for archaeologists, that pretty and clean stratigraphy up there isn't usually what they get. They get something more like this:

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Why do they follow the layers? Why can't they just dig wherever they want to? Well, stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which says that when looking at layers of earth, a layer on top is older than the layers underneath. Makes sense right? Because in order for something to cover me, it had to be placed after I was there already!

Most of the time, humans, animals, and the weather can change the perfect layers, and cause some layers to go into others, as well as take away parts of layers. Those layers are called disturbed layers. This makes an archaeologist's job very hard, but nothing they can't handle! They just make sure they write down carefully what other artifacts are found around, which is called association, and if the layer was disturbed.

So, it took the archaeologists a long time to finally get to me. They had to go through every layer before me, collect any artifacts they found, and write down information about them. These things include color, decoration, shape, and what it is made out of!

But... finally... the archaeologists got to me! Go me, my layer wasn't disturbed! I wish it didn't take them so long... but hey I had already been buried for thousands of years, so would a couple more really matter?

What Am I?

Now that archaeologists uncovered me... what next?

A good place to start would be with what I even am. As you know, I'm Herb the potsherd, but what does that really mean?

Pottery is made out of clay. Clay is made out of very small pieces of rock, usually mixed with other larger pieces of rock and pieces of things like shells, sand, and minerals. In nature, clay can look like this:

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I'm not crazy, I promise! I'm sure you're wondering how I came from this... wonder no more!

Once a potter, or anyone with hands and a fire, got the clay, they still had to add more. Clay can be shaped when it is wet, but it also is very sticky because it loves to suck up water. So, to make it less sticky, straw, ash, sand, or even poop is added! These don't suck up water, so they make the clay the perfect mix of wet but shapeable!

Now, shaping.

Pots can be made by hand, but not me! I was made on a potter's wheel, just a spinning table top! The potter used one hand to spin the table, and one hand to shape the pot. This process is represented by this Egyptian figurine:

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As potters made more pottery and communicated more, the pottery and the pottery making process became more similar. However, different areas had different styles also.

Pottery making is represented in Egyptian art, such as here:

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On the table, the potter would spin the table as the clay was shaped and pulled. Using a pottery wheel leaves special marks, the biggest being a spiral of ridges that handmade pots do not have. They can be very regular, which would have only been possible on a wheel. These type of ridges can be seen here:

THIS ONE NEEDS A CITATION

Can you see the ridges? They perfectly beautiful that they couldn't have been done without a wheel! And a master potter of course!

With the basic shape done, handmade handles and other decoration were added!

Ready to be fired???

Uh no!!!!

When pottery is wet, there is a lot of air in it. And when pottery is fired with air in it... it EXPLODES.

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What a waste of time!

To make sure a perfect pot doesn't explode, it needs to air dry before it can be fired, so there are no air bubbles in the clay. It also needs to dry slowly, because if clay dries too fast, it can crack. Longer process than you thought?

But, alas! It's finally time to be fired!

I bet you're wondering why I'm being fired, when I already said that I am dry?

Well, drying takes out most of the water from me, but there is still water tightly bonded within my particles that air just can't get to. So, firing takes out all of the remaining water that is too tightly packed in my particles. This makes me super hard.

I was fired at a perfect temperature for just the right amount of time, which allowed me to come out this uniform, perfect color.

If I was fired for too long at too high of a temperature, I would have slumped over. However, I needed to be fired long enough for my particles to get nice and close together so that they could be super strong. If I had a very dark core, that would have meant I wasn't fired long enough at a high enough temperature.

Because I turned out this perfect color, I know that I was fired perfectly. What a skilled potter I had!

Making Me Whole

You all know who I am, Herb the pot herd, but what if I wasn't just a sherd anymore?

Archaeologists actually have the ability to try to make me whole again!

I wasn't found by myself, I was found with lots of other pieces. Some of them belonged to my pot, but others didn't. Archaeologists had to take all of us, and figure out who belonged to who and how we all fit together. So, they have a way to take messes like this:

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And turn them into pots that look like this:

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They do this mostly by looking for pieces that are called diagnostics. These pieces of things like rims and handles can give archaeologists an idea of what the pot as a whole probably looked like without needing all the pieces!

Sometimes, putting most of the pot back together again is possible. But sometimes they can't because they don't have enough pieces or a place to store it or they think it would stay in better condition as separate pieces. So, they create drawings of what the pot should look like!

Although I am not a diagnostic piece, the archaeologists found lots of pieces around me, and were able to make a drawing of what I looked like! Here I am!

A Manual of Egyptian Pottery, Wodzińska

Once archaeologists were able to draw me, they could fit me into the history of pots themselves. They say I'm from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, cool right? Here are some other Middle Kingdom pots that were found around me:

A Manual of Egyptian Pottery, Wodzińska

A Manual of Egyptian Pottery, Wodzińska

Can you see the similarities?

Some pots are similar, and some are very different. Some pots are made relatively the same over and over through time, but others undergo changes. These changes are what archaeologists use to determine how old a pot is that they find!

Pots have a style, meaning they have a specific shape, color, decoration, and design. Many pots with similar style are considered a pot type, called typology. Style can change over time, but very slowly. So, what archaeologists look to do is map out those changes and create a timeline of pottery. Then, when they find a new pot and figure out what it looks like, they can match it to other pots that were already found and put into the timeline! These timelines are called serations. Once example that shows both typologies and seriation is this:

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While archaeologists have other ways to date me, seriation for pottery in Egypt is very detailed because of the amount that is left and the amount of work previous archeologists have put into creating a detailed timeline.

So yay, we know what I looked like, and where I fit, but what about what I actually did when the Ancient Egyptians used me?

What Did I Hold?

Well, clearly I don't hold anything now, but when I was a full pot, I definitely held something!

Archaeologists aren't just interested in me because I am an ancient potsherd. They are really interested in me because they can figure out what was in me. Once they know what was in me, they can use that to learn about the people who used me! Make sense?

Water hasn't always been the safest thing to drink. In Ancient Egypt, they didn't have an easy way to make sure the water they were drinking was clean and safe. So, they drank a lot of beer and wine instead. Lot of Egyptian art shows both of these being done:

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When the beer was all gone, there was still traces of it left in the pots, which have survived until today!

The archaeologists wanted to figure out what I held, so they tested the residue left behind by whatever I held. They knew I held beer or wine, but they weren't sure which one. My residue contained starch granules, which indicates that I held beer. A typical beer jar in Ancient Egypt looked something like this:

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Cool right???

It's crazy how they can figure out! Archaeologists can use all sorts of remains of plants and animals to determine what people ate and how they made things. It's always important to keep in mind that in archaeology, artifacts like me are important, but what really matters is what the people themselves did with me. Jars just like me were used for family dinners, banquets, festivals, and religious ceremonies. Can you find the jars in this scene?

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Yeah, I might be cool, but always keep in mind the people I belonged to who were most certainly even cooler than I am.

What About Everything Above?

Remember stratigraphy? Yes you do!

Well, a lot of the layers above me also held artifacts and other shards. This means they were left or put into the ground after I was. Yes, yes I know you know this, but review is always good!

Have you thought about why artifacts from hundreds of years after me are found in the same place? Well, in Ancient Egypt, people lived close to the water because the Nile flooded their farm land so that it could be used, and the Nile was also used for water for cooking and transportation. So, once a good spot was found, people stayed there for a while. That's why over time, things piled up on top of me.

I want you to meet one of my friends from almost a thousand years after me. Her name is Annie the amphora:

Joukowsky Collection

She looks a lot different than me, right? Well, she's not actually from Egypt like I am.  She was made by these people called the Romans. Rome controlled Egypt for some time and some of their pottery and methods made their way into Egypt. But, they also learned a lot from the Ancient Egyptians, and took their pottery and other art into other parts of the Roman Empire.

It's always important to remember that many different people had connections in the ancient world, just like today! And different cultures, like the Romans and Egyptians, interacted with each other. No one was in a bubble. Connection between different cultures is HUGE.