133
NOTE ON PUNCTURED POTTERY FOUND
AT FRYERNING.
By F. W. READER.
SOME examples of pottery, showing minute perforations, were
commented on by Mr. W. Cole in the Essex Naturalist,
vol. iii. p. 142. The deposit of pottery was discovered by Mr.
Miller Christy, near Fryerning, and was noticed by him in Trans.
Essex Archaeol. Soc, vol. ii. (N.S.) pp. 357-8. Having, by the
kindness of Mr. Cole, been able to examine some of the specimens,
I have no hesitation in saying that they are fragments of Mediaeval
ware, some of the pieces having the characteristic green glaze of
that kind of pottery.
Figs. 1 and 2. Fragments Of Pot Handles, Punctured (Mediaeval), Found near
Fryerning, Essex.
The punctured handles are interesting, and, as Mr. Cole suggests
in the note above mentioned, they are similar in this respect to the
rims found by General Pitt-Rivers, F.R.S., in the Romano-British
village on Rotherly Down, Wiltshire, figured and described in vol.
ii. of his "Excavations in Cranborne Chase," pl. cx., figs. 4, 5, 6,
and 7.
This puncturing is a feature not uncommon in the rougher
description of Mediaeval pottery at a time when there was probably
a deficient knowledge of the proper methods of mixing the clay,