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Medieval Pottery Research Group
c/o Museum of London Archaeology,
46 Eagle Wharf Road
LONDON
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This guide is intended to explain the structure of the database and to define the different entities for users of the web site. The database is composed of records (rows of the database) which represent each individual ceramic report. Each record contains a series of fields which describe the report. Details of the information held in each record are described below.
The main items are listed here and further details are given which are partly taken from the original instruction document for the bibliography published in 1980 (Davey 1980).
In order to allow for variations in 'nested' references each bibliographic reference is spread over eight fields. This should be transparent when the queries on this site are run. It allows us to search for such things as journals or individual authors. The following table shows which journals have been included in the database plus the number of records that have been created from these journals.
Abbreviations have been used for many journal names in the database. The full journal names for each of the abbreviations used is available in the following table:
This is a unique field, only one type of report is allowed per record. Where there is more than one type the data inputters will have entered the main type here.
The types of report are as follows:
EX | Excavation | An organised archaeological project |
FI | Fieldwalking | Ditto |
CF | Casual Find | covers material which has not been collected as part of organised archaeological research e.g. finds brought into museum by members of the public, material collected from contractors trenches |
CO | Collection | material which lacks provenance or circumstances of find e.g. parts of older collections in museums |
SY | Synthesis | articles or books which deal with ceramics from more than one site. Information about dating, site location and site type will not be recorded where reports are of this type. A synthesis type of report, might, however be confined to a town, county or country and will fall into the 'general' category of any of these |
OT | Other | anything else not falling into the above categories |
All the following may be present in one report:
DO | Domestic | e.g. jugs, cooking pots, bowls, drip trays, water pipes, junction boxes |
IL | Industrial | e.g. chemical apparatus, crucibles, ingot pots, malt-kiln floors, adapted domestic pots |
RF | Roof furniture | e.g. tiles, finials, louvres, ventilators, chimney pots |
FT | Floor tiles | cf Medieval Tiles by E.S. Eames, British Museum 1968 |
KF | Kiln furniture | objects produced to support or separate pots in the kiln, including props, saggers and muffles |
WA | Wasters | the discarded products of a kiln site which could never have been used. The kiln may not have been located during the excavation or may even be at some distance e.g. if the wasters have been used as ballast |
IM | Imports | pottery not made in Great Britain or Ireland |
CP | Clay pipes | clay tobacco pipes, including wig curlers |
These descriptions are designed to give an indication of the methodology adopted by the report concerning quantification and fabric analysis.
Quantification
SC | Sherd counts | a physical count of the number of fragments |
WE | Weight | sherd weight |
MV | Minimum vessels | an estimate arrived at 'by eye' or some other subjective or undisclosed criterion |
EV | Estimated vessel equivalents | an estimate arrived at by calculation |
OH | Other | such as surface area of pottery |
Fabrics
GU | As Guidelines | follows the Guidelines (Blake H., and Davey P.J. 1983) or The DUA's Pottery Archive User's Handbook by C R Orton, 1978, Appendix 6 or Minimum Standards (MPRG 2001) |
TS | Thin section | petrological analysis of the fabric |
PA | Partial | descriptions which do not reach the standards of GU above |
OO | Other | such as surface area of pottery |
The dating has to be simplified in order to allow automatic searching. Therefore the periods have been coded as shown below. There are two levels of dating: Period and Broad Period. It is possible for any one report to have any combination of these codes. A report will only have the broad codes if the dating evidence can only provide a broad date i.e. where the pottery can be dated closely the broad period codes will not be given. Both the Period and Broad Period can be searched using the 'Period' drop down list on the query form; multiple periods can be searched at the same time by using the control and shift keys to select any combination of broad or specific period terms. If your interest lies in a specific period it will probably be worthwhile to look at the broad period terms as well.
NB The dating is that given in the published report, it is possible that the dating of a site may change after publication, in this instance the compiler may add information to the comments field.
Periods
ES | Early Saxon | 400-650 |
MS | Middle Saxon | 650-850 |
SN | Saxo Norman | 850-1150 |
EM | Early Medieval | 1150-1250 |
HD | Highly Decorated | 1250-1400 |
LM | Late Medieval | 1400-1500 |
PM | Post Medieval | 1500-1750 |
MO | Modern | 1750+ |
Broad Periods
EC | Early Christian/post-Roman | general |
AS | Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Scandinavian | general |
MC | Medieval | date uncertain |
The terms 'Saxon' and 'Anglo-Saxon' were used by the original compilers to indicate a chronological period rather that any cultural association. For much of western Britain and Ireland, therefore, it may be useful to search on the listed sub-divisions of the Saxon period as well as 'early medieval'.
There are four possible areas of dating methodology:
1. Site stratigraphy
SS | Stratified sequence | relative chronological evidence provided by site stratigraphy |
CG | Closed group | e.g. material in a closed group such as a pit or well not directly linked with site stratigraphy |
US | Unstratified | from anywhere on the site |
2. Associations
(cf Hurst in Medieval Archaeology 6-7, 1962-63, 135-155)
CS | Coins |
CH | Coin hoard pot |
AR | Architecture |
TY | Typology etc |
3. Dates
TPQ | Terminus post quem |
TAQ | Terminus ante quem |
4. Analysis
CD | radiocarbon dating, on the pottery itself or directly associated material |
TH | thermoluminescence, ditto |
DE | dendrochronology on directly associated material |
OX | other analyses |
Administrative county borders are subject to change and it would be difficult to keep updating the database with the changes. Therefore the counties follow the 1972 local government re-organisation. It will inevitably mean that some sites will be listed in the 'wrong' county. A full list of the counties can be found in the table below.
Although not all records have an entry for this field it may be a useful one to search on. For sites in northern England this field will contain the township name.
The common name is usually the name of the site or perhaps the property number and street name in towns.
These have been entered into the database in the exact form as published in the report, they have not been checked for accuracy. As a second stage, in order to facilitate searching by grid square all the grid references for Britain have been converted to co-ordinates and missing references have been added. This has not affected the original data entry.
These are the categories used for organising the annual reports of 'Medieval Britain' and 'Post-Medieval Britain' in the journals Medieval Archaeology and Post-Medieval Archaeology respectively. Most works of synthesis will fall into the category MU multi-site. This is not a unique field, sites can be classified with more than one type.
CC | Churches and Chapels |
CE | Cathedrals and Ecclesiastical Palaces |
CM | Cemeteries |
CN | Castles and Naval Earthworks |
CO | Communications |
FA | Farms |
ID | Industrial |
MM | Moats/Manors |
MN | Monastic |
MU | Multi Site |
OY | Other |
RP | Royal Palaces |
SP | Sports and Pastimes |
TO | Towns |
UK | Unknown |
VI | Villages |
WR | Wrecks |
MA | Material |
RE | Record |
If the location of the pottery and/or the accompanying record/archive, in a museum store or other repository, is given in the report, this information will be included. There is no mechanism for searching this field from this web site but the information about the materials and records will be provided under 'additional information' in the full record output.
This field contains any new facts about the site or material which have come to light since the publication of the report which are relevant to the interpretation of the pottery. It also includes any information not given in the report but known to the compiler. This field is only returned in the long form of output.
This field contains any notes that the compiler has added which comment on or criticise the methods or conclusions of the report, to cross-refer to other reports or any other personal comment. As we do not wish to make any criticisms widely available to the public, this field does not appear in the query results.
This field is only returned in the full record output and it gives the initials of the compiler. The table below holds a list of compiler initials with their expanded names where known.
The date when the entry was compiled.
A query will return a record or list of records in an abbreviated form which will provide a full bibliographic reference. When a list of records is returned they will be ordered alphabetically by author. By clicking on the author name/dates it is possible to view the full record. The full record includes the coded information; details of the compiler and data inputter; and the full text of the additional information. The database record number is also included.
Where your results set is 200 records or less, a button will appear at the top of the screen allowing you to download your results set as a csv (comma separated values) file. This file can be easily imported into a spreadsheet or database application for your own use. You may either click the button to open the csv file directly, or you can right click on it and save the file. The first line of the csv file contains the headers for each column of data.
Davey P. J. 1980 'Towards a national bibliography for Medieval Ceramics' Medieval Pottery Research Group, Liverpool
Blake H., and Davey P.J. 1983 Guidelines for the processing and publication of medieval pottery from excavations Directorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings, Occasional Paper No. 5. London.
MPRG 2001 Minimum Standards for the Processing, Recording, Analysis and Publication of Post-Roman Ceramics, Medieval Pottery Research Group Occasional Paper 2