An Interview With… Nigel Macpherson-Grant, ceramicist
RT: How would you describe the role of a ‘ceramicist’?
NMG: To date what you are looking at! Sorry – that may sound a bit blunt, but although these days, a series of radiocarbon or other scientific dates can provide reliable chronological signposts, excavations do not always produce suitable material. Also, though undeniably essential, they can be expensive. So, if one cannot date pottery adequately oneself – a ceramicist is one’s first port-of-call. However, it is more than that. It’s knowing how to examine pottery - what to look for in terms of fabric, determine the degrees of human interaction, trade or exchange over time and as a result, sometimes their relative wealth – social or financial. Also, where pots are involved, determining what are ‘placed deposits’ is always high on excavation agendas, particularly with Prehistoric pottery, merely because they signpost something special, symbolic, subtly numinous – and therefore of relevance in determining belief systems.
RT: What has been your most memorable ceramic artefact?
NMG: Mm! Oddly enough, on a sunny late winter’s afternoon in 1970 – a small humble little brown Medieval Canterbury sandy ware handled drinking-jug, lying on its side with traces of its content ‘trickling’, frozen in time, out of its mouth, up against a burnt wattle- and-daub wall and maybe fallen from a shelf onto a clay kitchen floor – and all under a spread of burnt daub and roof-tile because the of funding for such work since most of it is currently outside the remit of mainline contract or research archaeology. It is even finding the time to adequately train up people who can do such work or act as follow-on analysts or draughstmen in a specific area – most experienced analysts these days, whether in-County or extra-mural, all have virtually full- time work-loads. In a way though, this is a built-in blessing – it takes time to become experienced, and it’s only over time that that knowledge or ability can be taught.
RT: Are you fearful or optimistic regarding the transition of this highly specialised role to future generations?
NMG: Both – in a way! ‘Fearful’ because we live in a pressured, rather divided and needy world. It is also highly IT orientated. The latter can definitely be a blessing – but it can also grab, over-focus and disassociate from the natural form and decoration, and condition. If a cluster of flint-tempered sherds you’ve just picked up from a field are unworn and fresh-looking – you’ve got a Prehistoric site under your feet! It’s also about knowing how to assess a new group of pottery accurately – its relative academic value, how to draw and photograph any rims, decorated bits properly
– either as part of a reference archive for future researchers and standard publication should it warrant such. Also to determine whether it needs conservation and restoration and then how to store it properly and when necessary, display it or teach others about it.
RT: And tell us briefly about your archaeological journey to becoming a ceramicist.
NMG: When young, I worked on a farm for a while and couldn’t help but pick up pottery or flints turned up in the plough furrow, on the damp freshly harrowed field – so wanted to know more. The process began when I was employed in 1970 by the Powell-Cotton Museum, Birchington
– to help catalogue and draw the finds that had been collected from Minnis Bay and elsewhere. But as a ceramicist for real – by accident really – when I joined the
Canterbury Archaeological Trust in 1977, the then Director, Tim Tatton-Brown, gave me the job of cataloguing and dating the pottery from their excavations. Ultimately, with the help of Marion Green and the sadly late Andrew Savage we built up Fabric Reference and vessel-form collections – the former now known as the Kent Fabric Reference Collection.
And I became an independent analyst in the early 2000s.
RT: What is it that ‘pots’ can tell us about a site, and about material culture in general?
NMG: Its likely date. The longevity of occupation or activity at that location – was it single-period and occupied over only a few generations, or multi-period and used over many? Whether field- walking or excavating – is there only a modest area-spread of sherds or features suggesting an isolated farmstead or is there a wider spread with concentrations of material suggesting a village? Are there loads of pottery, some of it warped and twisted – indicating a kiln, a pottery workshop? Does this cluster of Late Neolithic Grooved Ware or Early Bronze Age Beaker sherds mean we have another ceremonial or settlement site? With Prehistoric and Saxon handmade pottery particularly – a pot’s relative quality of production can say a great deal or raise interesting questions - for instance, Early Neolithic pottery is often well-made, but sometimes you find examples that are thick- walled and clumsy. Does this imply a quick ad hoc production made under difficult circumstances by newly arrived people from the continent – or was it a clumsy attempt to copy by a contemporary indigenous Mesolithic person?
Studying pots helps to understand changes in pottery production technology over time, changes in fabric ‘recipes’, vessel forms and decoration and usage. Also, they raise interesting questions like why are particular cultures associated with specific sets of these. For instance, why do some cultures have lots of decorated ceramic and others not? Early Bronze Age
Beaker pottery and eastern Kentish Early-Mid Iron Age polychrome- painted ceramic are major when it comes to this aspect. More mundanely, recognising travelled or imported wares because of differences in fabric and shape compared with what was obviously in regular use locally, helps house had been destroyed by fire in 1385 AD when the French raided the port town of Stonar, near Sandwich.
RT: What are the biggest challenges currently facing the role?
NMG: The fortuitous, head-in- hands photograph of me taken at a recent workshop [over the page] expresses it all! Primarily – there is a lack of experienced in-County ceramic analysts with a specific interest in Kentish material. Also, there are too few properly-trained illustrators. At present, there are only four experienced analysts – one specialising in Early Prehistoric and Mid Bronze Age ceramic, one in Later Prehistoric, one in Roman and one in all periods but specifically Prehistoric and Saxon-Medieval.
Three of the latter can draw their material. There are also several good but very part-time illustrators. Apart from myself – none of these are actively engaged in illustrating pottery on a reasonably regular basis. This means that there is an in-County shortage of people who can adequately examine the considerable quantities of un- published assemblages, determine their relative value and, if necessary, draw any new academically useful material. There is also a shortage and still beautiful home-world we have all around. As a result, there is a danger of loss of respect for the environment – and for the past. Dr Alice Roberts, in her The Incredible Human Journey, did us all a favour at the end of her TV series by stressing the underlying, permeating unity that we all share. If it hadn’t been for their tenacity, courage against many difficulties we would not be here - literally.
Archaeology is not just about bits; it’s about respect for our ancestors and their abilities. It is, almost, a way of saying ‘Thank you’. While the majority of us did not ask to be born, I feel it is our responsibility to respect that legacy, their ‘heirloom’.
‘Optimistic’ because there are still many people who are interested in the past to some degree – often found in the most unexpected places, shop floors, hospitals.
People love finding things, want to know. Why? Personally, I think, there is often an unconscious need to re- connect with something deeper – a need that should not be suppressed by the rigours or pressures of the world we now live in. I was amazed once by a lady, in her 30’s, 40s, coming to the Canterbury Trust and her looking at all the pots we had on display in the Pot Room – she was in a state of genuine awe. The same awe embraced another lady more recently when she was handling whole Early Bronze Age Beakers. So – while I agree that not every sherd or heap of same is an automatic ticket to a magical journey ceramics are, if one lets them be, a signpost to that ‘something deeper’. Anyway, as long as we do Archaeology, or feel the need to do so, ceramics – merely because they are the most prevalent surviving artefact type – will always be crucial in determining the date of a site.
RT: Do you think the KAS can play a role in this possible transition?
NMG: Yes – absolutely. But maybe ‘how’ – and with more specific reference to ‘what’, could be the subject of a future review?
RT: What is the coverage of the county’s ceramic reference knowledge like, in your view – are there any gaps geographically or periodically?
NMG: Inadequate. We do have the usefulness of the Kent Fabric
Reference Collection in Canterbury – but it needs upgrading (I believe there is an intention to do so). New material needs to be added from recent work in other parts of the County. Like the answer above – could this be reviewed separately?
RT: How are you currently intending to help encourage a greater knowledge of ceramics?
NMG: At the moment I am training up a chap in Thanet to replace me – so that there will be at least one locally-based person who knows what’s what – and where to go when he doesn’t. I’m helping another in the Canterbury-Dover district who is already proving to be a keen ceramicist. My numerous spot-dating visits to the KCC’s Community Archaeology group at Shorne have helped its members become more familiar with what they find. I visited the Sittingbourne Archaeological Group recently to
RT: Lastly, given that pots are so crucial to so many excavation reports, how would you inspire readers to take a greater interest in ceramics?
NMG: Difficult, that one! It depends on one’s perspective. Maybe for some, it’s just sufficient to know what period and the associated dating. Okay, no worries, but if you want to go deeper and know more – the journey begins there. I think it helps a great deal to realise that a pot, sherds, are not ‘dead’ objects. All matter is energy vibrating at different rates – just because a rock in the countryside or sherds on a table are still, apparently inanimate, does not mean they are not ‘alive’.
At a molecular level, they are energy of decay maybe, but in transition – and thus part of the great flow of Universal energy. People are too, so nothing is separate. Sorry, a bit philosophical but I think it is essential – unless people realise the implications of that primary unity there is no real respect. Also I think there is an art aspect here that acts as a stimulant, mentally or artistically – the intriguing decorated Jomon pottery of Japan (c.12,000 BC), exquisitely painted plates from Arpachiyeh, northern Iraq (c.6000 BC), the marvellous painted pots and figurines of the Ukrainian Tripolye giant-settlement culture (c.5000-plus BC), our own Late Neolithic Grooved Ware (c.2800 BC-plus), European and British beaker pottery, Cretan Minoan snake-goddess pottery and contemporary Aegean murals, Classical Greek black and red Attic ware, Chinese ceramic of all ages but particularly the vigour and vibrancy of its painted porcelains
– and much more. All these are a rich heritage, a gift to feed the senses – not to be thrown away. All those grubby little sherds we often see or handle are, directly, indirectly, part of that great flow – they have their place in their too.
Images courtesy of Paul Hart.