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That old Roman pottery shard I kept by my desk finally clicked for me
I found this tiny piece of a Samian ware bowl 2 years ago on a dig near Colchester. It was just sitting on my shelf looking like a weird reddish tile. Last week my kid knocked it off and it cracked clean in half, exposing the inner clay layers. I finally saw how the slip was applied and why it had such a hard shine, a detail no textbook ever made me understand. Has anyone else had a random find make something just snap into place after years of staring at it?
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juliaa251mo ago
A friend who works in conservation told me once that breaks like this are basically free archaeology lessons about ancient crafting techniques. Did you notice if the slip layers were different thicknesses or something?
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