DownNDirty
Bronze Member
Well, after Hurricane Hermine blew through South Carolina Dirtstalker and I made plans to dig the Swamp Pit on Labor Day. But the old man wore himself out digging some kind of old tag and wasn't able to go. So Monday morning I made the 90-minute journey and headed toward the pit. On the way I was greeted by a small (three foot) alligator that I have named Ollie; he must have come up from the swamp when it was flooded by the storm.
No big deal, I just walked around him and headed to the pit. When I arrived I found a small pond where I have been digging the past few trips, courtesy of Hermine.
I certainly didn't drive that far to turn around and go home, so I waded into the pit and dug through the slop. Basically I was feeling my way through the mire and lifting out anything solid to inspect it. As in all of the digs before I hit a layer of black glass shards and started working my way through them. After a while I found two or three shards of salt-glazed pottery that I thought were more pieces of a jar that I have been reconstructing, but the glaze looked more brown than the other pieces. When I dug a jug handle and spout of the same color I knew I was finding something different. Recognizing it to be from a Rhenish jug I thought to myself how cool it would be if it was a Bartmann jug, but I knew the odds of that were very slim.
As I worked through more glass I felt the base of a bottle and followed it with my hands around to the neck. I carefully dug it out with my screwdriver and pulled out a small bottle with a flat oval front. The back is missing but rest of it is intact.
After that I continued to find a lot of good-sized pieces of the brown glazed jug. Then it happened-I pulled up a pottery shard that had part of the face of a bearded man-and then I found the rest of it. I was astounded, because I then knew that what I was finding was a Bartmann jug, also known as a Bellarmine jug. They were made in what is now Western Germany, during the 16th and 17th centuries, this one presumably being made in the 1600s. The signature of these jugs was the "Bartmaske," which is German for "Bearded Man." It was a representation of the "Wild Man," a mythological creature of Northern European folklore. The jugs are highly collectible and are fairly rare finds.
I knew I had found enough for a partial reconstruction. After I got home and cleaned the shards I laid them out and took this picture:
Then I began the slow tedious task of gluing the pieces back together.
This is the final product:
Most Bartmann jugs had from one to three ornate medallions/seals attached to the mid-section. This one originally had two, one to either side of (and below) the Bearded Man. They apparently broke off; you can see the clay blobs where they were attached. I would LOVE to find at least one of them.
Here is a shot of the Bartmann jug beside the bottle for a size reference:
All of my finds for the day:
And these are the bottle and ceramic reconstructions from the Swamp Pit so far; the ceramics are a work in progress. Hopefully I will be adding to them with shards found on future digs.
Digging the Swamp Pit so far has been a wild ride, and there is plenty of pit left to dig. So until next time, I will leave you with an image of the Bearded Man; I think he looks a lot like Dirtstalker:
No big deal, I just walked around him and headed to the pit. When I arrived I found a small pond where I have been digging the past few trips, courtesy of Hermine.
I certainly didn't drive that far to turn around and go home, so I waded into the pit and dug through the slop. Basically I was feeling my way through the mire and lifting out anything solid to inspect it. As in all of the digs before I hit a layer of black glass shards and started working my way through them. After a while I found two or three shards of salt-glazed pottery that I thought were more pieces of a jar that I have been reconstructing, but the glaze looked more brown than the other pieces. When I dug a jug handle and spout of the same color I knew I was finding something different. Recognizing it to be from a Rhenish jug I thought to myself how cool it would be if it was a Bartmann jug, but I knew the odds of that were very slim.
As I worked through more glass I felt the base of a bottle and followed it with my hands around to the neck. I carefully dug it out with my screwdriver and pulled out a small bottle with a flat oval front. The back is missing but rest of it is intact.
After that I continued to find a lot of good-sized pieces of the brown glazed jug. Then it happened-I pulled up a pottery shard that had part of the face of a bearded man-and then I found the rest of it. I was astounded, because I then knew that what I was finding was a Bartmann jug, also known as a Bellarmine jug. They were made in what is now Western Germany, during the 16th and 17th centuries, this one presumably being made in the 1600s. The signature of these jugs was the "Bartmaske," which is German for "Bearded Man." It was a representation of the "Wild Man," a mythological creature of Northern European folklore. The jugs are highly collectible and are fairly rare finds.
I knew I had found enough for a partial reconstruction. After I got home and cleaned the shards I laid them out and took this picture:
Then I began the slow tedious task of gluing the pieces back together.
This is the final product:
Most Bartmann jugs had from one to three ornate medallions/seals attached to the mid-section. This one originally had two, one to either side of (and below) the Bearded Man. They apparently broke off; you can see the clay blobs where they were attached. I would LOVE to find at least one of them.
Here is a shot of the Bartmann jug beside the bottle for a size reference:
All of my finds for the day:
And these are the bottle and ceramic reconstructions from the Swamp Pit so far; the ceramics are a work in progress. Hopefully I will be adding to them with shards found on future digs.
Digging the Swamp Pit so far has been a wild ride, and there is plenty of pit left to dig. So until next time, I will leave you with an image of the Bearded Man; I think he looks a lot like Dirtstalker:
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