Berlin-Brandenburg Traditional Ceramics Report

Used in

• Chapter 17 The Table

The rows that check it

• 9 confirmed
• 1 partly confirmed
• 1 unresolved
• 1 marked for safety

• T48 unresolved Safety Pit fire under turf 650 to 850 °C; cross-draught kiln 28 h to temperature, 36 to 48 h cooling, opened only below 80 °C; quartz inversion 573 °C both ways and cristobalite trap …
• T28 confirmed Brandenburg clay: glacial boulder clay; brickworks Glindow (Werder) and Zehdenick (Havel, museum) built 19th-c. Berlin; Velten stove tiles from the 1830s; stoneware from the …
• T29 confirmed Clay tests: ribbon past 5 cm, ball survives a night in water (same as Ch 10's pond tests); processing by slaking, sieving, settling; 20 % sharp sand temper; wedging; forming by …
• T30 confirmed Firing stages: 100–200 °C free water, 450–600 °C dehydroxylation (irreversible), 573 °C quartz inversion, 800–900 °C bonfire/pit earthenware, > 1,200 °C salt-glaze stoneware
• T32 partly confirmed Sealing unglazed earthenware: terra-sigillata burnish and slip; boiling in milk (casein); tallow rub
• T33 confirmed Salt glaze: Rhineland since late Middle Ages, needs ~1,200–1,250 °C, salt thrown into firebox, HCl gas; a village kiln, not a household fire (link to Ch 18's specialists)
• T47 confirmed Spreewald stoneware salt-glazed since the 14th c.; Görzke potters' guild 1706 and kilns still working; Glindow bricks 1716 to 1945 from clay 35 to 38 % CaCO3; Zehdenick 1888 to …
• T49 confirmed Lime test: 20 g dry clay and 5 ml vinegar, hard fizz means over 5 % CaCO3, unfit for pottery; lime pops swell about 300 % on slaking weeks after firing; sieve slip to about 80 …
• T50 confirmed Shrinkage bar 150 by 25 by 10 mm with 100 mm line, 5 to 8 mm drying shrinkage workable, over 9 mm wants a quarter grog; body 65 clay, 20 sharp sand, 15 grog; grog from pot fired …
• T51 confirmed Wall thickness 6 to 8 mm plate (chapter's choice), 10 to 12 mm bowl or crock; drying 9 to 13 days
• T52 confirmed Village potter's year for 300 people: 1,850 vessels, 4,360 kg clay, 12 firings, 44 to 48 stacked metres pine (3.5 to 4.5 a firing), 1 to 1.5 ha coppice, about 980 h; household of …

In the Index

Fire and fuel Jars, glass and the canner The table Berlin and Brandenburg