Why fire twice?

Bisque is the result of the 1st firing, bisque work has more strength yet is still porous and absorbent

Glaze is added to bisque ware for the second firing, which seals the vessel making it water tight

How hot does it get?

Heat is measured in cones

• Bisque is usually cone 05 – 1031 °C
• Glaze is usually cone 06 – 997.7 °C

* not to be confused with cone 5.5 (1186 °C) or cone 6 (1222 °C)

Craggan, also referred to as ‘corgans’, ‘croganans’ or ‘cragains’ come from the gallic word for jug or jar. They often take the form of globular vessels and are a great example of prehistoric technology and tradition used in Tiree, Skye and Lewis (Hebrides) up to the mid 19th C for food storage and cooking. 

They are traditionally made by women from natural clay, which would have the larger rocks removed but impurities such as sand and organics were often left in the natural clay. These vessels were completely hand formed unless the neck was too narrow for the hand, in which case a curved stick was used to form the insides. After forming the vessels would be left to stand for a day of drying, then fired in a cooking fire built up with peat. As the clay was fired a pint or so of milk was slowly poured into and over the vessel to make it less porous.

Dr. A. Mitchell ‘The past in the present – What is civilisation?’ p. 26-28

The ancient technique meets modernity in Barvas Ware, which comes from the small town of Bravas in Lewis, Hebrides. Made in the craggan tradition from the mid 19th C till the 1930’s the vessels themselves imitate factory made china tea sets, still produced by women with the low fired white finish of a milk ‘glaze’. Given the interest of the tourist dollar from mainlanders flowing the regular ferry service of the 1850’s Bravas wear became a commodity and was available for order in Edinburgh and London by the 1890’s in a form of primitive mock ‘Staffordshire Ware’

 The Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland are universally rich in ceramics, especially the Udal, which is a major settlement site, excavated by I.A Crawford. The finds suggest occupation from 400 CE-1100 CE (Dark ages 500 -1000 CE, Viking 800-1066 CE) with typological similarities through Northern Ireland and the Faroe Islands which developed from Iron Age ceramics.

Chapter 1

• The Hebrides are divided between the northern and southern Hebrides, which were never occupied by the Romans
• Post Viking age Scandinavian influence continued in the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. Political alliance to the Norwegian crown till middle medieval period
• Hebrides assemblages differ greatly from Scottish assemblages. increased quantity of pottery post bronze age. Iron Age to Medieval Period pottery in Scotland is scares aside from heavily gritted bucket forms
• Hebrides are rich in pottery, decorated and plain. The decorative items are more easily dated
• The ceramic rich zone stretches from Tiree to North Lewis and includes Skye
• Hand made pottery continues in the Hebrides (Skye) until the mid 19th century 
• 1st modern site report and pottery analysis under Sir Lindsey Scotti in 1948 dates assemblages to the 1st century of the Christian era. Pre 1948 all dating was done by visual motive and typology similarity. 
• Alison Young 1953 reaffirmed the basic sequence of occupation based on ceramics of Udall.  (Young, p. 157-158). According to Young there was a wheelhouse a’Cheardach Mhor in south Udal, with an occupation sequence running from the 2nd century CE to imported wares in the 8th century CE with local ceramics ceasing in the 7th century CE

1. Decorated iron age ceramics, then the site was abandoned. Incised and pin stamped decoration on ‘weak’ rim and profile vessels, pre 1st/2nd century CE. Progress into raised rims and angular profiles, decorations include cordons, arcaded and fluted sections. 
2. Simpler decorated pottery. Incised decoration declines, sparse decoration. Some vessels have flared rims and irregular cordon decoration in the iron age tradition.
3. Coarse plain pottery. 500 CE approx. ends before the arrival of Norse influence.
4. Imported pottery and Steatite 

• Youngs chronology challenged by her contemporary Evan Mackie, who utilised some of the early radio carbon dating technology to correct her sequence. Although most of her sequence turned out to be relatively correct, although based on stylistic similarity

Hand made pottery continued to be made there until the middle of the 19th C. Narrow mouthed, globular pots of various sizes were in general use as containers and for cooking, as well as churning during many centuries after wheel-turned glazed ware was being used in many parts of Scotland.                     – Callander 1921 p.129

• Hand made in this context is also referred to as Craggans, which is a gallic word for earthen jug or jar
• Viking age Norway is virtually a-ceramic 
• Breachacha Castle excavation: no wheel turned pottery till the end of the 16th C. Deposit dominated by coarse hand made craggans
• Pouch or bag shapes, upright flared rims, stab mark or slash line decorations in the late medieval assemblage
• Southern Hebrides and western Scottish mainland are low in dark ages pottery, despite being the heartland of early Scottish kingdom of Dalriada. Settled from the North of Ireland in 500 CE
• Dates are disputed for the Souterrain wear from Ireland, potentially  6th C or Viking age, common trait of Souterrain wear is the impression of grass on the bases, most likely to prevent the vessel sticking to surfaces as they dried. These pieces are also tempered with grass.
• Wooden vessels were probably preferred over ceramic. alternately a lack of evidence may indicate a genuinely sparse population in the North Hebrides during the Dark Ages pre Norse invasion
• Udal is the only verifiably Viking age/Dark Ages site in North Hebrides as of 1983
• Crawford describes Udal Dark Ages pottery as low quality, ring built, tongue and grove ware in the shape of ‘flower pots’
• Crawford describes Udal Viking Ware as large flat grass marked platters

Other Sites of potential interest mentioned in the above text

• Orkney
• Balevullin site of Tiree
• Dun Mor Vaul of Tiree
• Breachacha Castle on Coll
• Don Culer on Barra
• a’Cheardach Mor on South Uist

Other scholars of potential interest mentioned in the above text

• Mackie 1974
• Hope-Taylor 1977
• Young 1953
• MacLennan 1925
• Leathbridge 1950
• Alcock 1971
• Crawford 1974
• Callender 1921

– Alan Macrae Lane, PHD, ‘Dark-Age and Viking-Age Pottery in the Hebrides, with special refferance to the Udal, North Uist’, University of London, 1983

Earthen Ware: Earthen ware is porous, and has limited use for liquid storage if unglazed. This is one of the earliest forms of pottery, used from the Neolithic into the modern age. Earthen ware also called terracotta was and formed ad undecorated utilizing clay that can be fired at low temperatures I pit fires or in open bonfires. The development of ceramic glaze makes it waterproof, making it a popular and practical form for pottery. The addition of decoration has developed through history.

Stone Ware: Stone ware is potter that has been fired in a kiln at a high temperature. It is stronger and non porous, making it ideal for liquids. The Chinese developed stone ware early on, which has led to the classification of stoneware as a type of porcelain. Stone ware was only developed in Europe from the late middle ages as European kilns were less efficient, and the right type of clay less common.

Porcelain: Porcelain offers strength and translucence caused by firing in a kiln between 1200-1400 °C. First made in China and perfected and exported by the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE). Porcelain was also made in Korea and Japan from the end of the 16th century. It was not made effectively outside East Asia until the 18th century.

Pre History

300,000 BCE – Palaeolithic

12,000 BCE – Neolithic (dawn of farming and the first ceramics in the late Neolithic)

6,500 BCE – Chalcolithic (Copper)

3,200 BCE – Bronze age (Early dynasty Egypt)

1,100 BCE – Iron age

Ancient History 

700 BCE – Roman kingdom forms, first evidence of ancient Greece

500 BCE – Classical period (Establishment of Hellenism)

330 BCE – Alexander the Great

100 BCE – Roman Empire

43 CE – Rome enters Britain

300 CE – Late Antiquity

500 CE – Early Middle Ages (Saxons)

600 CE – Rise of Islam

Middle Ages

739 CE – Sack of Lindisfarne

800 CE – Charlemagne and Mercia

868 CE – Earliest printed book (China)

885 CE – Viking attack on Paris

927 CE – Anglo Saxons

1001 CE – Norse exploration of America

1016 CE – Danes rule England

1066 CE – Hastings, William the Conqueror, Normans

1099 CE – 1st Crusade

1118 CE – Founding of the Knights Templar

1147 CE – 2nd Crusade

1189 CE – Richard 1st of England, 3rd Crusade

1202 CE – 4th Crusade

1206 CE – Genghis Khan elected as Mongol ruler

1209 CE – Cambridge founded

1298 CE – Marco Polo

1299 CE – Ottoman Empire

1305 CE – William Wallace executed

1325 CE – Tenochtitlan founded (Aztec)

1328 CE – Scottish war of independence ends in Scottish victory

1337 CE – Start of hundred years war

1346 CE – Battle of Crecy (English defeat the French)

1347 CE – 1st Black Death

1381 CE – Peasants revolt of England

1415 CE – Battle of Agincourt (French defeat the English)

1429 CE – Joan of Arc, Battle of Orleans

1434 CE – Rise of Medici Family

1439 CE – Printing Press

1453 CE – End of hundred years war

1492 CE – Columbus reaches the ‘New World’

Early Modern Period

1501 CE – Michelangelo’s ‘David’

1502 CE – 1st reported African slaves to the USA

1503 CE – Nostradamus born

1509 CE – Great Plague of Tudor England

1518 CE – Dancing Plague

1524 CE – German peasants war

1531 CE – Church of England, Henry VIII

1547 CE – Ivan the Terrible crowned prince of Russia

1551 CE – North African pirates attack Malta

1553 CE – Mary Tudor

1558 CE – Elizabethan era – Queen Elizabeth I

1560 CE – Elizabeth Bathory born (Female murderer)

1563 CE – Plague

1564 CE – Galileo Galilee born

1563 CE – Siege of Malta

1572 CE – Catherine D’ Medici instigates St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre