pottery shard id.

seeker41

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Feb 18, 2007
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spacecoast florida
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this this pottery shard was found in the shell line on a beach. it is clay. can anyone date it for me? i was hoping it might be from an off shore wreck. thanks.
photobucket-3066-1330732653842.jpg
 

I find lots of stuff like this in the areas struck by Jeanne, Francis and Charlie. Probably part of a roof tile, or the underside of a deck tile unless it was in an area where there are no buildings that might have been affected by those hurricanes (or others in years past). Does not look like it is hand turned.
 

Looks like the bottom of a modern terracotta flower pot to me, unfortunately. Hard to tell from the angle, sometimes amphora had finger marks on the inside bottom, but they usually created a spiral, not concentric circles. I'm with Terry, maybe 1 out of 20 pottery shards I find around here are from a wreck, even when searching in the area of a known wreck. You have to see several of each type before you can discern the difference with any certainty. Generally shipwreck shards are more tan than red, and if they are red they are in the form of fire bricks for the galley stoves.

Jason
 

Yes, older pottery is more like low quality cement, and newer pottery is clay based and very dense. Generally, native American pottery is tan outside, and black in the middle. Amphora are tan or redish tan all the way through. These are generalizations, and there are exceptions, but it's a good rule of thumb to use. Anything old, dense, and brick red should be in the form of a brick, and will usually have inclusions of small white rock or other things. Modern brick is usually more solid clay without a lot of inclusions. In my experience anyways. ;-)
 

ScubaFinder said:
Yes, older pottery is more like low quality cement, and newer pottery is clay based and very dense. Generally, native American pottery is tan outside, and black in the middle. Amphora are tan or redish tan all the way through. These are generalizations, and there are exceptions, but it's a good rule of thumb to use. Anything old, dense, and brick red should be in the form of a brick, and will usually have inclusions of small white rock or other things. Modern brick is usually more solid clay without a lot of inclusions. In my experience anyways. ;-)
good info...thanks
 

thanks guys. i figured it was fairly modern because of the concentric circles and its color but i wanted a few more opinions.
chuck.
 

I agree with ScubaFinder, it is most likely a bottom of a modern terra cotta pot.
 

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