VESSEL

Four small abraded shards of Iron Age earthenware vessels. The first two probably belong to fabric group 4 identified from material found during excavations in Somerset at Meare Village East (Coles 1987, p.184) and the second two to group 1 (ibid. p.183). 1. Length: 28.09mm, Width: 22.27mm, Thickness: 9.37mm, Weight: 6.68g Probably a body shard. The edges are very worn and well rounded. One surface is grey in colour and the other buff. The fabric is smooth and rather soapy to the touch. It is tempered with rare mica and medium amounts of poorly sorted calcareous fragments (<3.5mm). 2. Length: 23.93mm, Width: 24.99mm, Thickness: 10.63mm, Weight: 5.94g A body shard, maybe from the base of a flat-bottomed vessel. The fabric is grey-brown in colour with a slightly darker inner surface and pinkish-grey outer surface. The surfaces are smooth to the touch and almost soapy in texture. It is tempered with rare mica and medium amounts of poorly sorted calcareous fragments (<3.5mm). 3. Length: 25.59mm, Width: 22.10mm, Thickness: 9.16mm, Weight: 5.67g A rim shard from a straight-rimmed vessel. The shard is grey in colour with a fairly coarse, hard fabric, but well smoothed outer surfaces in places. It is tempered with sparse mica, fairly common sub-angular quartz (<3mm) and occasional calcareous fragments (<1.5mm). 4. Length: 32.43mm, Width: 27.16mm, Thickness: 12.60mm, Weight: 8.25g A rim shard. The outer edge of the rim is very slightly everted. The fabric is hard and fairly coarse, but with well smoothed outer surfaces in places. It is grey in colour with slightly darker, smooth outer surfaces. It is tempered with sparse mica, fairly common sub-angular quartz (<1.5mm) and occasional small calcareous fragments (<1.5mm).