POT

A fragile sherd of pottery with recent breaks on the edges.The fabric has fine cracks on drying, but has otherwise good surface condition with a smoothed wiped exterior and few exposed grits. When the clay was still wet a sharp v-section line was incised circumferentially and it has overlapped itself and doubled on this sherd. A longer finger nail may have convieniently produced this decoration. A diagonal line incision has run up and to the right from the horizontal line and has dictated the edge of the oblique left break of the pot sherd. At the bottom the break has follwed a parallel and similar horizontal circumferential incised line to the main one. Piggott, 1954 illustrates an apparently similarly decorated vessel from Woodhenge. Panels of finger-tipped and incised nested chevrons(possibly the diagonal line is part of this) are a likely decoration on the rest of the broken pot.The outer surface was smoothed with few grits showing before decorating. The fabric is red on the outside and this extends just under the surface with a dark brown body to the inside surface which is beaten smooth with occasional grits projecting. It appears consistent with firing upside down in a bonfire.The grits are mostly white and of 1-2mm size and likely the partly corroded felspar found in the Gabbroic clays from the Lizard area in Cornwall. The vessel was nearly straight sided at least on this part of the profile and had a diameter of about 0.25m at this point.Grooved ware is the likely pottery type from a find spot where this type was recorded by Henrietta Quinnell.Reference: Piggott, S.1954.Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles. page 342, fig 58,2.