Description:
The olive oil jar is an example of Spanish coarseware dating from the early to the mid-17th century. Evolving from an amphorae shape, olive oil jars were manufactured in Seville, Spain, from the 16th century. The term olive oil jar is misleading because they were made as shipping containers of more than olives or olive oil. They held other commodities, as well, such as bullets, capers, beans and chick peas, lard, tar, and wine. In fact, this example still smells of smoky pine pitch. According to ceramics historian C. Malcolm Watkins, owners often described these objects as "money jugs." Jugs recovered from shipwrecks have been found with coins encased in pitch, a saver way to transport money. Olive jars like this one were made in great numbers in Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries. They were called “botijas peruleras”—“Jars of the New World”—in Spanish records. Their thickly and quickly potted walls made them cheap; their ovoid shape made them well suited for the curving walls of a ship's hold where they could be packed tightly together. These storage jars have been recovered in New England archaeological sites: from Pemaquid, Maine, in an 18th-century context and from the circa 1628 to 1676 Plymouth Colony trading house at Cushnoc in Augusta, Maine. Thrown earthenware jar, wide mouth opening has a rounded thick collar of clay, the overall shape of the body is globular and ovoid, finger ring marks from throwing on a wheel are evident along the sides, the underside of the jar exhibits a spiral design similar to a shell, the exterior is unglazed with the exception of some splashes of green glaze around the mouth and shoulder; stains and some chips to the exterior occur, the clay body is beige in color with pinkish red underneath, there is some slat effluorescence on the base of the pot; the body is tempered with quartz sand and/or gravel, inside the jar there is a layer of green lead glaze and large dried globs of black pitch or pine tar [?] with a smoky smell, the jar is extremely heavy. This jar was acquired from a family in Maine.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2021.6 |
