Spent a whole month trying to figure out a broken pottery piece

It was a single shard from a dig near Tucson, looked like plain brownware. I kept trying to match it to known local types, but the clay was wrong. Turns out it was trade ware from over 300 miles away, which changed our whole site timeline. Anyone else get stuck on a tiny find that flipped a project?

4 comments

4 Comments

william_garcia2mo agoMost Upvoted

Describe how you finally cracked it. Did you run a chemical test on the clay or just get lucky comparing pictures?

ellioth371mo ago

Kept it simple and just zoomed way in on a high-res scan. Saw the same micro-crack pattern running through the glaze that showed up in a museum's online database. It's funny how often the answer is just staring you in the face if you know what to look for. That skill of noticing small details carries over into a lot of life, like spotting a counterfeit part at work or catching a scam email before opening it. Once you train your eye to look at the little things, everything else kinda falls into place.

ellioth372mo ago

Honestly thought I'd need a lab test at first, but ended up just putting high-res photos side by side on my second monitor. The way the light hit the glaze in one specific photo matched a known piece perfectly, which was a total lucky break lol.

kimr742mo ago

Yeah sometimes you just get lucky with the lighting like that. I did something similar last year, just comparing pics on my phone screen. @william_garcia I never got around to any real tests either.