Baggrund for rekonstruktion af ovnene i 1987

Konstruktion, teknik og materiale

Abstract

Background for the reconstruction of the kilns in 1987.
Construction, technology and materials
By Birgit Als Hansen and Morten Aaman Sørensen

In the space of a few years, three medieval pottery kilns were discovered and excavated in Jutland. The kilns appear to be of varying construction, representing three types not previously found in this country. This inspired the excavators and a small group of kiln enthusiasts to try a reconstruction and subsequent firing of all three kilns. The reconstruction of the kiln from Hellum afforded few problems. The preserved substructure indicated a simple round, updraft kiln, where the floor was supported by a central pillar with radiating clay bars. A type well known all over Europe from ancient times to our day, and in our case very similar to a kiln from Torksey in Lincolnshire (fig. 1). The kiln from Barmer was constructed differently. What was left under ground level looked like a hip bath, with stoke hole and fire chamber in the lower part, and a slightly sloping floor for the pots in the upper part, where an opening at the rear was presumably used for stacking the pottery, and during the firing as a vent for the exhaust. The two chambers were separated by a fire screen in the shape of three solid pillars – very much like kilns found in France and Germany (fig. 2). No traces of the upper parts of the kiln remained in Barmer, but a row of small holes with charred wood in the sidewalls indicated a barrow vault moulded on a wooden structure. In Kragelund, only the front part of the kiln was preserved. The stoke hole, with a flue on either side of a raised platform, indicated a type of kiln found in the Netherlands, France and Germany. None of these kilns offered much information about the structure above ground level, except possibly one of a series of kilns from Brunssum (fig. 3), where the foremost part of a domed roof seemed to have rested on the front part of the platform. A reconstruction along these lines seemed a permissible experiment.