Pottery

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The variety and quantity of pottery at Ledro is truly vast, type, shape and size differing enormously. The coarse clay is broken down by the addition of minerals to produce a paste which is often delicate, smooth and glossy. The colour is a monotonous black, darkish brown or red, except when it has been blanched by overheating when a hut burned down. The pottery varies in size. Of most common occurrence are the large biconical-bodied jars used for storing foodstuffs and decorated, almost without exception, in ribbed patterns either incised into the body of the pot or applied to its surface. They often encircle or spiral round it in a style which survives to this day. There are many different types of beaker, bowl and small cup. which have often survived intact because of their very smallness. Typologically they differ widely. However, if pottery is classified by number of finds, the order is as follows: loom-weights, spindles, spools, small ladles for bronze-working, platters with slightly raised rims, pipes used as bellows, rounded disks which may have been used as gaming-tokens and small rectangular segments impressed before firing with a dot and cross pattern. As a simple matter of interest the use should be mentioned of a binding material used to patch vessels or make them watertight, as well as to mend cracks across their surface. The same substance was used as an adhesive to fix flints to wooden handles or ornaments to different mounts. Droplets of this glue, shaped something like pine-cones, were found at different levels and when analysed proved to be gum-terebinth mixed with an unidentified grist.