Fabric: Soft and chalky, usually buff to very pale yellow, but can also be pale brown. Sherds are easily mistaken for tin-glaze missing its glaze, and the costrels may have come from kilns primarily producing tin-glazed products.

Glaze: Although sometimes mistaken for tin-glaze, chemical analysis of a Jamestown example found the glaze to be lead (Jelks 1958:205). It usually does not reach the base, is usually extremely thin, and typically surviving only in isolated patches. This survival in pits is the best way to distinguish costrel fragments from tin-glaze which has lost its surface. Under the glaze on the upper shoulders, some costrels exhibit a crude, eight-pointed star which can be yellow, red, or blue (Hurst et al. 1986:63). Blue spirals have also been found (Outlaw 1990:116, 119).



Form: Standing costrels are rounded with a long tapering neck flanked by two vertical loop handles. Two sides are flattened, bases are flat and slightly splayed. They stand about 22 cm tall.

Discussion

Standing costrels, sometimes called "Iberian costrels," are one of the most common European earthenwares found in early Virginia. The vessels were almost certainly made on the Iberian peninsula, but their source has not been identified (John G. Hurst 1994, pers. comm.). Seville has been suggested, but neutron activation analysis of a sherd from Virginia (site 44PG302) indicates they are not a Seville product (John G. Hurst 1995, pers. comm.).

The costrels are primarily found in the United Kingdom and Virginia, and near navigable water. In Virginia they are found on most sites occupied between circa 1619 to 1645, and finding two or more per site is not unusual. In the United Kingdom at least 17 vessels have been reported from the London area (Roy Stephenson 1998, pers. comm.). Elsewhere in the United Kingdom they have been reported from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the northeast to Cork in southern Ireland (Pearson 1979:10, Table 10; Meenan 1992: 188; John G. Hurst and Alan Vince 1998, pers. comm.). In this thin distribution, all but two come from ports or within 15 miles of the sea; the two vessels were found inland but on the headwaters of the Thames and the Severn. (John G. Hurst and Alan Vince 1998, pers. comm.).

Beyond the United Kingdom, there are no known finds of these costrels in Europe (John G. Hurst 1995, pers. comm.). Despite their probable Iberian origin, there are no known reports of the vessels from Iberian or Spanish colonial sites. Outside of Virginia, the only other findspots in the Western Hemisphere are St. Mary's City, Maryland; Ferryland, Newfoundland (John Allan 1998, pers. comm.); King's Castle, Bermuda, and also in Bermuda, the Warwick wreck (Noel Hume 1995:41). The 1619 Warwick provides the earliest date for these vessels in the New World, reinforced by their absence from the earliest contexts at Jamestown.

It seems almost certain that the costrels were being traded from English ships, and that the importers had strong ties to Virginia. The form implies liquid contents, and liquids were typically shipped in bulk. It seems probable that English ships loading barrels of wine or oil in an Iberian port also purchased the costrels as empty containers to be used when the barrels were tapped for retail sale.

One clue to their contents is the fact that in Virginia a number of costrels have been excavated in restorable condition, showing they were largely intact when discarded. This seems odd behavior for a community with few European goods, suggesting that the porous costrels may have been contaminated beyond reuse, perhaps by oil.



Sites
King's Castle, Bermuda
Warwick wreck, Bermuda, 1619
St. Mary's City, Maryland
Ferryland, Newfoundland
College Landing 44WB49, Virginia
Flowerdew 44PG68, Virginia, ca. 1617-1640
Flowerdew 44PG79, 44PG82, 44PG86, Virginia, ca. 1620-1640
Hampton 44HT2, 44HT55, Virginia
Harborview 44SK192, Virginia
Jamestown, NPS Collection
Jamestown Rediscovery, Plowzone, Midden 1, Structure 163, Ditch 1
Jordan/Ferrar 44PG302, Virginia, ca. 1620-1635
Jordan's Journey 44PG307, Virginia, ca. 1620-1635
The Maine, Virginia, ca. 1618-1625
Martin's Hundred, Virginia
Mathews Manor, Virginia


Prepared by Taft Kiser