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Olive JarDescription
Fabric: A thick, pinkish buff fabric with coarse sand,
often with large air pockets.
Glaze: Usually unglazed, but sometimes has an internal green or yellow glaze. The exterior exhibits a very soft and thin white coating, which is being used as the characteristic separating Seville olive jars from those of Merida type. Form: These are jars for shipping and storage, with three general shapes. Goggin (1960) established a basic typology still in use, designating the oblong shape as Type A, the globular form as Type B, and the tapering "carrot-shape" as Type C (Hurst et al. 1986:66). All have a constricted neck and a thick rim, some of which have been found with pitch-covered corks still in place (Marken 1994:116). Underwater archaeology and documentary evidence indicate the jars also had a woven casing, which may have included a carrying loop, as seen on the later Tuscan oil jars (Ashdown 1972:150; Pleguezuelo-Hernandez 1993:48; Marken 1994:118-119). DiscussionSeville-type olive jars appear in the Americas by 1554, and with only subtle changes in form, continue into the 18th century, with some variations being made as late as 1839 (Marken 1994:105, 129-138). They are common on 17th-century Virginia sites and are found "through the Americas and up to northwest Europe along both sides of the North Sea . . . north to Bergen, Norway" (Hurst et al. 1986:66). Hurst also reports olive jars from the Pacific Ocean (1995:46).As large containers, olive jars transported a variety of contents, including bullets, capers, beans, chick peas, lard, tar, wine, olives in brine, and olive oil (Goggin 1960:6; Pernambuca de Mello 1979:221). In the 16th century, they were sometimes also shipped empty, accompanying barrels of wine (Deagan 1987:31). Empty jars were also used architecturally in the Spanish colonies to infill roof vaults and build walls (Deagan 1987:32; Marken 1994:42). The Virginia Company Records contain what is very likely a direct reference to olive jars; in June 1623 Robert Bennett acknowledged the arrival of "750 jarse of oylle" from Spain (Kingsbury 1935:220). The exact size of this shipment would depend on the type of olive jar used, and perhaps luck. Richard Frethorne, writing for supplies in 1623, said: "oile. . .is verie good, but. . .there is greate losse in leakinge" (Kingsbury 1935:60). Volume measurements of examples from shipwrecks imply Type A oblong jars were meant to hold the Castilian wine arroba of 4.26 gallons, although two 1695 examples seem to be for the Castilian oil arroba of 3.31 gallons (Marken 1994:127). Late 16th-century Type B globular jars appear to be half of an oil arroba (1.65 gallons), but the early 17th-century sample (7 jars) shows an average volume of about 1.56 gallons (Marken 1994:123). Type C carrot-shaped jars in the sample (3 jars) had an average volume of about 0.57 gallons (Marken 1994:123). Bennett's 1623 oil probably came in Type A or B jars, the forms most commonly found in Virginia, and 16th-century records show a preference for shipping oil in one or one half arroba containers (Pleguezuelo-Hernandez 1993:48). Presumably this was olive oil; Smith lists "1 gallon of oyle" as part of the "Victuall for a whole yeare for a man" (Barbour 1986:2:322). In Type A jars, Bennett would have received about 2,482 gallons, and in Type B, about 1,237 gallons. The troubles of 1622 and the contagion-ship Abigail had reduced English Virginia to about 500 souls (Noel Hume 1994:379), and even if new colonists in the 1623 supplies doubled that population, Bennett's single shipment would still represent more than a year's supply for the entire colony. Sources
Allan, John P. (1983) Some post-medieval
documentary evidence for the trade in ceramics. In
Ceramics and Trade: The production and distribution of
later medieval pottery in north-west Europe, edited
by Peter Davey and Richard Hodges, pp. 37-48, University
of Sheffield.(1984) Medieval and Post-Medieval Finds from Exeter, 1971-1980. Exeter City Council and The University of Exeter. Allan, John, and James Barber, with a contribution by David Higgins. (1992) A seventeenth-century pottery group from Kitto Institute, Plymouth. In Everyday and Exotic Pottery from Europe: Studies in honour of John G. Hurst, edited by David Gaimster and Mark Redknap, pp.225-245. Oxbow Books, Oxford. Ashdown, John. (1972) Mewstone Ledge site. B. Oil Jars. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, I. Seminar Press, London. Baker, Emerson W. (1985) The Clarke & Lake Company: The Historical Archaeology of a Seventeenth-Century Maine Settlement, Occasional Publications in Maine Archaeology Number Four. The Maine Historic Preservation Committee, Augusta. Barbour, Philip L. (ed). (1986) The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580-1631) in Three Volumes. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London. Bradley, Robert L., and Helen B. Camp. (1994) The Forts of Pemaquid, Maine: An Archaeological and Historical Study, Occasional Publications in Maine Archaeology Number Ten. The Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta. Brown, Duncan H. (1993) The Imported Pottery of Late Medieval Southhampton. Medieval Ceramics 17:77-82. Cranmer, Leon E. (1990) Cushnoc: The History and Archaeology of Plymouth Colony Traders on the Kennebec, Occasional Publications in Maine Archaeology Number Seven. The Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta. Deagan, Kathleen. (1987) Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies of Florida and the Caribbean, 1500-1800. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington. Faulkner, Alaric, and Gretchen Faulkner. (1987) The French at Pentagoet 1635-1674. The Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta. Gaskell Brown, Cynthia (ed). (1979) Castle Street: The Pottery, Plymouth Museum Archaeological Series, Number 1. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth. Goggin, John M. (1960) The Spanish Olive Jar: an Introductory Study. In Papers in Caribbean Anthropology, Vol.62. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, New Haven. Good, G.L. (1987) The excavation of two docks at Narrow Quay, Bristol, 1978-9. Post-Medieval Archaeology 21:25-126. Green, Jeremy N. (1989) The loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie retourschip Batavia... Western Australia 1629, BAR International Series 489. B.A.R., Oxford. Hurst, John G. (1995) Post-Medieval Pottery from Seville Imported into North-West Europe. In Trade and Discovery: The Scientific Study of Artefacts from Post-Medieval Europe and Beyond, British Museum Occasional Paper 109, edited by Duncan R. Hook and David R.M. Gaimster, pp.45-54. The British Museum, London. Hurst, John G., David S. Neal, and H.J.E. van Beuningen. (1986) Pottery Produced and Traded in North-West Europe 1350-1650, Rotterdam Papers, 6, Rotterdam. Jennings, Sarah, with M.M. Karshner, W.F. Milligan, and S.V. Williams. (1981) Eighteen centuries of pottery from Norwich, East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 13. The Norwich Survey, Norwich. Kiser, Robert Taft. (1992) Ceramics, in Jordan's Journey: A Preliminary Report on Archaeology at Site 44PG302, Prince George County, Virginia 1990-1991, edited by L. Daniel Mouer and Douglas C. McLearen, pp.113-137. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond. (1994) The Jordan's Journey Component: Culinary Ceramics, in Jordan's Journey III: A Preliminary Report on the 1992-93 Excavations at Archaeological Site 44PG307, edited by Douglas C. McLearen and L. Daniel Mouer, pp. 86-94. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond. Kingsbury, Susan Myra. (1935) The Records of the Virginia Company of London, Volume IV. United States Government Printing Office, Washington. Marken, Mitchell W. (1994) Pottery from Spanish Shipwrecks. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Martin, Colin J.M. (1979) Spanish Armada Pottery. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, 8. Seminar Press, London. Meenan, Rosanne. (1992) A survey of late medieval and early post-medieval Iberian pottery from Ireland. In Everyday and Exotic Pottery from Europe: Studies in honour of John G. Hurst, edited by David Gaimster and Mark Redknap, pp.186-193. Oxbow Books, Oxford. Miller, Henry M., with contributions by Charles Fithian, Julia King, James O'Conner, and Garry Wheeler Stone. (1986) Discovering Maryland's First City: A Summary Report on the 1981-1984 Archaeological Excavations in St. Mary's City, Maryland. St. Mary's City Archaeology Series #2. St. Mary's City Commission, St. Mary's City. Noel Hume, Ivor. (1991) A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1969. Vintage Books, New York. (1995) Shipwreck! History from the Bermuda Reefs. Capstan Publications, Hamilton, Bermuda. Outlaw, Alain Charles. (1990) Governor's Land: Archaeology of Early Seventeenth-Century Virginia Settlements. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville. Pernambucano de Mello, Ulysses. (1979) The shiprwreck of the galleon Sacramento - 1668 off Brazil. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration, 8:3. Seminar Press, London. Platt, Colin, and Richard Coleman-Smith, with P.A. Faulkner, M.R. Maitland Muller, J.S. Wacher, F.A. Aberg, and others. (1975) Excavations in Medieval Southampton 1953-1969, Volume 2: The finds. Leicester University Press, Leicester. Pleguezuelo-Hernandez, Alfonso. (1993) Seville Coarsewares, 1350-1650: a Preliminary Typological Survey. Medieval Ceramics 17:39-50. Wilcoxen, Charlotte. (1987) Dutch Trade and Ceramics in America in the Seventeenth Century. Albany Institute of History & Art, Albany. Sites Fort Orange, New York Brunswick Town, North Carolina Charles Towne, North Carolina Eden House, North Carolina Fort Raleigh, North Carolina Charleston, South Carolina Newington Plantation, South Carolina Flowerdew Hundred, Virginia Hampton "Second Church" 44HT2, Virginia Hampton 44HT44, Virginia Jamestown, Virginia Jordan's Journey 44PG302, Virginia, with DG mark Richneck, Virginia The Maine, James City County, Virginia Prepared by Taft Kiser |
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