A modern-era pottery workshop in Old Warsaw. Some new findings

Abstract

Two pottery kilns discovered and analysed by archaeologists form the Committee for Research on Old Warsaw in the 1950s brought valuable data on crafts in Old Warsaw. The workshop, which functioned extra muros, is documented by a potter’s last will made in 1696. Archaeological research showed that it had produced three kinds of clay artefacts: dishes, stove tiles and smoking pipes. Until recently, it had been known as the only documented workshop in Central Europe that manufactured bowls for composite lüle-type pipes. A new analysis of the 1950s excavation documentation revealed two phases in the functioning of the workshop. Due to advances in research on Dutch pipes the dating was corrected from the end of the 17th c. to the first half of the 18th c.