Remember these...?
These green-glazed pottery shards were dug up in 2019 at the Auld Kirk Salt Pan House right here in Cockenzie.
Well, thanks to our pottery specialist George Haggarty, we now know that they were nice wee jugs like this. They were likely made at Throsk in Stirlingshire, and are fairly standard examples of the period.
This type of pottery starts being made in the late 16th century and was used right though until the late 18th century, and was used for holding liquids.
It has been established that a middle man in the Fisherrow area was importing it direct and selling it on locally in the suggested 17th century time frame for the early use of our pan house, which is great for joining up the dots and building a picture of how this pot came to be here.
These fragments are the earliest items we have discovered in Cockenzie and are on display in the Waggonway Museum - make sure to visit when we reopen after lockdown!