Creating a home. Ritual practice in a terp settlement in the northern Netherlands

The terp region of the northern Netherlands is an area with excellent preservation conditions, which make this a suitable area for the study of the remains of ritual practice in the past. One of the most extensively excavated terps is the terp settlement of Ezinge, which has its origins around 500 BC. An inventory of find assemblages that can be interpreted as ritual deposits, resulted in the identification of 142 deposits from the Iron Age alone, many of which are associated with houses. This contribution is concerned with the deposits associated with the life-cycle of houses or performed during inhabitation for the benefit of the inhabitants. Several of these deposits include human remains, either inhumation burials or single, sometimes modified human bones. It is argued that these ritual practices were concerned with the identity, prosperity and continuity of the household, and that the house can be considered a representation of the household

Sherds bring happines:Evidence of deliberately broken pottery

A large part of the pottery in ritual deposits must have been broken deliberately, but deliberate breakage is difficult to distinguish from accidental breakage. This paper describes an experiment with fifteen handmade sherds without context information from the excavation in the terp of Ezinge (northern Netherlands). The sherds dated from between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. They were broken with the aid of various implements, similar to objects found during the excavation.Breaking the sherds demands considerable force. The usualdamage is a single, Y-shaped or, rarely, a more complex break with some damage at the point of impact. At the back, only breaks and rarely surface damage can be established. The use of an iron awl can be identified if the awl was placed obliquely on the surface. This position comes naturally if an awl was used to break a complete pot from above or from the inside. Exerting pressure, combined with a rotating movement, usually will cause a break. This method leaves characteristic indentations, which are regularly observed on the excavated pottery from Ezinge. The use of other implements leaves less clearly identifiabletraces of deliberate breakage

Luxury tableware? Terra sigillata in the coastal region of the northern Netherlands

With thousands of finds, Roman terra sigillata (TS) is a common find category in terp settlements of the Northern Netherlands. It is traditionally interpreted as luxury tableware of the local elites, who acquired it through their contacts with Romans, or who were able to buy it from traders who came to this area with their merchandise. This paper questions that interpretation. The reason is that the far majority of TS is found as sherds, which, despite their good recognisability, only rarely fit other sherds. Moreover, many of these sherds are worked or used in some way. They were made into pendants, spindle whorls and playing counters, or show traces of deliberate breakage and of use for unknown purposes. Such traces are found on 70–80% of the sherds. The meaning of TS hence seems to have been symbolic rather than functional. Rather than as luxury tableware, TS may have been valued for the sake of the material itself, and may have been imported as sherds rather than as complete vessels. A symbolic value also shows from its long-term use. Used or worked TS sherds from the 2nd and 3rd century AD are often found in finds assemblages that may be interpreted as ritual deposits, not only from the Roman Period but also from the early Middle Ages. There are striking parallels for such use in early modern colonial contexts. TS sherds may have been part of the diplomatic gifts by which the Romans attempted to keep peace north of the limes, or may even have been payments for local products. These sherds might thus be comparable to the trade beads of early-modern European colonial traders