Bowl with house mark

Wooden vessels belonged to the essential equipment of every household. They were used as tableware for eating and drinking and as containers for food storage and transport. They were made in different ways. Since the early Middle Ages, cups, bowls and plates were turned with a lathe. Another way was to carve a block of wood and hew it until the desired shape of a bowl or basin was achieved. A separate category of wooden vessels is coopers' products, i.e. vessels made of staves of various sizes. Some vessels and containers show turning on both sides; others were turned only from the inner side and were only hewn from the outside. A bowl found during archaeological excavations in Kamień Pomorski belongs to this group. Such simplification of techniques of producing mugs, bowls and plates in the type of tableware is observed among finds from cultural layers connected with the youngest phases of the early Middle Ages. This change consisted in the careful rolling of vessels only from the inside; from the outside, the walls were chiselled with a sharp tool, more or less carefully, which significantly shortened the working time. The increased number of such vessels was at the same time linked to a decrease in their standard. In this way, flat plates with diameters exceeding 20 cm and small and bigger bowls, deeper than plates, were made. The stone vessel also bears the maker's mark, the so-called gmerk (house mark) in the form of a cross inscribed in a rhombus.

Anna Bogumiła Kowalska