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Steatite Stone Bowl Fragments

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  • Steatite Stone Bowl Fragments

    Here's some fragments of a steatite / soapstone bowl that I found.  A couple of pieces are from the rim and one big piece has a lug handle.  There was a big steatite outcrop about 15 miles away from where I found this bowl, and I'm sure this material originated from there.  Eventually in the 1800's it was commercially mined out.




  • #2
    Always enjoy finding steatite, Alan. We have a couple of sites where it is very common. Have found quite a few unfinished pipe forms, and fragments of plates and bowls. Our best score was finding a substantial portion of a soapstone bowl nestled within an ancient hearth which had become exposed on the mud flats on one of our bays. Broken and rotting away it's inclusions from being in salt water, still my favorite of all our finds:
    One that I had absolutely nothing to do with. An idle spectator. Years ago, early May, mid 90's. Several hours with the Mrs. in a corn field. Nothin. "Let's...

    Yeah, our soapstone sites are very near one of the region's largest quarries as well. There were many quarry/outcrop sites throughout southern New England
    Rhode Island

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    • #3
      I really like finding soapstone also unfortunately i only have one site that i ever find any fragments.. Clam i think we found the same piece .lol

      My liberty and freedoms are not yours to give or take!.... They didn\'t make us free we were born free, as long as we have the 2nd amendment we will remain free!

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      • #4
        Took awhile to figure this one out. It was Cliff who pointed out "it's a lug". The second photo is the side that was flush against the bowl. The lug broke off cleanly......


        The wife found this one on Narragansett Bay. Thickest sherd I've seen, perhaps part of a huge kettle :dunno:


        Rhode Island

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        • #5
          Charlie, very rare to find so much of a bowl at once.  I'm sure some other local picker has the rest of my bowl....seeing the great finds that you've made along the shoreline is going to change how I spend my time at Cape Cod -and- the Vineyard...my fishing rods are going to be left behind.
          hvs - wow, they do look similar!

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          • #6
            Here is the one my Dad found back in the 70's

            Sorry about the old picture it really does no justice to this fine artifact. Not sure why they never completed the polishing on it. It shows great chisel mark through our. The boot where it has rested on felt for years had become smooth over time. It is about 12" rim to rim at the lugs.
            TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post

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            • #7
              Hoss, your dad made quite a find.  I've never heard of anyone finding a complete one.  That's certainly a once in a lifetime find.

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              • #8
                I find steatite fragments also it sure gets the imagination going trying to figure out what they were used for .


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                • #9
                  south fork, interesting lines scratched into that piece.  It looks like they scratched the lines into the inside of whatever that piece came from, and that's strange.  The marks don't look like the marks that would have come from shaping the bowl.

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                  • #10
                    Clambellies if you ever get to CT there is a town called Washington Depot. There is a school there called the Gunnery School and Kieth Richards owns an estate near there too. But also on RT 199 there is The Institute for American Indian Studies. They have a huge one in there on display maybe two feet across. That one is one of the finest I have ever seen. I have another complete one but it too was never finished. That second one is smaller than this one.  It has lugs but was never completely dished out.
                    TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post

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                    • #11
                      just a guess, i have nothing to actually base this on, but maybe the "unfinished" ones are just older ones? or maybe not everyone bothered to smooth it all down? :dunno: either way... i love steatite too!
                      call me Jay, i live in R.I.

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                      • #12
                        This one is from the apple hill site N. California most likely had handles on both ends .


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                        • #13
                          Here's a bowl owned by a local farmer and found on his farm in S.C. by share croppers plowing with mules in the early 1900's.
                          Has a few arrowheads his family picked up on the farm inside. Soapstone likely came from the quarry in Pacolet S.C. about 40 miles away.

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                          • #14
                            Thanks for posting the great pictures everybody.  Hoss, I'll check out the that museum if I'm down that way.  I've found plenty of small pieces but still hoping for a bowl as there was a steatite quarry nearby.

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                            • #15
                              Can anyone tell me if this is a soapstone bowl and what it's worth

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