North Carolina Soapstone Miniature

[painshill]

North Carolina Soapstone Miniature
Posted by [CMD]

Moderator Note: this thread was first posted in 2011 but failed to transfer across to the new forum when the software was updated, and so has been re-created manually.

I seldom purchase stuff from outside my region, but I've always had a special fondness for steatite. The only location info I have is the label, which I presume denotes North Carolina. Maybe forum members from that part of the country will recognize this grade of soapstone. It's 3 3/8" long by 2" wide by about 3/4" tall. The dealer/collector I got this from felt it was a native "toy." I guess that's possible, but don't imagine that can be more then a guess. In terms of its' proportions, it really does look like a scaled-down version of a "full size" bowl, or a "true miniature", whatever that implies, don't know.
Seems to me I have seen large bowls with this type of lug configuration. Maybe just a more fancy style of paint pot?
Charlie










Posted by [turkeytail]
Neat piece Charlie!

Posted by [gregszybala]
That is cool Charlie, love pieces like that, not typical, nice.

[painshill]

Posted by [CMD ]
Thanks, guys. Got to thinking not likely a paint pot as why fashion lugs on a piece that doesn't need lugs to be lifted up? I'm left with a scale model as in a "blueprint" for a full size bowl or a scale model as in a child's toy.
Charlie

Posted by [phbarnesjr]
Whatever it may be it is really cool! You gotta love those stone artifacts!

Posted by [CliffJ ]
Charlie,
It could well be NC soapstone. It's probably a cup. It's hard to grind anything much in a vessel made of talc, unless you want to make baby powder.


Posted by [CMD ]
CliffJ wrote:
Charlie,
It could well be NC soapstone. It's probably a cup. It's hard to grind anything much in a vessel made of talc, unless you want to make baby powder.

Thanks, Cliff. we have lots of steatite in southern New England, and my thinking in part was based on the termonology established for southern New England, and still used in large measure by archys and collectors alike, by William Fowler in 1963. Regarding very small steatite vessels, he called them paint pots and in his words "are thought to have been used as cups in which to mix bear's grease with powdered red ochre". So probably not much real grinding. In any event, the tiny soapstone vessels here are just called that ever since. I would love to find such, as a couple of friends have.

I liked your idea enough to take it to the kitchen sink. On the left side in photos the bowl sits higher up when set on a flat surface then does the right side. The left lug held nice in the thumb and forefinger. I filled it with water and tilted it to the right and down. The water ran in a tight stream down the center of the lug, a lug which is itself inclined downward. I guess if it sits like a cup and acts like a cup :lol: In addition, filling it with water clearly showed there was a collector number in there, the number 169 stood out sharply white, hard to see dry.
Charlie

[painshill]

Posted by [Hoss]
I am surprised no one mentioned a salemans sampler! Here is a Steatite bowl from CT with the intact lug handles. These are very rare to find in complete condition because of the very soft steatite material. Gotta love the steatite artifacts!





Posted by [CMD ]
Hoss1958usa wrote:
I am surprised no one mentioned a salemans sampler! Here is a Steatite bowl from CT with the intact lug handles. These are very rare to find in complete condition because of the very soft steatite material. Gotta love the steatite artifacts!

Thanks Hoss. That's a very nice lugged vessel. My wife found a good portion of one, including the lug end, on Greenwich Bay in RI years ago, which I reassembled. I'll post pics and a story sometime. Also got a killer engraved steatite bowl from Preston, Ct. that I'll post to the forum one of these days.
Charlie



Posted by [Hoss ]
Charlie
I like the cup idea and was just kidding about the Saleman sampler. I just was watching Storage Wars and that guy Barry had found a little Piano Smallest Grand Piano I ever saw sometimes my mind just cranks out stuff and I hit send too fast LOL
Love the cup!


Posted by [CMD ]
Hoss1958usa wrote:
Charlie
I like the cup idea and was just kidding about the Saleman sampler. I just was watching Storage Wars and that guy Barry had found a little Piano Smallest Grand Piano I ever saw sometimes my mind just cranks out stuff and I hit send too fast LOL
Love the cup!

Hey Hoss, I'm not quite brain dead yet. Course I knew you were kiddin :laugh:
I noticed the cup has the same volume as a shot glass, so here's mud in your eye :lol:
Charlie

[painshill]

Posted by [turkeytail]
Hey Charlie, if ya get a chance look at the steatite piece pictured in my profile. Its the only piece I have and I really dont know if its ancient??? No find history..part of a collection. Seems good to me but I dont know soapstone!

Posted by [Paleolution]
I think it could be an atl atl weight. Looks like it could have been attached using the two notches on the back side. I could be way off, but it seems like it could be a weight?

Posted by [CMD ]
That's a nice piece, Mark! Looks old to me. With the one from NC the fact that it had 2 lugs kept me from seeing it as a simple cup until Cliff pointed it out. Now Tyson may be right about it being a weight, but I'll throw out another suggestion. Having a concave interior like that, the 2 knobs could be just a style of lug. In which case it looks like some type of tiny soapstone vessel, a tiny cup, or tiny shallow dish? You know they fashioned all sorts of lug styles on their soapstone vessels. The one you have even has sort of a spout side to tilt it towards. Now here in New England something like that, small and shallow-bowled, would class as a "paint pot" for mixing bear grease and ochre or grease and graphite. I can see and understand Tyson's point of view but the shallow concavity leans me toward small pot. In any event, I like it very much!!
Charlie

Posted by [turkeytail]
Thanks guys! I assumed suspended paint but really didnt know! I am into flint artifacts and trying to learn about the rest. This is among the countless pieces I would like to get papered but cant afford it! Karly and I went hunting on the river today and I found a piece I will post later of another thing I know little about..."possible" drilled shell piece? Supper 1st!

Posted by [Turtleguy]
I have an area I am working in east central Ohio, and have been finding multiple broken steatite artifacts. One of the whole pieces I have found is a fingerbowl with a nipple on one end that has a groove around it, presumably to tie a cord to for wearing from the neck.


Posted by [pkfrey]
Very neat piece! That's a small dish. The lugs are for the attachment of grass cordage which would allow the dish to be hung over a fire. Probably used to melt a small amount of animal fat. Also, even if the lugs were not there to be used, often the smaller items were made to mimick the larger ones. Attached are photos of a bowl from Roberts Island, Md., and a broken dish with a grooved lug and talley marks on the side.




Paul RS Frey

[painshill]

Posted by [CMD ]
Thanks for that info, Paul. I think the bowl you have is absolutely killer!!
Charlie

Posted by [turkeytail]
Thanks for letting me know Charlie! I tryed to respond to your message and that dont work either. Cool pieces Paul! The one on the right is similar to the one I have.


Posted by [Olden]



Hey Guys, My first post here, although I've followed the forum for some time.
Here's a soapstone pottery fragment I found in Charles Co. MD. It was covered in mud and I mistook it for some net impressed ceramic pottery (reddish appearance), and filed it in a drawer. Years later while looking through (and cleaning) things, I noticed that it was actually an incised soapstone bowl frag. Until Paul posted his MD. found bowl, I had just about given up finding a similar type - all of the others I'd seen were smooth sided. The NA that made these took a lot of time and care to fashion these utilitarian items ~






Posted by [CMD ]
Great example, Olden! That would have looked like a pottery sherd to my eyes as well before picking it up.
Like your avatar. That's about how I feel after a long hunt :laugh:
Charlie

Posted by [Olden]
Thanks Charlie. I'm like you in the fact that I'm rather partial to soapstone, but just don't find enough of it - in 40 yrs. of collectin', can count my finds on one hand. Great little vessel you picked up: coulda been used to hold anything from fat to pinching up the evening tobacco - neat to think a child used it to learn her way around the campfire too! Not related, but here's a fun link I ran across today that shows how some of the larger bowls may have been formed ~

http://slobotabouttown.com/pacolet_soapstone_quarry.html

Posted by [CMD ]
That is a fun link! There's a quarry site just west of Providence here in RI where you can see the bowl forms still attached to the outcrop like the quarry shown at the link. Thanks for sharing that!

Posted by [Hoss ]
This was an awesome thread I am wondering if this was a smudge pot. Anyone ever see or hear of a a smudge ceremony? Anther thing is Eskimo Peoples used oil lamps. Who is to say this practice didn't migrate south. Maybe even started here and Migrated north. Light was essential to the peoples of the far north because in winter they had only a small widow of day light each day. Just some things to ponder!