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About 8 years ago I signed up for some knapping lessons with Jack Cresson . We met, had lunch, some conversation and made an outing to collect hammer stones. We made plans to drive together to a knap-in at House Mountain VA. We drove the 8 hrs straight through! That weekend, among others, I met a man named Don Muscher. He was and an old friend of Jack's and we hit it off and had a good weekend. It was a good weekend even though I busted my finger open spalling quartzite boulders. I returned the following year alone and ran into Don again. He had remembered me and he invited me over to visit his place nearby when the weekend knapping was over. I wasn't becoming a very good knapper but I shared my enthusiasm for a large pottery find I had recently put together (my profile pic). Well we had a good day at his house and he offered me a box of pottery scraps he had worked on. They had been sitting for years, maybe decades. He gave me the small box which had two separate bags in it. He wished me luck in fitting some pieces together and we parted ways. I was ecstatic and thanked him, promising to send photos of any progress I made. I drove home and started on the project the next day. When I had finished many days later I sent photos. We exchanged emails and even talked on the phone a few times. He sent many funny emails. As years went by we stopped keeping in touch. Sadly I just learned he passed away about 6 months ago.
Don told me he dug the sherds from a hole he was working on the Susquehanna riverside years back in Milan Pa. There were known native villages until almost 1800 there and in 2017 a large project was started there to recover artifacts according to an article I found online. These photos I have show the partial bowl, which was globular in shape and in its original state was probably about 15" wide and high or more. I had to re-attach a piece which was damaged when my wife had a little accident despite the plexiglass cube cover. So I documented the repair of the rim piece. First off, I forgave her lol. Noteworthy is the frail condition of this item. The sherds were quite deteriorated. I don't know if it is acidic soil, poor clay, or what. The inside of the sherds are black. Was it over cooked?
I used Elmer's glue like always simply because un-glueing only takes some water. Tape holds the piece in place while it dries. I like to stick the tape to something else first so it's adhesion will not take the design off but is still strong enough to hold the little piece for a few hours. After it dried and I removed the tape a visible crack was seen which I decided to fill. As you can see from the photos I managed to put together two separate sections of the vessel which do not fit together. There is also one loan piece that fits no where. I stole a tiny piece off the spare piece and crushed it to dust for filler. I put some glue in the crack and sprinkled the ground, dusty particles to fill the crack and smooth the appearance a little. It made a noticable improvement. Considering the poor preservation of the vessel I didn't get into matching impressions on this part.
All in all I'm thankful for meeting Don and for his kindness and generosity, and I'm satisfied with the way this project came together. This vessel has a nice collared rim and cool designs still visible. By the way the other small bag in the box had pieces none of which fit together. Thanks for looking.
P.s. on the back there is some shiny glue from when Don tried to assemble the pieces years before. Not sure what it is. Also on the back is a piece of masking tape or maybe drywall tape left from his efforts.
Don told me he dug the sherds from a hole he was working on the Susquehanna riverside years back in Milan Pa. There were known native villages until almost 1800 there and in 2017 a large project was started there to recover artifacts according to an article I found online. These photos I have show the partial bowl, which was globular in shape and in its original state was probably about 15" wide and high or more. I had to re-attach a piece which was damaged when my wife had a little accident despite the plexiglass cube cover. So I documented the repair of the rim piece. First off, I forgave her lol. Noteworthy is the frail condition of this item. The sherds were quite deteriorated. I don't know if it is acidic soil, poor clay, or what. The inside of the sherds are black. Was it over cooked?
I used Elmer's glue like always simply because un-glueing only takes some water. Tape holds the piece in place while it dries. I like to stick the tape to something else first so it's adhesion will not take the design off but is still strong enough to hold the little piece for a few hours. After it dried and I removed the tape a visible crack was seen which I decided to fill. As you can see from the photos I managed to put together two separate sections of the vessel which do not fit together. There is also one loan piece that fits no where. I stole a tiny piece off the spare piece and crushed it to dust for filler. I put some glue in the crack and sprinkled the ground, dusty particles to fill the crack and smooth the appearance a little. It made a noticable improvement. Considering the poor preservation of the vessel I didn't get into matching impressions on this part.
All in all I'm thankful for meeting Don and for his kindness and generosity, and I'm satisfied with the way this project came together. This vessel has a nice collared rim and cool designs still visible. By the way the other small bag in the box had pieces none of which fit together. Thanks for looking.
P.s. on the back there is some shiny glue from when Don tried to assemble the pieces years before. Not sure what it is. Also on the back is a piece of masking tape or maybe drywall tape left from his efforts.
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