Finally got that stubborn piece of pottery to fit after three days

I was working on a ceramic vessel from a dig near Mesa Verde and had this one fragment that just wouldn't line up with the others (it was driving me nuts). Turns out I had it flipped upside down the whole time, which I only realized after comparing it to a similar piece in the site catalog for like the tenth time. Has anyone else ever spent way too long on a simple reassembly like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

ben13823d ago

Oh man, I used to get so frustrated trying to force pieces together. I had a Roman oil lamp handle once that I swore was a rim sherd for two whole days. Seeing it in the reference photos finally clicked, and now I check orientation before anything else.

sandra_black23d ago

That's such a good point about checking orientation first. I used to just look for color and pattern matches, which got me into trouble more than once. Now I always try to figure out which way is up before anything else.

felixa186h ago

Yeah, it's one of those things that seems obvious after you mess it up. I was reading this old field report where the dig lead talked about how they'd lay out all the rim pieces flat on a table first, just to see the curve, before even touching the body sherds. @ben138's story about the lamp handle is a perfect example of why that step matters so much. It saves so much time and glue. My brain wants to jump straight to the pretty designs, but forcing myself to slow down and find the top edge changed everything.