Step 1. Gain a goodly amount of previous experience with analysing clay tobacco pipes, to be of maximum help to your old university friend and Project Officer.
Step 2. Share out the bags of clay pipe stems between you. All the pipe fragments had already been roughly sorted into stems, bowls, and anything encrusted with metallic kiln-waste. Now the detailed sort begins! This is going to take a lot longer than you might imagine.
Step 3. Study each tiny fragment for the smallest signs of decoration or markings; fingerprints (what an exciting connection to the pipe maker); larger bore-holes (which often means an earlier pipe); glaze; more kiln-waste; and in general anything unusual. Each time a bag of stems is finished, they are counted, weighed, and entered into the Rainford catalogue. The total stem count is around 6,800!
Step 5. Work out a typology for the bowls. Essentially this means seeing what shapes are most common, and which are variations of other shapes. It can help an archaeologist decide how many moulds were being used to make the pipes ... and it can also drive an archaeologist mad. Squinting and trying desperately to match up the profiles of bowls is a recipe for indecision!
Step 6. Once you've figured out your typology, begin sorting the other bowl fragments - if any pieces are big enough to match into the typology, hurrah. If not, examine them closely for any sign of decoration. This takes a full day.
Step 7. Begin to recognise the most common patterns on bowls. Basket-weave, fluted lines, lines around the rim, leaves or wheatsheafs running up the back and front of the bowls. ..
Step 8. Become fascinated by the weirder patterns. This is the best bit! Buffalo horns - Freemason symbols - a sunburst! Sometimes the patterns are so eroded or fragmentary they're unidentifiable: sometimes they're clear and well-preserved but you don't know what on earth they mean!
Step 10. Leave your friend to finish the job because your time is up, and support her by text message thereafter from afar ...
Step 11. Don't forget to dream about clay pipes and see them every time you blink! Essential step, this.
Emily G.