Found a piece of pottery in my backyard and it turned into a whole thing

I was digging a new flower bed last Tuesday and my shovel hit something hard. It was a broken piece of pottery with a blue glaze pattern. I called the local university archaeology department, and a grad student came out the next day. She spent about 3 hours carefully looking and found two more pieces nearby. She said it looks like late 1800s transferware, which is pretty common but still cool to find. Has anyone else had a random find in their own yard turn into a mini dig?

4 comments

4 Comments

oliviajenkins1mo ago

Late 1800s transferware" is pretty common, like you said. I'm surprised they sent a grad student out for that, seems like a lot of fuss for some old dishes.

finley7841mo ago

Honestly I used to think the same way about it being a lot of fuss. But I saw a show where they found a piece with a super rare factory mark mixed in with a common set. That grad student might be checking for something like that, a tiny detail that changes everything. It seems over the top until you realize what they could be actually looking for.

zara_wilson1mo ago

Oliviajenkins said it seems like a lot of fuss. I get that. I found some old glass bottles in my garden. Called the historical society on a whim. They sent a volunteer who was really into it. He explained how the shape and color dated them to a local dairy from the 1920s. It wasn't treasure, but it connected my house to a real story. That made the fuss worth it for me.

jamiesullivan15d ago

My aunt had a box of old buttons from a house sale. Looked like junk. A local museum person saw them and got so excited. One button was from a Civil War uniform, super rare for our area. The rest were just normal, but that one piece rewrote the whole story. Sometimes the fuss finds the one thing that matters.