Think of the range of saucepans, tupperware, washing-up bowls, cardboard boxes, plastic buckets and tins as well as plates, mugs and serving dishes which we use today. In the past, pottery vessels fulfilled many of these domestic and industrial functions, so the remains of these containers can be found almost anywhere. Although pots break into pieces very easily, the individual sherds survive well in the ground and the quantity, type and date of pottery from a site can tell us a lot about how the site was used in the past. Other containers made of wood or leather rarely survive in the archaeological record.
This is a rim sherd of a Late Saxon Thetford-type ware storage jar with the stump of a strap handle, stamped decoration on the upper edge, an impressed wavy line on the exterior, and clay added to the interior, the top and the exterior. The original diameter of the vessel would have been about 290mm. Pots like this were made in Thetford, Ipswich and Norwich between about 850 and 1100.