This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

,?<v.
Shell-Edge Decorated Ceramics
Rufus Ward, Jr.
Shell-edge decorated ceramics were one of the most commonly used tablewares during the nineteenth century, and they therefore provide a very useful tool in the dating of late eighteenth-century sites. The shell-edge pattern went through a series of style changes between 1790 and 1870. These changes in style provide a chronology that can help date historic sites where shell-edge decorated ceramics are found.
One of the most useful ceramic patterns, for the purpose of dating Historic sites, is shell-edge. As used here, "edge decorated" refers to a ceramic vessel, usually a flatware, which has a molded (impressed or embossed) decoration around its rim, although some lack embossing. Of all edge decorated ceramics, shell-edge is the most common. It was a molded, closely spaced grooved decoration around the rim of a vessel. Later the shell-edge was simply painted on. This decoration normally is painted in blue or green underglaze, though on occasion it may be found uncolored or in black, brown, wine, reddish pink, yellow, or red. After ca. 1840 colors other than blue are rare (Miller 1991). The earliest reference found for shell-edge in the United States was for green and blue edged ware "in the New York Daily Advertiser for Jan. 1, 1791" (Noel Hume 1978b). In the Tombigbee River valley green edge plates were being sold by 1804 and blue edge plates by 1805 (Choctaw Trading House 1960). Shell-edge and related edge decorations were in use from ca. 1755 through 1900. Just as clothing styles changed over time, the styles of edged decorations, including shell-edge, changed (Figures 1 and 2). These changes in style provide a very important tool for dating nineteenth-century ceramics.
The first recorded usages of shell-edge were by Bow and Wedgwood in 1755 (Noel Hume 1969; Miller 1991). Early shell-edge examples also appear on tin-glazed earthenware and creamware ceramics which were produced in England and on late eighteenth-century Chinese export porcelain (Hunter and Miller 1994). Although creamware was developed during the 1740s, the earliest known creamware shell-edge decoration occurred on a Wedgwood plate commemorating the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Orange in 1767 (Noel Hume 1969). Josiah Wedgwood's 1770 pattern book illustrates, as pattern no. 83 in 1772, a black or
Missississippi Archaeology: Vol. 32, No. I