Clay pipe dating

[Downer]

You could try a university Archeology Dept (or are you in/know one already?), though I expect they are inundated with requests and have other things to do with their expensive toys. It ought to be of genuine interest though.

 

[Peter Burgess]

You could try a university Archeology Dept (or are you in/know one already?), though I expect they are inundated with requests and have other things to do with their expensive toys. It ought to be of genuine interest though.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so rude about Graham.  :kiss2:

 

[graham]

You could try a university Archeology Dept (or are you in/know one already?), though I expect they are inundated with requests and have other things to do with their expensive toys. It ought to be of genuine interest though.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so rude about Graham.  :kiss2:

Why not? Everybody else is. 

Peter, one of my interests is Palaeolithic cave art. I know of cases where serious researchers have suggested that drawings have been done using charcoal from already ancient wood, thus negating the value of C14 dates from the art itself. I also know of arguments as to whether carved pieces have been made from fresh or fossil bone and ivory. These things can happen.

You can get a radiocarbon date done at Oxford for a few hundred quid. Before so doing, you need to ask what question, exactly, are you asking. In the case of residue in a clay pipe you would be asking about the last time it was used. You then need to ask whether it is reasonable to deduce whether it was discarded at that point immediately after use or whether it could have been introduced some other way.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Well, a claypipe that has been handled by someone with really sweaty hands, or after eating a greasy sandwich might put fresh carbon into the bowl, and if we are talking milligrams then that might be significant. If we are talking rotten pitprops, one has to ask how much is original wood, and how much might be introduced carbon such as worms and beetles. The props are probably too far gone for dendrochronology.

Ideally we need a tame student who wants a good project, so the work is part of his/her degree/PhD work, otherwise tis a lot of money.

 

[Downer]

Not a problem at least for the wood. Insects or insect dross or resident fungi are all derived from the same carbon source so they'll all have the same C14 date as the wood. For the clay pipe, if you've got fibrous plant residue you can just wash all the greasy contaminants away - hexane followed by acetone should do the job quite nicely and they'll automatically be flashed off in the vaccuum. Doing it with a smear of tar might be more difficult but a chromatogram should tell you whether it's been contaminated - no doubt involving another fee - but you really are getting into forensic territory there.

 

[graham]

Not a problem at least for the wood. Insects or insect dross or resident fungi are all derived from the same carbon source so they'll all have the same C14 date as the wood.

Not so, all the living stuff, insects fungi, etc, will be absorbing carbon from atmospheric CO2.

 

[Downer]

Not a problem at least for the wood. Insects or insect dross or resident fungi are all derived from the same carbon source so they'll all have the same C14 date as the wood.

Not so, all the living stuff, insects fungi, etc, will be absorbing carbon from atmospheric CO2.

Nooo.... they metabolize carbon-rich food by oxidation to CO2. You're thinking of green plants.

edit: Hardly anything can reduce carbonate to organics, that's why plants need energetic photons. A few beasties like shellfish use a significant amount of carbonate in their shells and this means the source of the ion in the water can be important but not so fungi and insects. You could add an acid rinse if contamination with carbonate were an issue but I doubt it ever could be.

 

[Sid Weighells Dog]

Judging from the size of the bowl, I would have thought mid-late 18th C might be reasonable - 17th C pipe bowls are tiny because tobacco was incredibly expensive and the preserve of the wealthy whereas 19th C bowls can be huge, maybe 2 or 2.5 inches high and an inch across. Used to have quite a collection before the former Mrs Dog decided to 'lose' them moving house. If you found it in a quarry it probably belonged to a working class guy so it's probably from a time when tobacco was less expensive and also not the preserve of the wealthy. What I'm trying to say in my usual crap style is that you can roughly date a pipe bowl with no mark by the size of the bowl and the context, the size of the bowl and the variety of contexts in which pipes can be found increasing as tobacco becomes less expensive and more widely available. I could be wrong. I probably am.

 

[AndyF]

Ah! Now I DO know about this stuff.... well a bit....

Quite difficult because all you can truly date is when the MOULD was made. They may have been used for 20-30 years before being discarded, so a true manufacture date is difficult.

Its looks about 1760-80...... Heather Colemans web site is one place to look this up.

http://www.dawnmist.demon.co.uk/pipe-1.htm

The key it the stem is quite thick. Thicker stem means longer stem (for strength). As tobacco prices dropped, stems got shorter becaue you could smoke while you worked (with your hands free) as opposed to having to hold the thing all the time (long stem) This transition happened about 1790, as tobacco started to come in from the US in large quantity

 

[Caving mummy]

I'm currently dating a collection of Clay pipes from a site in Devon  :-\. no need for carbon dating, all you need is the diameter of the hole in the stem to give you a good idea of the age.

use this link to find out the date. http://www.mahg.org.uk

 

[John B]

Just found myself back on UKC having googled "dating clay tobacco pipes"! I've spent some time on this subject because of the sizeable collection at Eyam Museum.

Andy - are you sure you didn't mean 1660-80? Bulbous bowl, thick stem, top of bowl not parallel to the stem, flat bottomed spur......?

 

[droid]

Not so, all the living stuff, insects fungi, etc, will be absorbing carbon from atmospheric CO2.

You sure?

AFAIK only plants use atmospheric CO2, in photosynthesis.

Don't get too many photosynthesising organisms down a mine.

 

[pwhole]

Well, if anyone's got any ideas, here's half a clay pipe found on an alcove in a mine 'near Bradwell' recently - no idea on date, but it seemed quite chunky to me. The shothole behind it at left was the smaller, three-quarter inch size, but obviously the pipe and the shothole have no direct connection other than proximity!

 

[bograt]

Well, if anyone's got any ideas, here's half a clay pipe found on an alcove in a mine 'near Bradwell' recently - no idea on date, but it seemed quite chunky to me. The shothole behind it at left was the smaller, three-quarter inch size, but obviously the pipe and the shothole have no direct connection other than proximity!

This brings back memories, I think it's the same one I saw back in the early '80's, in a short level going off part way down a shaft to the North of Bradwell, not too far from the farm buildings?, I thought that shaft had been 'landscaped' over. I recall getting to the bottom of the shaft and doing my chageover on some floating debris, not realising they where bloated dead sheep!. 

 

[pwhole]

Ah no - this is to the south of Bradwell. Can't be any more specific as yet (though we had permission to drop this one), as vast droves of cavers following was not on the landowner's list of options! Between 25-35m deep, as it's got steep, and very loose slopes underground. Suffice to say it didn't connect to anywhere else, but it was a good example of a mined-out then slabbed-over opencut, with a couple of 'shafts' for access. Well dodgy access, I should point out...

 

[bograt]

Sorry, meant south, senility creeps in, I'm sure its the same pipe and I remember a slabbed level. don't recall any steep, loose slopes though, it must have been "landscaped"

Sounds like the same landowner, too.