Gejut

Samenvatting

Beachcombed. Some fifty years ago the author picked up sherds of various materials washed ashore on the island of Rottumeroog (Groningen): pieces of handmade medieval pottery, stoneware from production centres in the Rhineland dating from the 15th– 16th century, the bottom of a small drinking glass, bottoms of bottles used in the 17th–18th century and even fragments of medieval roofing tiles. The pottery and stoneware were most probably transported by currents and tides from a settlement on the west-coast of the island of Ameland, called Sier. The last traces of Sier were eroded rapidly around the period when the finds were collected. The fragment of a drinking glass is a rare example of a so-called “maigelein”. At Fulda (Germany) this kind of glass was used to hold a relict in the church. In the present case, the glass was probably used in the medieval church of Schiermonnikoog, the last remains of which vanished into the sea at the beginning of the 18th century. This church could also be the source of the roofing tiles. Bottles were transported as cargo and used on ships along the coast and the fragments found on Rottumeroog are most likely to originate from shipwrecks. The earliest recorded stranding on this stretch of coast was in 1323.