2012.11

Kitchen Sieve

Purchased in Syria and on loan from Emeritus Professor Graeme Clarke

Diameter 12.5cm; height 6.5cm

Intact, in good condition; minor scratching and chipping. Round based clay coarseware kitchen sieve with projected rim. Sieve holes relatively irregularly spaced, some imperfectly rendered.

Comparatively inexpensive and generally locally made ‘coarseware’ or ‘common ware’ items may be distinguished from typically imported and more costly ‘fine ware’ (H. Jackson, “The Common Wares from the Housing Insula”, in: H. Jackson and J. Tidmarsh, Jebel Khalid on the Euphrates, vol. 3 (Sydney, 2011) 1; see 2016.01 for an example of fine ware). Common ware pottery provides an insight into the everyday items employed in humble Hellenistic households.

Excavations at the Jebel Khalid Housing Insula in north Syria unearthed a similar common ware sieve, although not an intact example of these fragile clay items. The Jebel Khalid utensil perhaps shows better design than the present sieve; the more evenly staggered holes and more precise piercings would have facilitated drainage, and the handles are a useful addition (H. Jackson, “The Common Wares from the Housing Insula”, 100, fig. 88.7, pl. 19). The present sieve was perhaps produced hastily, or by a relatively inexperienced manufacturer. 

Hellenistic sieves vary greatly in size, material and exact function, and the foodstuffs strained by any particular item can generally only be guessed. A Greek manufactured Hellenistic bronze sieve, however, has been interpreted as undoubtedly a strainer for wine because of vase depictions of very similar objects being used for this purpose (J. Mertens, “A Hellenistic Find in New York”, Metropolitan Museum Journal 11, 1976, 73-75).