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ON CLAY SMOKING-PIPES IN THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH (O glinianych fajkach zlozonych (lulkach) na ziemiach polskich (XVII-XIX w.))

100%

Bis M.

Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

2009

vol. 57

issue 2

229-242

The custom of smoking tobacco in pipes was accepted in Poland later than that of taking snuff or chewing tobacco leaves. In Western Europe pipes came into common use during the Thirty Years War. In Poland, according to an account from 1671, they were not popular yet, and were used mainly by soldiers and artisans. In the 18th c., however, pipes were already very popular throughout society, including its elite. Both pipes and snuff were commonly used until cigarettes appeared in the second half of the 19th c. Smokers in old Poland used various kinds of pipes, either consisting of one piece or of three pieces; the latter type was called lulka. In thee-part pipes the three pieces (the bowl, the stem and the mouthpiece) were made separately, usually of different materials. Bowls were usually made of clay, stems - of wood and mouthpieces - of horn. Some pipes were additionally equipped with a string to be hanged on. Poles mostly used three-part clay pipes manufactured in Poland or imported from Bulgaria or Turkey. Short-stem pipes were more handy and could be used while working or travelling; they were also easy to store. Smoking tobacco in long-stem pipes required not only assistance in lighting but also leisure to enjoy it to the full. Therefore long-stem pipes were mostly an attribute of the rich and an object of luxury. Burghers, soldiers and the poor used simple short-stem pipes. Pipe bowls increased as the production of tobacco grew and its price fell. An analysis of pipes in terms of origin, construction and production technology can provide data on the directions of cultural influence and trade links in old Poland, as well as on the popularization of certain smoking routines. Issues connected with three-part clay pipes - their construction, production or origin - have been tackled only marginally in some Polish publications. No attention has been devoted to terminology, which is used imprecisely in the Polish literature of the subject.Most Polish terms referring to smoking accessories (lulka, cybuch, antypka, kapciuch, stambulka) have Oriental etymology. This might suggest that Eastern models had a decisive influence on accepting pipes in Poland. On the other hand, terms such as fajka, munsztuk and pipka point to the Western origin of the phenomenon. The origin of clay pipes is usually difficult to establish. Most specimen are not marked and have no ornaments that could be helpful in dating. Only Turkish pipes, which have a characteristic shape and are sometimes marked with the producer's sign, are easier to identify. Between the 17th and 19th c. three-part pipes were probably manufactured in twelve places in the Commonwealth: Alwernia, Biecz, Brzozow, Gdansk, Gliniany, Glinsk, Mrzyglod, Rabka, Staszów, Vilnius and Warsaw. This has been confirmed by numerous finds of pipes in the town of Biecz and the remains of pottery workshops discovered in Warsaw and Vilnius. With only spoken evidence available, it is difficult to be sure about the production of pipes in Gdansk. The existence of a workshop in Staszów is confirmed by signed pipe bowls found in various archaeological sites, e.g. in Tykocin and Warsaw. Pipes and their fragments have been found in various Ukrainian towns, e.g. in Zolkiew and Kiev, which confirms that their manufacture was undertaken in the 19th c in Glinsk. To confirm the production of clay pipes in the remaining places mentioned, as well as in towns missing from the above list, it is necessary to undertake historical and archaeological research which could supply data on the development of pipe-making craft in a given area.

SMOKING-PIPES FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT THE CASTLE IN TYKOCIN FROM THE 17TH-19TH C. (Lulki z wykopalisk na zamku w Tykocinie z XVII-XIX w.)

100%

Bis M.

Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

2011

vol. 59

issue 1

53-88

Clay heads (stummels, bowls, pipe bodies) of three-piece smoking pipes have been excavated in several dozen sites all over Poland. Most of the finds consisted of several pipes. The largest find, including ca 400 fragments, comes from Lezajsk; ca 100 were found in Zamosc; finds of several dozen items come from the Old Town and the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the town of Przemysl and the Dominikanski Square in Wroclaw (Breslau). The newest among the finds are those from Lezajsk (the second half of the 19th c. and the turn of the 20th c.); the oldest artefact, dated to the 16th-17th c., was found in Elblag (Elbing); 17th-century pipes were excavated in Boleslawiec on the Prosna, Tykocin, Warsaw and Zlota. Precise dating is possible only in some cases, for example the pipes found in the former camp of the Polish army near Wojnicz can be dated at before 1655, those excavated in the Royal Castle and the Castle Square in Warsaw at the second half of the 17th c. and the first half of the 18th c., those from the remains of a potter's workshop at Brama Poboczna [the Side Gate] at the 17th c. and those from the house of Bochenkowicz in Warsaw at the second half of the 18th c. and the beginning of the 19th c. Although since the 1990s this type of artefact has gained more attention among scholars and has been addressed in a growing number of publications, only few finds have been described in detail. Therefore, it is interesting to consider the pipes excavated in the castle of Tykocin, which are numerous, varied and properly dated. The author aims to present the forms and ornaments of the pipes from this collection, as well as to systematise them. The finds in question were excavated during the exploration of the castle complex in Tykocin, in the province of Podlasie, in the years 2001-2005. There are 30 clay pipe heads in the collection. Most of them were found in the culture layers connected with the functioning of the Tykocin castle from the beginning of the 17th c. to the mid 18th c. The events that took place there at that time are important in determining the provenance of the pipes. It is, however, difficult to find out for how long a given artefact was used. It can only be supposed that clay heads were not durable and they were disposed of if damaged. The durability of such artefacts probably depended on the individual features of the users. Apart from clay heads, the Tykocin finds include three fragments of white one-piece pipes. The pipes were probably used by the soldiers who fought or were stationed in the castle. They can be dated at the period from the second half of the 17th c. to the mid 19th c. The data on all the pipe heads are collected in table 1. Only one of the heads is unbroken; the others are in fact fragments of different size. Most were made of ferruginous clay; only two are white. All were made of well-washed ceramic body. 1/3 of the heads analysed were certainly made with matrices. The majority were fired in an oxidising atmosphere; their potsherds are of various shades of beige or brick-red. Five of the heads (shaped of ferruginous clay) were fired in a reducing atmosphere; those are black. In 11 cases (37%) the outer surface is covered with a thin layer of glaze, in most cases lead glaze - only head no. 9 is covered with clay glaze. The glaze coatings are light and dark green, yellow and light brown; the clay glaze is of cherry colour. The ornaments on the heads are usually schematic, of floral or geometric forms. The simplest ornaments were incised or rolled. There is an example of the stamping technique, with the motif of rosette repeated five times. More varied and complicated ornaments were moulded in the matrix together with the head; those include notches, single flowers or stylised floral shapes and check motifs. Burnishing was aimed at producing a smooth surface effect. The polygonal shape of some rims (rings), bowls and shanks are also of decorative character. Only one pipe from this collection, no. 30, dated at the mid 19th c., is marked with the stamp of the producer - a manufacturer from Staszów in Little Poland. Half of the pipes were certainly used, since their chambers are blackened and sooted. Since the finds are mostly fragments, the data on the shape and size of the pipes are incomplete. There are few data on the rims, which are scarce among the finds. Perhaps this was the part of the pipe the was most easily damaged, and if that happened the pipe was unusable and the head was thrown away. Based mainly on foreign publications and the works of Philippe Gosse, John W. Hayes, Rebecca C.W. Robinson, the author has proposed a typology of the finds from Tykocin. Furthermore, taking into consideration the shape, the ornaments and the technological criteria she has classified the finds into eight groups. For some of them analogies can be traced in other finds from Poland and from abroad. Only in few cases it was possible to hypothesise about the provenance of the pipes. Some of them were probably made in Turkey or modelled on Turkish pipes (heads no. 5,6, 10 and 13 of group 2, heads no. 18, 21-24 of group 3 and heads no. 28 and 29 of group 7). Some of the heads from group 5 (no. 15 and 25-27) were possibly produced locally, in Podlasie. One head, no. 30, was certainly manufactured in Poland, in Staszów.

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2 Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

2 Bis M.

1 2011

1 2009

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ON CLAY SMOKING-PIPES IN THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH (O glinianych fajkach zlozonych (lulkach) na ziemiach polskich (XVII-XIX w.))

SMOKING-PIPES FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT THE CASTLE IN TYKOCIN FROM THE 17TH-19TH C. (Lulki z wykopalisk na zamku w Tykocinie z XVII-XIX w.)