Maren Weidner, Martin Kügler

The 16th Meeting of the German Society for Clay-Pipe Research was held at the District Museum in Grimma, Saxony, from Friday 26 April to Sunday 28 April 2002 at the kind invitation of Marita Pesenecker, the Museum Director. The central theme was clay-pipe production in central Germany and surroundings. The evaluation of a archaeological material excavated in Leipzig and Freiberg in the last few years has brought to light a large number of clay pipes that can be identified as products of pipemakers in Saxony or Thuringia. Pipe finds in clay-pipe production centres combined with documentary research have made it possible to integrate the individual research results. The aim of the meeting in Grimma was to analyse these results from the central German region, as well as to encourage further research work.
As in previous years, many of the 40 participants from Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, Great Britain and Poland took the opportunity to get together in the evening of 25th April, the arrival day, to meet the new members, as well as to renew contacts from earlier meetings.

On 26th April, Martin Kügler (Görlitz) welcomed the participants on behalf of the Society, and Frau Marita Pesenecker and Herr Linke on behalf of the District of Muldental. Thomas Westphalen, who represented the Landesamt für Archäologie and the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte, stressed the importance of clay pipes to recent archaeology and said that the Landesamt was interested in supporting any archaeological excavation work on local clay pipe manufactories in Saxony. Ralf Kluttig-Altmann (Leipzig) presented the newest volume of KnasterKOPF, which contained reports on 17th century clay pipes from western and southern Germany, as well as many international papers. He explained that it was the largest volume of KnasterKOPF produced so far, having 120 pages in DIN A4 format.

The first paper, which was given by M. Pesenecker, was on clay-pipe making in Grimma. The main sources of information in this case were reports of a court action which Friedrich Heinrich Neumann, a pipemaker who started work in Grimma in 1769, took against another local pipemaker. The speaker showed that these reports contained a variety of references to the copying of Gouda marks, as well as the social and business relations between the Grimma pipemakers themselves, and between them and the pipemakers in Altenburg and Waldenburg. It is interesting that no pipemakers' guild was ever established in Grimma.

Martin Kügler and Ralf Kluttig-Altmann gave an account of the status of research on clay-pipe production in central Germany. In Saxony and Thuringia, clay-pipe production began in some places in the late 17th century, and in others from the middle of the 18th century onwards. For many places there is little documentary evidence, often only a single short mention of pipemaking (Dresden, Königsbrück, and Bad Muskau), while for other places it has been possible to localise a considerable number of clay-pipe factories (Grimma, Waldenburg and Altenburg). Genealogical studies have been started; they have revealed that many pipemakers' families in different towns were related, e.g. the Laspes, who are dealt with in publications by Bernd Standke, Günter Unteidig amd Ralf Kluttig-Altmann . A documentary record has recently been discovered in the form of an entry in a death register by Hans Tielmann, master potter and pipemaker in Leipzig, who buried his son in 1656. This record is the earliest mention of a named pipemaker in Germany. Material quite recently found in Zittau comprises about 600 pipe fragments dated around the middle of the 17th century. The quality of the pipes is poor. However, the production method was very unusual. The bowl was made first and the decoration impressed around it by hand. Then the stem, which already had a hole pierced through it, was attached to the bowl. Since many unsmoked examples of these pipes were found, it was concluded that the were made locally in Zittau. Similar pipe fragments have turned up in Görlitz and Breslau. These finds provide us with evidence that in eastern Germany clay-pipe making began at an early date, around 1650, apparently refuting the theory that pipemaking spread gradually across Europe from west to east.

The geology of pipeclay deposits in Saxony was the subject of a paper by Gerda Standke, Freiberg. Several of the horizons of clay deposited during the Tertiary period possess a high content of kaolin. Several grades of clay can be recognised, but not all of them are suitable for the manufacture of clay pipes. It is important to understand that the term pipeclay does not refer to a clay of uniform composition; it can vary in its mineralogical composition from place to place. Extensive deposits of pipeclay occur in the Lausitz near Leipzig, and these supplied a wide area with good clay. The Waldenburg pipemakers obtained their clay mostly from a deposit near Frohnsdorf.
Günter Unteidig (Grimma) reported on clay pipes found in 1992 in Grimma when a house in Mühlenstrasse was demolished. A house incorporating a pottery that also produced tiles existed on this site in the 18th century; the property was bought by Kramer, a pipemaker, in 1792. He pulled down the pottery kiln that was built up against the town wall and replaced it with a clay-pipe kiln. On Kramer's death in 1824, his son took over the business and continued production until 1844. During demolition of the house in 1992, clay pipes and kiln waste were found, as well as the remains of a pipe kiln, from which it was possible to obtain a good idea of its mode of construction.

Gerhard Mattuschka, Leisnig, reported on finds that had been made outside the town wall of Leisnig. They document the beginning of clay-pipe making in Leisnig in 1697. The chief period of clay-pipe production, however, was between 1730 and about 1830. The raw material was obtained from clay deposits at Kukeland and Ostrau.
The last paper given on the first day was by Martin Kügler on clay-pipe finds in the Schönhof in Görlitz. During renovation work on the floor of the building, 22 pieces of pipe including nine fragments of bowl were found. The material consisted of a pipe bowl of Dutch origin dated around 1620, three 18th century pipe bowls of Dutch type and four pieces of 17th century pipes of an unusual type. The bowl and stem must have been made initially in a straight line and bent to the required angle at a later stage in the process. The quality of the bowls, on which the design was manually impressed, is poor. The provenance of these pipes, which were not produced using the then conventional methods, is not known. No pipemaker is documented as having lived in Görlitz at this period. In fact, it was not until 1777 that Johann Conrad Wille, the first Görlitz pipemaker, settled in the town and, helped by his family, produced pipes until the 1830s.
The participants at the meeting took this opportunity to examine clay-pipe finds from Grimma. They also examined copies of Gouda pipes, which had been identified by M. Pesenecker and described in several papers. They are easily recognisable as copies but the excellent quality of these Grimma-made pipes is a surprising feature. The Gouda marks appear so frequently on these pipes that it was considered urgent to answer the question of what criteria can be used to identify genuine Gouda pipes. This would also help to answer the question as to what is the true percentage of Gouda pipes amongst clay pipes excavated in Saxony and in Germany in general. This well known problem, which crops up again and again, was discussed when examining clay-pipe finds in Grimma, as well as on the two excursions to Waldenburg and Altenburg. For this reason, utmost caution is recommended, certainly more than in the past, when identifying a clay pipe as a Gouda product. Moreover, we could recommend that research in the Netherlands tackle the topic of exports of Gouda pipes to Germany as a matter of urgency.
During a guided tour of the town of Grimma, G. Unteidig showed the participants the sites of several pipe factories that had been located in Grimma and explained that the remains of pipe kilns were often still in the ground, mostly undisturbed.

On the second day of the meeting, Natascha Mehler, Reykjavik, presented a paper about clay pipes on Iceland. In the 18th century, attempts were made to grow tobacco on Iceland, but they met with little success. So far pipes have been found at 28 different sites on Iceland, although there were never any clay-pipe factories on Iceland. The finds are therefore all imports. N. Mehler gave an account of pipes discovered on the site of a former wool mill in Adalstræti, the oldest street in Reykjavik, and at that time the only street in the place. Most of the clay pipes from the wool mill, which was destroyed by fire in 1764, come from Gouda, although Danish and English pipes also occur.

Michael Mattern, Altenburg, gave a paper on clay-pipe production in Altenburg. The Laspe family of clay-pipe makers originally came from Hannoversch-Münden to Altenburg. It is not only possible to document four generations of Laspes but also the houses in which they lived. A chance find led to the excavation of 10,000 pipe stems and about 480 pipe bowls at one of these properties. These include many different models of pipes with and without spurs, as well as stub-stemmed pipes. The Laspes rarely used "ALTENBURG" as inscription on the pipe stem; the most common were GOUDA and DRESDEN, impressed around the stem. Copies of marks of Gouda pipemakers were frequently used. Around 1820, the last pipemaker in Altenburg, Christian Friedrich Laspe, left for Dresden, where he is said to have continued his trade.
In the afternoon, the participants went to Waldenburg and Altenburg on an excursion. First they visited the local museum and natural history collection, and examined an 18th century collection of rarities that belonged to an apothecary named Linke, as well as the famous Waldenburg stoneware. But more important for the participants were clay pipes found in Waldenburg. One of the staff of the museum explained to us the history of pipemaking in Waldenburg, and that a pipemakers' guild was established in Waldenburg in 1725. Seventeen pipemakers are documented in Waldenburg for 1760 and twenty in 1804. The last clay-pipe factory closed down in 1894/95.
Next, two working potteries were visited. Grünert's pottery produces Waldenburg stoneware, which is based on medieval designs. The firing is still done in a 150-year-old Kassel long-kiln. The other pottery, called "Am alten Ofen" produces a modern range using a round kiln dating from 1912.
The next stop was in Altenburg, an old town famous for making playing cards. The participants were welcomed by Dr. Berndt Drischmann, councillor responsible for buildings. We were shown into St. Marien, a Norman church known as the "Rote Spitze", where the town's archaeological section is housed. Here, many finds from the land that belonged to the Laspe family were examined, as well as numerous clay-pipe fragments from other sites in the town. Michael Mattern then led the party on a tour of the town of Altenburg.

The last day of the meeting began with a paper by Walter Morgenroth, Tutzing, on pipe production by Johann Friedrich Böttger in Meissen. In 1711 Böttger founded a pipe factory together with a Johann Müller, a pipemaker who was born in Wesel on the Lower Rhine. Apart from clay pipes, a small number of pipes (200) were also made from Böttger stoneware in this factory. Production only lasted three years, after which Müller returned to Wesel and died in 1729.

Wojciech Siwiak, Bydgoszcz, Poland, gave an account of a large number of clay pipes that had been found in the old part of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) between 1994 and 2001. The age of the clay and porcelain pipes found range from the 17th to 19th centuries. They include pipes from the Netherlands as well as a large number of pipes from the factory at Rostin (Roscin, Poland), which display many marks copied from those registered in Gouda. In addition, products of the pipe manufactory at Weissenspring are documented by inscriptions around the stem.

Lastly, Rüdiger Articus, Hamburg; spoke on the subject of "German women don't smoke". There are a large number of writings and pictures which show that, particularly in rural areas as well as amongst the aristocracy, smoking was by no means confined to the male sex. Many women also took snuff. In contrast, in the 18th century, smoking and snuff taking was considered improper by the middle class. However, as the emancipation of women gathered momentum, women gradually won back the right to smoke. It is surprising to find evidence in publications from England dated 1640 that not only men and women but also children smoked on a massive scale.

Ralf Kluttig-Altmann and Martin Kügler made several announcements about the work of the Society and about KnasterKOPF. The 2003 Meeting of the Society will take place in Heidelberg on 2-4 May at the kind invitation of the Kurpfälzische Museum, and in 2004 the Society will be holding their Meeting in Vierraden. The participants' attention was drawn to the new Society homepage, which incorporates multilanguage summaries (English, Dutch, French and German) of all papers in KnasterKOPF (welcome to our website at www.knasterkopf.de). The homepage is being updated (with the most up-to-date information on the left) and it is hoped that further languages will be added to the above list. Help was requested from members of the Society in gathering information for various projects: on metal tobacco pipes, clay pipes as building material, and clay pipes from the border area between Saxony and Silesia, as well as with an international glossary of clay-pipe terminology. The present situation with regard to KnasterKOPF as far as the content is concerned is most pleasing, since several articles have already been submitted for Vol. 16 (2003), apart from the papers presented at Grimma, which will be published. The submission deadline for Vol. 16 is 31st Oct. 2002.

Finally, Martin Kügler thanked all participants for making the Meeting, the lectures and the discussions so worthwhile; he thanked Michael Mattern for the interesting tour of Altenburg and the District of Muldental, under whose responsibility the District Museum in Grimma lies, for allowing the Society to hold its annual Meeting in the museum. Martin Kügler was especially grateful to Marita Pesenecker, the Director of Grimma Museum, for coping with all the organisation in Grimma. The smooth running and success of the Meeting were chiefly due to Marita Pesenecker's hard work and enthusiasm. All participants were not only made to feel very welcome in Grimma, they were also well fed and cared for and each person was presented with a "Weckmann" and clay pipe as a surprise gift - thus Marita Pesenecker made our stay in Grimma a pleasant and memorable experience, and she succeeded in creating a harmonious atmosphere for what was certainly a most valuable and well attended Meeting.

Dipl. Prähist. Maren Weidner, Boninstraße 65, 24114 Kiel, und
Dr. Martin Kügler, Bergstraße 3, 02826 Görlitz,

May 2002