What is it?

[toddrandolph]

Here's a heavy stoneware something. Found in an institutional dump from about 1915-40 age. The old Cuyahoga County home/hospital which at one time was a working farm with lots of land but now has been replaced by a huge cookie cutter yuppie hotel/retail/office ugly development along I-271.

It's a little over 4 inches in diameter and about a half inch thick, glazed on top, slightly concave irregular bottom that is unglazed. Reminds me of a lid for a Weir jar but that's not it. Jar lid? Perhaps part of some sort of insulator?

 

[toddrandolph]

bottom view. Notice that the center part of the top is raised up and has a narrow shallow slot in it.

 

[cyberdigger]

Looks like a lid to me.. sounds like there would be an interesting back story to that dig..[]

 

[epackage]

Chuck is right, stoneware food jar lid...

 

[toddrandolph]

No interesting back story....I was out there for work. I've been there before. The dump has been somewhat picked over. Tons of bromos and milk of magnesia, and everything else you would expect in an institutional dump. It isn't really a dump concentrated in one area, there is stuff spread out all over the place, presumably when the loads of trash were hauled out and dumped wherever for the pigs to pick through. Not much digging just stuff on the surface and slightly buried. That seems to be a common pattern for the county home dumps around here.

 

[Poison_Us]

How this thing looks, the flat part is unglazed. The top has a raised rim and is "dished" in the middle. Is this correct? So this tells me that unglazed surface would sit on the table, like any other glazed pottery, the base is usually unglazed. So, this would leave a raised rim and dished center up. I would think that this would be a base to a large pot or something that didn't have legs, with a rounded base for this to cradle.

Unless the glaze has warn off the flat part...then food jar lid. [8D]

 

[BillinMo]

Doesn't look like any sort of insulator to me. I'd vote with everyone else for some type of lid.

 

[LC]

Looks like one of those lids for a crock jar with a wire bail on it . The metal part of the bale set into the groove and when the handle was pulled down it would put pressure on the lid as it closed .