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This olive green colored ceramic jug washed in on the Washington State coast, near Westport, WA in the 1960s and was found by my parents. It was riding low in the water as it was loaded down with mussels and barnacles and looked like a bomb. After deciding it wasn't, my parents took it home and cleaned it up. No one has been able to identify it or the mark on it. We have contacted the Burke Museum and also the Smithsonian and they just say it is "a mystery jug". The measurements are: Stands 18" tall, 12" across, 39 1/2 " around the largest part, cemented top is 5" across and 3 1/2 high. It weighs 24 pounds and the base is 8" across. It looks like iron deposits in the clay came out when it was fired. Please tell me what you think or what you know. Thank you very much.

The cemented top makes me think it was a funerary urn -- perhaps tossed into the sea by a grieving relative.

What happens when you shake it? Anything in it?

It has been suggested that it was a Korean Burial Urn. Someone thought that might be a Korean mark. It does not seem to have anything in it, does not rattle or slosh, of course it has been on dry land and in a house for over 40 years. Amos Wood, author of Beachcoming the Pacific, suggested it was washed out of a wreck at the mouth of the Columbia but the mussels and barnacles were too huge for that to have happened. It must have gone around the Japanese Current a couple of times to have the sea life on it so big. Thank you for your interest and comments.

Susan,

This is a common Chinese storage jar probably originating in South China. It might be around 120 years old. Did you break the seal and look inside???

Thanks for your reply. No, my mother never wanted to break the seal. It has remained like this since it was washed in. The age you have put on it is very interesting. It does appear to have been in the water for a long time and not just washed out of a wreck. Do you know what the mark is? Thanks

Susan,

It might be a potters or workshop mark but probably the mark designates the shop that ordered the jars. Some call them egg storage jars. I've posted a pic of my jar with a different mark than yours but otherwise quite similar.

Susan,

I'm surprised the museums you mentioned were baffled. Did you see them in person or send pics? If the latter case, it's highly likely that their ceramics experts never bothered to look at your pics but rather your query was answered by someone in public affairs and never made it to a curator.

Wow! That is amazingly the same. Yours is much more exact while ours is a little more crude in design. Perhaps from a different region or time frame, might be a little older. We did send pictures with our inquiries but remember, this was in the 1960s and before the age of email, etc. Thanks for your help, I certainly know more than I did but it is still a "mystery" how it ended up in the Pacific Ocean and a wonder it was not broken on a rocky shore rather than coming in on a smooth beach. I am thinking of asking the Astoria Maritime Museum if they would like to display it along with their glass float collection so more people could see it, rather than in my living room. Thanks, Susan

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