Ceramics and Sherds

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Ceramics and Sherds

• Kimberley Connors
• www.archeducation.org

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Archaeology

• Material Culture
• Data Recording
• Field Methodology
• Chemical Analysis
• Specialization
• Experiments

• What survives?
• Why does it survive?
• What can it tell us about the past?
• Does it tell us something different than the
  texts?

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Archaeologists vs. Classicists
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What do they do?

• Archaeologist
• Study of ancient cultures from their material
  remains
• Try not to act like Indiana Jones

• Classicists
• Study of classical world through written works
• Try not to act like Caesar

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Artifacts Ceramic Pottery

• Natural Clay deposits
• 10,000 years old
• Different vessels for different purposes
• Firing baking pottery in a kiln
• Kiln oven where pottery is baked at very high
  temps
• Highly industrialized in Roman period

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Etrustian and Greek Roots
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Why do we collect and study pottery?

• Pottery often the most frequent artifact
• easily broken, does not decay and could not be
  recycled 
• Pottery was cheap to replace
• almost everyone used it 
• Archaeologists tool
• provides information about how people from all
  levels of society lived in the past

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Ceramics in the Field

• Only the diagnostics pieces are keep
• First washed and left to dry.
• Keep in separate bags corresponding to a specific
  square and locus on a site
• Separate wares fine ware vs. course ware
• Typed as to piece rim, base, collar, etc.
• Reconstruct the diagnostics pieces

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Sherds

• Sherds vs. Shards
• Typologies How was it made and what was it used
  for?
• (Shapes, Decorations Fabric)
• Chronology When was it made?
• Petrography Where was it made
• Diagnostics sherds used for analysis

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Roman Wares

• Red Gloss Ware
• Course Wares
• Fine Wares

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Dating and Chronology

• Shape of vessels change through time
• Chronological order
• Type series illustrates the pattern of change 
• Provides date when people where using the site

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Trade and Exchange

• Fabric series
• pots made in different places
• where a vessel has come from
• what products they may have contained
• SORT THE SHERDS

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Social Status and Function

• Vessels for cooking, storage, eating and drinking
• How a site or part of a site was used
• Some imported pottery was more expensive
• quantities of more expensive items can indicate
  relative wealth
• combine pottery data with other data
• animal bone and environmental evidence
• issues such as cuisine and trading of goods.

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Amphorae

• large handled pottery vessels,
• transport containers of the Greco-Roman
• storage and transportation of liquids
  foodstuffs
• research into the production, distribution and
  dating of amphorae is one of the most important
  sources for the analysis of the Roman economy
• commonly found in shipwrecks of the Roman period,
  particularly in the western Mediterranean

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1 iugerum 0.62 acres

• Republican era farmers most likely pooled their
  wine yields each year at local cellars
• Local pottery workshops for storage transport
  amphorae
• Romans drank 100 gallons annually

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1st century B.C

• 40,000 amphorae of wine were being imported into
  Gaul every year
• Support the standing armies
• Barter with the Celts for slaves
• ores of silver and copper
• cloth stuffs
• smoked hams.

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Early Imperial Era

• Large estate production of amphorae
• Amphorae bearing estate-markings of one of Julius
  Caesar's business associates, Rabirius Postumus,
  have been found Germany and Sicily.

• Impression L.Q.S.Spanish vintner, Lucius Quintus
  SecundusHadrian's Wall, circa A.D. 80-130

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"Then, when the wine is set, you will tell me
many a tale...." (Ovid, The Amores II.xi)

• wine
• olive oil
• Garum

Left Dressel 1A amphoraCapacity 48 sextarii
6.8 U.S. gallons
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Roman amphora shapes, and amphorae on
wall-painting from Pompeii.
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Diagnostics

• Handles
• Rims
• Collars
• Bases
• Decorated Body
• Potters marks (rare)

• Red Gloss Ware

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Archaeology of the Ancient World
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Anglo-American Pompeii Project

• .

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Interior of a thermopolium
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Looted Art Returns to Italy From NYBy ARIEL
DAVIDThe Associated Press Tuesday, November 6,
2007 237 PM

• A 1st century Roman statue of a reclining woman
  is displayed as one of the eight ancient
  artifacts returned to Italy conference at Italian
  Carabinieri police art squad's headquarters in
  Rome.

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Italy loans works to U.S. museums after 'looted'
items returned Last Updated Thursday, November
30, 2006 135 PM ET CBC Arts Two U.S. museums
have received loaned Italian artifacts after
agreeing to return artwork that Italy says was
looted, some of it decades ago.  The Museum of
Fine Arts in Boston has received a 2.7-metre
Roman statue of Eirene, the goddess of peace,
dating from the first century. The museum
returned 13 disputed antiquities to Rome this
fall. MFA will be able to display the statue,
found in 1986 in the garden of a Roman villa,
until 2009, when it must be returned. Italy has
reunited the head of the statue with its torso
for the U.S. museum, but its arms and figure of
the baby Ploutos are missing.
Italian Deputy Premier Francesco Rutelli, left,
unveils the Eirene statue at the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts. (Gregorio Borgia/Associated Press)
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The new classical archaeology
                                                  
                                                  
            
based atTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRADFORD
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The American Institute for Roman
Culture http//www.romanculture.org/ AIRC
Excavations at Villa Vignacce Parco degli
Acquedotti, Rome The American Institute for Roman
Culture US Office 71 Commercial St. Box 200
Boston, MA 02109 ITALY Office Piazza Farnese,
44 Roma 00186\
The American Institute for Roman
Culture http//www.romanculture.org/index.php?page
field-school AIRC Excavations at Villa Vignacce
Parco degli Acquedotti, Rome The American
Institute for Roman Culture US Office 71
Commercial St. Box 200 Boston, MA 02109 ITALY
Office Piazza Farnese, 44 Roma 00186\
The American Institute for Roman
Culture http//www.romanculture.org/ AIRC
Excavations at Villa Vignacce Parco degli
Acquedotti, Rome The American Institute for Roman
Culture US Office 71 Commercial St. Box 200
Boston, MA 02109 ITALY Office Piazza Farnese,
44 Roma 00186\
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6x6 meter square Before excavation
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Tools of the Trade
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Early Islamic Period Makeup kit
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Humayma, Jordan
Two ? Meters ? Down
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