Ceramics

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Assessing Forming Techniques of Athenian Ceramic Alabastra

Isabelle Algrain (BE)

Introduction

Studies related to the craft of the potter whether it is the examination of manufacturing techniques of ancient Greek vases or clay analyses, have considerably developed over the last decades. Yet, experimental reconstructions and potter-centred analyses have mostly focused on Bronze Age pottery, Early Iron Age pottery, coarse wares, or kitchen wares (Knappett, 1999; Müller, Kilikoglou and Day, 2015; Choleva, 2020; Choleva, Jung and Kardamaki, 2020).

Some Reflections on the Origin and Use of the Potter's Wheel during the Iron Age in the Iberian Peninsula. Interpretive Possibilities and Limitations

Juan Jesús Padilla Fernández (ES)
An abundance of past research has addressed Iron Age pottery in the Iberian Peninsula since the beginning of archaeological analysis in Spain. However, it has mainly focused on examining historical-cultural aspects linked to specific chronologies and typologies. It is only rarely that studies have been concerned with production processes. Ethnography has traditionally been used to make direct ...

Identifying Ceramic Shaping Techniques: Experimental Results Using the Inclusion and Void Orientation Method

Jon Ross and
Kent Fowler (CA)
This contribution presents the results of experiments using a simple but effective inclusion and void orientation method for identifying shaping techniques on cut and scanned vessels and sherds. Not only does it provide an additional line of complementary evidence for differentiating ceramic chaînes opératoires, but we argue that it offers observations not accessible by other imaging methods and scales of analysis...

Throwing Punic Amphorae: An Archaeological and Experimental Approach to the use of the Potter's Wheel in southern Iberia during the Iron Age

A.M. Sáez Romero,
R. Belizón Aragón and
P.A. Albuquerque (ES)
The transport of food products in amphorae was a basic pillar for the maritime-oriented economies and sustenance supplies of the Phoenician and Punic communities of first millennium BC southern Iberia. Over the last few decades, numerous investigations have been carried out aimed at identifying the manufacturing sites of these amphorae, at defining both their typological and chronological aspects...

Crafting Beyond Habitual Practices: Assessing the Production of a House Urn from Iron Age Central Italy

Caroline Jeffra (NL)
A house-shaped urn dating to the Early Iron Age from Central Italy was technologically assessed in order to establish the forming techniques necessary to produce it. This hypothesized forming sequence was then tested through the production of two experimental urns. It was found that there is a meaningful relationship between the clay texture choices, the forming techniques, and the overall morphology of the finished object...

The Development of the 1st Cultural Exchange of Traditional Knowledge and Experimental Practices of the Peruaçu River Basin

Ana Carolina Brugnera and
Lucas Bernalli Fernandes Rocha (DE)

Introduction

The Peruaçu National Park is a nature conservation unit located in the environs of the Peruaçu River basin, in the North of the State of Minas Gerais, and it preserves an area for the Cerrado biome of Brazil. The Cerrado is an area of 2 million square kilometres and is the second largest biome covering the Brazilian territory. However, just 20% of it is preserved. The region of the Peruaçu National Park belongs to this preserved 20%. On it is one of the most important archaeological sites of rock paintings in the state of Minas Gerais.

Ceramicists, Apprentices or Part-Timers? On the Modelling and Assembling of Peak Sanctuary Figurines

Céline Murphy (IE)

Who Modelled and Assembled Peak Sanctuary Figurines?

In this paper, I explore the pervasive, yet only partially investigated, question of who made peak sanctuary figurines. Peak sanctuary figurines are small anthropomorphic and zoomorphic clay representations, found by the thousands at Cretan Bronze Age mountain sites, alongside a range of utilitarian ceramic vessels and, occasionally, ceramic votive body parts and models, metal objects, stone vessels and small pebble clusters.

Fine Pottery Chaîne Opératoire from the Bronze Age site of Via Ordiere, Solarolo (RA, IT): Experiments on the Relationship between Surface Treatments and Function

A. La Torre,
G. Mannino and
A. Zurzolo (IT)
11th EAC Trento 2019
***The aim of this experimental work was to catch a glimpse of the pottery chaîne opératoire, particularly linked to the surfaces treatments applied, in order to better understand what type of traces they could leave on pots and how they could differently affect the use of final products...

Experimental Study of Byzantine Chafing Dishes

Georgia Vakasira (GR)

Introduction

Byzantine chafing dishes constitute one of the least studied utensils of the Byzantine household. Though a series of publications discuss them in a more detailed manner (Morgan, 1942; Bakirtzis, 1989; Sanders, 1995; François, 2010; Poulou-Papadimitriou, 2008; Vassiliou, 2016), most of our knowledge about chafing dishes derives from their fleeting mention in excavation reports, where they are listed among other finds and only briefly described.

CRAFTER: An Experimental Approach to Fire-Induced Alteration of Pottery Fabrics

Carlos Velasco Felipe,
José María Bellón and
Bartolomé Bellón (ES)
In doing an inventory of ceramic materials from archaeological excavations, it is a common practice to indicate their observable atmosphere of firing. This parameter refers to the presence of gases, especially oxygen, during the firing and cooling of pottery: if oxygen circulates freely, the procedure is said to be oxidising; if, on the contrary, the atmosphere of firing lacks free air, it is called reducing...

CRAFTER: Re-creating Vatin Pottery 2: an Examination of Clay Quality and its Behaviour

Vesna Vučković and
Dejan Jovanović (RS)

The Bronze Age Vatin culture has been known in archaeology as a cultural phenomenon distinguished by a specific material culture which existed between c. 2200 to 1600 B.C. in the region of the southern part of the Pannonian Plain, and the area along the lower Sava river and south of the Danube river. The Vatin culture followed on from the Early Bronze Age cultures in the region, indicating stabilization in this area after the disintegration of the Aeneolithic Vučedol culture by tribes from the Russian steppe (Garašanin 1979, p. 504; cf.

CRAFTER: Potting Techniques of the Bronze Age

Caroline Jeffra (NL)
Throughout its history, experimental archaeology has fulfilled a valuable role in archaeological research, allowing craftspeople and scholars alike to deepen an understanding of people and their societies in the past. EXARC’s recent involvement in the CRAFTER project, and the author’s participation in its International Meeting in Mula (Spain), has demonstrated that significant knowledge gaps remain in...

Event Review: The Second Annual Vounous Terracotta Symposium

E. Giovanna Fregni (IT)
Rauf Ersenal has hiked through the mountains of North Cyprus for years, searching for the rare clays that have been used to make pottery there for millennia. The most prized colours of these clays produce a soft green that is the colour of fresh olives, the bright red of terra sigiliata, and another clay that creates a true black...

CRAFTER: Re-creating Vatin Pottery

Vesna Vučković and
Dejan Jovanović (RS)
An attempt to re-create pottery of the Vatin culture has been made within the Crafter project (Crafting Europe in the Bronze Age and Today), whose aim is to help revive modern-day artisanship by drawing inspiration from Bronze Age pottery of four European Bronze Age societies: El Argar (Spain), Únětice (Central Europe), Füzesabony (eastern Hungary) and Vatin (Serbia)...

CRAFTER: Reviving Bronze Age Pottery in EU-funded Project

Carlos Velasco and
Miguel Valério (ES)
The CRAFTER project aims at reviving modern-day artisanship by drawing inspiration from pottery traditions of four of the most remarkable Bronze Age societies of Europe: El Argar (south-eastern Spain), Únětice (Central Europe), Füzesabony (eastern Hungary) and Vatin (south Serbia)...

Some Remarks on Technological Process of Tartessian Pottery

Michał Krueger,
Marta Krueger and
Karol Jakubowski (PL)
This paper makes an attempt to examine the Tartessian ceramics not from a traditional typological posture seeking the chronological sequences, but from an uncommon approach, where experiment plays an important role. The goal is to shed light on these still relatively weakly recognised aspects of the study of the pottery from the South-western part of Iberian Peninsula...

Experimental Production of High and Late Medieval Pottery at the Scientific Research Centre in Panská Lhota

K. Těsnohlídková,
K. Slavíček and
J. Mazáčková (CZ)
Experimental pottery production at the scientific research centre of the Institute of Archaeology and Museology at the Masaryk University Faculty of Arts (from here on ÚAM) in Panská Lhota began in the summer of 2012. The primary target of the experimental pottery production was an attempt to understand the manufacturing process...

Reconstruction of the Geometric Décor Technology of the Bronze Age Ceramics in Siberia

Eva Lamina (US)
The grassland and forest steppes ranging from the Ural to the Altai-Sayan mountains were dominated by Andronovo Family cultures during the second millennium BC (the Bronze Age) (Koryakova & Epimakhov 2007; Мартынов 2005). The Andronovo dated ceramic series were characterized by a distinctly expressed geometric ornamentation style...

The Iron Age Iberian Experimental Pottery Kiln of Verdú, Catalonia, Spain

R. Cardona Colell,
J. Pou Vallès,
N. Calduch Cobos,
B. Gil Limón,
J. M. Gallego Cañamero and
L. Castillo Cerezuela (ES)
The goal of this project is to reconstruct the operational sequence of manufacture of Iberian Iron Age pottery, from clay procurement to firing in a reconstructed kiln. Although pottery is the most characteristic artefact recovered on Iberian Iron Age excavations, most of its complex processes and production techniques remain poorly known...

An Experimental Comparison of Impressions Made from Replicated Neolithic Linen and Bronze Age Woolen Textiles on Pottery

Lauren Ferrero (UK)
Textile impressions on pottery provide evidence for fabrics and weaves in areas where the fabrics themselves do not survive. This article argues that the impressions can provide information on the uses of different fibres, the weaving technologies and possible trading or agricultural advances connected with these fibres...

An Experimental Approach to Studying the Technology of Pottery Decoration

Golnaz Hossein Mardi (CA)
8th UK EA Conference Oxford 2014
***The early Middle Chalcolithic pottery tradition of Seh Gabi Tepe in Iran is called Dalma tradition. Among the different types of Dalma pottery, I have focused on monochrome painted ceramics, to investigate, by means of experimental analysis, how their decoration technology was undertaken...

The Registry of Memory Process Applied to Experimental Archaeology in a Castromao “Oven”

Andrés Teira-Brión (ES),
Josefa Rey-Castiñeira (ES) and
Clíodhna Ní Líonain (IE)
7th UK EA Conference Cardiff 2013
***Memory is the cognitive process that codifies, stores and retrieves past actions that are perceived in the present, generating our remembrances and perceptions of the past and informing our knowledge of the world around us (...) Applied to archaeology, memory can be understood as the marks or...

Probable Measure Estimating Tool Employed by the Aeneolithic Potters

Eva Lamina (US)
The article proposes that an item, ornamented with a geometric pattern with inscribed diagonal cross and attributed to the Afanasievo culture (Aeneolithic, South Siberia), represents a primitive tool reflecting practical knowledge of basic geometry by the ancient potters. The article suggests an experimental reconstruction method for crafting the proposed instrument, and...