ceramics

Experimenting with the Ancient Greek Pottery Production Process from Clay Selection to Firing in a (Re)constructed Updraft Kiln

Author(s)
Francesca Tomei 1 ✉,
Juan Ignacio Jimenez Rivero 2
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2023/3
This article presents an experimental archaeology project that aimed to reproduce the Hellenistic Greek pottery production process. The project's main research questions were focused on understanding how locally available raw materials and climatic conditions influenced the production process and how the process created social networks with the local community...

Pottery at the Scottish Crannog Centre

Author(s)
Rachel Backshall 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2023/2
The Scottish Crannog Centre, an open-air museum on Loch Tay in Highland Perthshire, has been able to do some really meaningful, powerful work over the past 12 months focusing on the power of prehistoric pottery! Supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Collections Fund and the Headley Trustand Art Fund, the project has led to new relationships, a new strategic partner for the organisation and ...

Call for information: Recycling in the Late Neolithic at the Vlaardingen site of Den Haag-Steynhof

Author(s)
Annelou van Gijn 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2022/4

The Putting life into Late Neolithic houses project looks at all the different aspects of what life could have been like for “the people in the Rhine/Meuse delta at about c. 2900 – 2500 BC.” (www.puttinglife.com). This is not only done by academic research, experiments, and material analysis, but also through illustrations produced by archaeological reconstruction illustrator Kelvin Wilson.

Different Vessel Surface Polishing Methods and Mutual Effects of their Applications

Author(s)
Joanna Dymańska 1,
Aleksandra Cetwińska 1 ✉,
Dariusz Manasterski 1
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2022/3
The discovery of an excavated cup with a glossy surface prompted reflection on the polishing of vessel surfaces and their mutual significance. We present the results of the application of three different polishing methods along with a reflection on their function and on the skills and ability of the potter...

Scored Basins from Late Minoan Crete: an Experimental Interpretation from Construction to Functionality

Author(s)
Brianna Jenkins 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2022/2
During the Bronze Age in Crete, agriculture, pottery production, metallurgy, textiles, architectural feats, trade, and other specializations flourished. Throughout habitation on Crete, pottery production was an area of craftsmanship and practicality from the end of the Neolithic to Mycenean and Iron Age. This experiment, however, relates to the Late Minoan I period in the geographical region of Mochlos...

An Experimental Approach to Assessing the Tempering and Firing of Local Pottery Production in Nubia during the New Kingdom Period

Author(s)
Julia Budka 1 ✉,
Giulia D’Ercole 1
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2022/2

Recently, the development of an independent strand of study, known as the ‘archaeology of dung,’ has resulted in numerous cross-geographical publications confirming the use of animal dung in archaeological deposits as the main fuel source and several other purposes. Most of these studies focus on the analysis of the microscopic evidence attributable to dung, combining multi-proxy approaches to ...

Preliminary Observations of Potsherds Rounding in the Estuary of the Morye River – an Analog of Paleo-Okhta

Author(s)
Alexander Akulov 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2022/1
One of the arguments proposed for interpreting the Neolithic site of Okhta as a settlement is the fact that potsherds found upon the site show no signs of rounding. Interpretation of the site as a settlement correlates poorly with the geological data, which suggests that, in the Neolithic period, the site was the bottom of a shallow bay of the Littorina Sea into which Paleo-Okhta and Paleo-Tosna flowed...

Assessing Forming Techniques of Athenian Ceramic Alabastra

Author(s)
Isabelle Algrain 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/3
Athenian black-figure and red-figure vases have not been the subject of many studies specifically devoted to vase-forming techniques, since researchers have primarily focused on their decoration. The study of the Attic alabastron, a perfume vase shape produced in Athens between the middle of the sixth century and the beginning of the fourth century BC, shows that different techniques were occasionally used by potters...

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

Author(s)
Juan Jesús Padilla Fernández
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/3
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

Author(s)
Jon Ross 1 ✉,
Kent Fowler 2
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2021/3
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...