Roman Pottery in the Archaeological Record

A rich portrayal of the dynamic that shaped the archaeological record of the ancient Romans.

J. Theodore Peña (Author)

9780521181853, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 March 2011

450 pages, 120 b/w illus. 9 maps 12 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.6 kg

'Usefully draws on a wide range of literary and pictorial sources to elicit information on poetry use … this book should spur researchers to look more closely at their assemblages.' Current Archaeology

This book examines how Romans used their pottery and the implications of these practices on the archaeological record. It is organized around a flow model for the life cycle of Roman pottery that includes a set of eight distinct practices: manufacture, distribution, prime use, reuse, maintenance, recycling, discard, reclamation. J. Theodore Peña evaluates how these practices operated, how they have shaped the archaeological record, and the implications of these processes on archaeological research through the examination of a wide array of archaeological, textual, representational and comparative ethnographic evidence. The result is a rich portrayal of the dynamic that shaped the archaeological record of the ancient Romans that will be of interest to archaeologists, ceramicists, and students of material culture.

Introduction
1. A model of the life cycle of roman pottery
2. Background considerations
3. Manufacture and distribution
4. Prime use
5. The reuse of amphorae as packaging containers
6. The reuse of amphorae for purposes other than as packaging containers
7. The reuse of the other functional categories of pottery
8. Maintenance
9. Recycling
10. Discard and reclamation
11. Modeling the formation of the Roman pottery record.

Subject Areas: Pottery, ceramics & glass crafts [WFN], Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]