The Pottery Industries of the Roman East
Craft Communities and Working Practices

This book investigates the working cultures and communities of potters in the Roman East.

Elizabeth A. Murphy (Author)

9781009514606, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 April 2025

263 pages
26.3 x 18.5 x 2 cm, 0.67 kg

What was the social experience of work in the ancient world? In this study, Elizabeth Murphy approaches the topic through the lens offered by a particular set of workers, the potters and ceramicists in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Her research exploits the rich and growing dataset of workshops and production evidence from the Roman East and raises awareness of the unique features of this particular craft in this region over several centuries. Highlighting the multi-faceted working experience of professionals through a theoretically-informed framework, Murphy reconstructs the complex lives of people in the past, and demonstrates the importance of studying work and labor as central topics in social and cultural histories. Her research draws from the fields of archaeology, social history and anthropology, and applies current social theories --- communities of practice, technological choices, chaîne opératoire, cultural hybridity,  taskscapes – to interpret and offer new insights into the archaeological remains of workshops and ceramics.

1. Introduction
2. Workshops: models vs practice
3. Process, people and working conditions
4. Cultural practices and ritual lives of potters in the workshop
5. Potting traditions, craft learning and product innovation
6. Socially embedded technologies and local technological styles
7. Internal social dynamics of industry clusters: cooperation and competition
8. Urban industry, topographies and community relations
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK]