Materials Analysis of Byzantine Pottery

Dumbarton Oaks
Henry Maguire
ISBN: 088402251X
price: $78.00  

This publication brings to a wider audience important new findings in the fields of medieval pottery and archaeometry. After a long period of dormancy, the study of Byzantine pottery has flourished in recent years. At the same time, the discipline of archaeometry has also undergone a rapid expansion. The combining of these two areas of research creates both opportunities and questions.
The new data that materials analysis provides about Byzantine ceramics and their production at times supports, modifies, and even contradicts conclusions derived from traditional archaeological methods. The contributors to this volume put archaeometric evidence to many uses: to analyze the chemical compositions and production techniques of glazed tiles from Constantinople; to determine trade patterns of sgraffito pottery from Serres; to distinguish the local imitations of imported Zeuxippus ware at Pergamon and in Italy; and to investigate Qal'at Sem'an as a possible manufacturing site of pilgrims' tokens. The authors also show that the "fingerprinting" of products from individual workshops or groups of workshops makes possible a much more sophisticated tracking of manufacture, trade, and distribution than was possible previously.
This new ability to determine the technique and provenance of Byzantine pottery has important implications well beyond the study of the material culture itself; it engages with broader historical issues such as pilgrimage, economic relationships, and the transfer of ceramic technologies from the Islamic world to Byzantium and from Byzantium to Italy.