Colette Beestman-Kruijshaar
In October 2007 I started my PhD research within the project New Perspectives on Ancient Pottery, for now provisionally titled: The uses of ceramics in Hellenistic Halos. I will finish writing in the summer of 2012.
Fields of interest: Behavioural archaeolgy, Greek Hellenistic ceramics, household economy, materiality and object agency
Abstract
In this PhD I explore the how and why of the great variety of ceramics found in the excavations atNew Halos, comprising inventories of townhouses, a farmhouse, cemeteries, and a small shrine for Demeter and Persephone, which are mostly contemporary and date to the third and early second century BC. My study focuses on daily practices linking people and ceramics, and in particular on how household pottery may perform in daily life as well as in ceremonial context. A comparative and contextual analysis of the ceramics assemblages demonstrates that most ceramics in votive deposit and burials are similar to household pottery in shape, fabric, surface treatment and decoration, and therefore can not be regarded as exclusive and ‘context-type’ related items. The study hopefully shows that the interplay of human and object agencies can be a very useful way of understanding the arrangement of ceramics assemblages, downgrading the conventional context-type perspective as explanatory model.
The following two research themes are central to the project:
Form and function
It has to be pointed out here that rather than on form, implying some ideal function, my focus lies on materiality. Hellenistic pottery, and household assemblages in particular, have not been studied and published much in a systematic way. With the study of the complete ceramics assemblages, the interconnections and interdependence between a variety of pottery shapes and styles may become clear. Thus the division in different archaeological contexts, and the division into categories of pottery such as fine and coarse wares, decorated and plain wares, imports and local products, utilitarian and ceremonial pottery etc. can be avoided. People and things, activities and functions are interconnected, taking into account that pottery mostly functioned as container of goods. Furthermore, a clear distinction should be made between intended function, connected to production, and actual function, connected to context and use(s), to consumers and their activities, relating to how pottery could perform independently from the original intention or the place where it originated. A point often overlooked in pottery studies, is that ceramics may generate unintended activities, which could relate to changing function or multi-functionality, instead of some ideal function. From the perspective of archaeological practice, in the interpretation of ceramics from excavations, the understanding of actual function also comprises secondary use or reuse, maintenance, recycling, discard and reclamation, as well as deposition in grave and votive pit. A stress on actual performance of pottery, or even the ‘agency’ of pots, is thus a necessary ingredient for an analysis on daily activities and the domestic economy.
Local production and imports
In all of the Halos assemblages ceramics in different design, in locally produced pottery as well as imports, exist side by side, whereby the local production comprises a wide range of pottery shapes. A clear-cut patterning relating to context or socioeconomic background seems to be absent.
With the term local I refer to manufacture within the Halos community. As a substantial (medium) coarse ware pottery production tradition has been assumed for the settlement, an important issue in my study is the identification of the local ceramics production in relation to pottery from the region, and from other regions in Greece and beyond, in order to understand patterns of pottery production, supply and consumption within the natural and cultural landscape. A geological sampling project aims to establish the range of locally available raw materials within the Halos territory, and characterize the use of these raw materials within ancient pottery production at the settlement. The study of fabric replications will be combined with petrographic thin section analysis comprising (for the moment) 100 well dated and documented ceramic vessels.
The relation to the fine wares, which macroscopically are quite different from the presumably local (medium) coarse wares, will have to be further explored through both petrographic and chemical analysis.
Link
Publications
Inventory of pottery in the houses of New Halos ( Chapter 3.1) in: Reinders, H.R. & Prummel, W. (eds.), Housing in New Halos, a Hellenistic Town in Thessaly , Greece . A.A. Balkema Publishers, Lisse 2003, pp. 81-106.
Hellenistic transport amphorae from the Southeast Gate complex at New Halos, Thessaly. In: 8th Scientific Meeting on Hellenistic Pottery, Ioannina 2009 (in press)
Size did matter: dimensions of the kantharos in Hellenistic Halos (Thessaly) (in prep.)