So much for morphology

Looks like some of that red slip pottery found in Italy and thought to come from the eastern Mediterranean is local production, after all:

Pont said her research would "turn upside down" old notions of commerce and trade between Pompeii and the eastern Roman Empire. . .

"The fact that I have not found one piece that has been imported I think will have quite large implications for trade and commerce in that area," Pont told ABC Science Online.

Note that the site sampled to date is limited to one city block, however, so this particular negative has not yet been proven.

Pont and Macquarie University geologist Dr Patrick Conaghan examined 200 thin sections of the pottery under a microscope and looked at tiny flecks in the clay. The flecks, which contained the mineral leucite, were identical in composition and unique to the Bay of Naples region, where Mount Vesuvius is found. . .

Pont said archaeologists made the mistake of thinking the pottery was imported because there was a lot of variation in the colour and quality of the local pottery compared to the pottery from northern Italy.

And archaeologists had based their classification of the pottery on these variations, she said.

"As a potter, perhaps I could see things archaeologists couldn't," said Pont. "In general archaeologists don't understand how [pottery] is made. They can't identify manufacturing techniques within a vessel."

She said archaeologists rely a lot on colour to differentiate vessels. "I could understand that even in one kiln, what you get at the top and at the bottom of the kiln can be very different in colour."

Pottery is also classified by form, yet pottery "isn't an exact science", said Pont. "But whole assemblages have been grouped by rim shape ... When I looked at [the pottery] I couldn't see the difference. It turns out there wasn't a difference."

Full story here.

Posted by David on November 9, 2004 3:02 PM