CERAMEGYPT - Pottery production and consumption in Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Michael Heinzelmann
• Subject Area: Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
• Term: from 2015 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 264442827

Pottery is traditionally one of the main fossil guides in archaeological research. Recently, however, it has been experiencing increasing attention. The reason for this is to be found especially in the multiplicity of domains in which ceramic finds can make a contribution: alongside its central function as the basis for dating excavation contexts and its many possibilities of contributing to socio-cultural investigations (e.g. in everyday life), its great potential as the material basis for posing questions in economic history has come to the fore in recent years. The current state of research for the Hellenistic and Roman period is, however, very heterogeneous. While for many regions of the Graeco-Roman world detailed and fixed chronotypologies have been developed and investigations on questions of economic history exist for some, research on Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt is largely at the beginning. On numerous excavations detailed documentation is carried out, but the interregional exchange of data is lacking so far, as are a unified terminology and chronotypology. The lack of archaeometric analyses of provenience of the pottery produced in Egypt itself is especially felt. It is precisely on these bases that reliable investigations of the production, distribution and consumption of pottery in Egypt can be carried out. The project proposed here is designed to confront this deficit, with three research axes. In Axis A ancient pottery production centers in Egypt are to be visited in cooperation with numerous external partners and local productions to be documented according to unified standards and investigated archaeometrically. In Research Axis B a manual of Ptolemaic and Roman pottery in Egypt will be developed according to certain criteria. In Axis C statistical analyses are to be carried out on the basis of selected contexts in certain chronological horizons in order to follow general questions of economic history. The project proposed can build upon extensive preparatory work and infrastructural measures that were created in the framework of the ANR-DFG project Ceramalex (2011-mid 2014). Starting from the excavation sites in Alexandria, Schedia and Marea of those proposing the project, it was possible through intensive teamwork to standardize the previously very heterogeneous approaches to the analysis of pottery (e.g. terminology, typology). Furthermore, a well supplied ceramic laboratory was built up at the French partner in Alexandria, which allows petrographical analyses on the one hand and on the other disposes of the only instrument currently available in Egypt for archaeometrical analyses in the form of a portable X-ray fluorescence analyser. Finally, it was possible to develop a complex database, in which a large part of the pottery found at Alexandria and Schedia has been entered. On this basis, the German-French project would now like to make an internationally effective contribution to the investigation of pottery in Egypt.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Egypt
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Jean-Yves Empereur