Pottery is one of the most abundant finds from any archaeological sites of the Roman period, and has been studied systematically for over a century. In the wider context of Roman archaeology, ceramic studies have a number of roles, among the principal of which are dating of sites, examining economic and social structures and illustrating the processs of site formation.
The structure of Roman pottery studiesTraditionally, some of the principal classes of Roman pottery have been studied by groups of specialists who concentrate largely or exclusively on a single class of pottery. This has resulted in a very extensive but fragmented bibliography, including specialised journals and conference proceedings devoted to a single class of pottery. A complementary approach is to consider all the pottery found at a site, and study its date, sources and function. The resulting site reports form the second major strand through Roman ceramic studies.
How the Atlas is organisedEach Atlas page includes details of a ware, illustrated where possible by images, distribution maps, and links to other web sites that hold relevant data. The pages include cross-refereces to the relevant pages in Roman Pottery in Britain and other major publications.
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