The status of the Atlas

These pages are under constant development and are liable to change and modification.
In particular this means that lower level URLs, including images, might move around or disappear.

The role of pottery in Roman archaeology

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.

• Further information on many of these topics will be found through Kevin Greene’s electronic companion to Archaeology: An Introduction .

The structure of Roman pottery studies

Traditionally, 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 organised

Each 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.

The Atlas can be reached through menu pages which list all pages with similar characteristics:

• wares of the same class (broad functional or technological category, such as amphoras, mortaria or terra sigillata), or
• wares from the same source area (if you know where it is made) or
• from an alphabetical listing (if you already know the name)

Entries points to these pages can also be found in the side menu bar.

What the Atlas doesn't do (yet)

The Atlas pages are not intended as complete descriptions of a ware, but only as a snapshot and summary. Detailed discussions of this material are usually published in conventional archaeological journals and monographs and not (yet) on the web. Some bibliographic references are included.

Future plans ...

• Most of the pages include distribution maps illustrating the distribuition within Britain. Currently these maps are `static' but the underlying data will (eventually) be made available through a `clickable' interface and a searchable database.
• Some of the pages include line drawings or photographs of sample vessels or sherds. More will be added as they become available.
• Meanwhile you could always look at the dead trees version ..