I work on understanding prehistoric and historical Aegean cultures and people through the evidence they may not have realized they were leaving behind. Address: 15 College Street Hanover, NH 03755
This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Br... more This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Bronze Age through discussion of the authors’ ongoing project to study and publish the Linear B documents from the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in southwestern Greece. Recent developments move in two dis-tinct directions. The first, digitisation, involves the production of digital models to represent the texts, using both computational photography and three-dimensional modelling. The second, the study of the texts as material culture, involves examining the physical properties of the texts and associated uninscribed documents. Traditional print-based editions are limited in the amount of data they can present, and the use of static images and text requires the user to rely on the authority of the editor, the illustrator, and even the photographer. Digital models, on the other hand, provide a dynamic and interactive environment in which users can work with the texts at a level of resolution that approximates autopsy. That is, they place less emphasis on editorial interpretations and interventions and put more primary data directly into the hands of users. The digital models thus decentre editorial authority by easing scholarly access to material.
Abstract The pantries (Rooms 1822) of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos provide an ideal opportunity... more Abstract The pantries (Rooms 1822) of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos provide an ideal opportunity to study the ways in which the Mycenaeans themselves classified their pot-tery. This is because the material is extensive, varied, well preserved, largely contemporaneous, and was ...
New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World. 21st-Century Methods and Classical Antiquity, 2021
This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Br... more This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Bronze Age through discussion of the authors’ ongoing project to study and publish the Linear B documents from the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in southwestern Greece. Recent developments move in two dis-tinct directions. The first, digitisation, involves the production of digital models to represent the texts, using both computational photography and three-dimensional modelling. The second, the study of the texts as material culture, involves examining the physical properties of the texts and associated uninscribed documents. Traditional print-based editions are limited in the amount of data they can present, and the use of static images and text requires the user to rely on the authority of the editor, the illustrator, and even the photographer. Digital models, on the other hand, provide a dynamic and interactive environment in which users can work with the texts at a level of resolution that approximates autopsy. That is, they place less emphasis on editorial interpretations and interventions and put more primary data directly into the hands of users. The digital models thus decentre editorial authority by easing scholarly access to material.
Note that this is not my work; it was written by Stephanos Xanthoudides and published in 1927 in ... more Note that this is not my work; it was written by Stephanos Xanthoudides and published in 1927 in an edited volume presented to Sir Arthur Evans. It should be in the public domain, and I've chosen to share it here.
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collectio... more UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Feasting and ceramics: A view from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos. by Hruby, Julie A., Ph ...
This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Br... more This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Bronze Age through discussion of the authors’ ongoing project to study and publish the Linear B documents from the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in southwestern Greece. Recent developments move in two dis-tinct directions. The first, digitisation, involves the production of digital models to represent the texts, using both computational photography and three-dimensional modelling. The second, the study of the texts as material culture, involves examining the physical properties of the texts and associated uninscribed documents. Traditional print-based editions are limited in the amount of data they can present, and the use of static images and text requires the user to rely on the authority of the editor, the illustrator, and even the photographer. Digital models, on the other hand, provide a dynamic and interactive environment in which users can work with the texts at a level of resolution that approximates autopsy. That is, they place less emphasis on editorial interpretations and interventions and put more primary data directly into the hands of users. The digital models thus decentre editorial authority by easing scholarly access to material.
Abstract The pantries (Rooms 1822) of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos provide an ideal opportunity... more Abstract The pantries (Rooms 1822) of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos provide an ideal opportunity to study the ways in which the Mycenaeans themselves classified their pot-tery. This is because the material is extensive, varied, well preserved, largely contemporaneous, and was ...
New Approaches to Ancient Material Culture in the Greek & Roman World. 21st-Century Methods and Classical Antiquity, 2021
This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Br... more This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Bronze Age through discussion of the authors’ ongoing project to study and publish the Linear B documents from the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in southwestern Greece. Recent developments move in two dis-tinct directions. The first, digitisation, involves the production of digital models to represent the texts, using both computational photography and three-dimensional modelling. The second, the study of the texts as material culture, involves examining the physical properties of the texts and associated uninscribed documents. Traditional print-based editions are limited in the amount of data they can present, and the use of static images and text requires the user to rely on the authority of the editor, the illustrator, and even the photographer. Digital models, on the other hand, provide a dynamic and interactive environment in which users can work with the texts at a level of resolution that approximates autopsy. That is, they place less emphasis on editorial interpretations and interventions and put more primary data directly into the hands of users. The digital models thus decentre editorial authority by easing scholarly access to material.
Note that this is not my work; it was written by Stephanos Xanthoudides and published in 1927 in ... more Note that this is not my work; it was written by Stephanos Xanthoudides and published in 1927 in an edited volume presented to Sir Arthur Evans. It should be in the public domain, and I've chosen to share it here.
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collectio... more UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Feasting and ceramics: A view from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos. by Hruby, Julie A., Ph ...
(Given to the International Association for Identification)
Numerous ancient Greek ceramic objec... more (Given to the International Association for Identification) Numerous ancient Greek ceramic objects preserve pre-firing plastic fingerprints from their producers. In addition to studying ancient labor systems through print-matching, archaeologists have begun to ask questions that require less specific print material, often correlating print size and biological sex. Size is a problematic criterion for a variety of reasons, and I argue that it is preferable to use other, more informative, statistics to sex producers. This technique should be transferable to contemporary forensic contexts.
A wide range of prehistoric and ancient Greek ceramic objects, including vessels and ceramic scul... more A wide range of prehistoric and ancient Greek ceramic objects, including vessels and ceramic sculpture, preserve the dermal ridge (finger and palm-print) impressions of their producers, fixed when they were fired. Traditionally, archaeologists have tried, with variable success, to match prints in an effort to understand ancient labor systems. Archaeologists worldwide have begun to ask questions, including the sex of the people whose prints they were, that require less specific print material. Problematically, most have focused on print size; however, shrinkage rates vary even for a single clay type, especially in cases where objects have been fired inadvertently (e.g. in a building fire rather than a kiln). Additionally, it is impossible to differentiate the prints of older juvenile males from those of adult females, since their sizes overlap substantially. Fortunately, structured-light scanning allows us to build high-resolution 3D models of prints, akin to digital elevation maps, allowing us to examine a much wider range of sex-linked features. These include the ratio of ridge thickness to valley thickness (RTVTR), "secondary crease" frequencies (casually called "wrinkles"), and "incipient" lines. Robust statistical models based on these factors allow us to establish the probable sex of ancient producers based on their prints. The current project establishes this methodology, using 3D scans of the prints of modern Greek adult potters of both sexes as a reference sample. Prints are taken from objects on which they were left inadvertently, because this format mimics what we see on ancient objects. Modern Greek ceramicists are both genetically and occupationally as close as we can get to their ancient predecessors. The technique will make it possible to rigorously evaluate longstanding archaeological questions, including the sexes (and as a result the genders) of producers of ceramic figurines, ceramic tablets, and ceramic sculpture.
Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, 2016
The original excavators suggested that the Palace of Nestor was destroyed when Dorians invaded an... more The original excavators suggested that the Palace of Nestor was destroyed when Dorians invaded and burned it. For a number of reasons, this hypothesis no longer seems likely. A current favorite approach to the question of palatial collapse shifts the question from why the system collapsed to why it was weakened or why structures were never rebuilt, or treats the collapse as the inevitable result of a multitude of factors. Klaus Kilian repeatedly proposed that earthquakes were responsible for the fall of the Mycenaean palaces. His hypothesis has not been universally accepted, in part because his claim that the Palace of Nestor at Pylos fell in an earthquake has not been widely accepted, even by those who would otherwise accept earthquakes as causative. The basis for his assertion was that Pylos had walls that deviated from a straight line and that the corners of the foundations of the northeastern building had opened by more than a meter. I argue, on the basis of additional evidence, that Kilian was correct. The primary evidence for this consists of indications that the palace collapsed before, not after, it burned, with walls and shelves generally falling in a southwest to northeast direction. Evidence for heat damage along the northeast wall suggests that the collapse preceded the fire. Furthermore, the frequency with which ceramic vessels, including chimney pots, were broken shortly before they burned also suggests that an earthquake was the most plausible immediate cause of the palace's demise.
The institution of feasting in the Bronze Age Aegean, as in much of the world, has been the subje... more The institution of feasting in the Bronze Age Aegean, as in much of the world, has been the subject of considerable recent scholarship, with a broad consensus that feasts provided a locus for the negotiation and performance of sociopolitical and religious hierarchies. Despite the publication of numerous edited volumes, monographs, and journal articles on the subject, the relationship between feasting and gender has been explored only minimally. In the very few cases where gender has been discussed in the context of feasting, the assumption or argument has been that women were excluded from public feasting activities, with the implication that women were excluded from a critical venue for the creation and reinforcement of social and political status. While iconographic evidence for Mycenaean women feasting is almost nonexistent (and indeed, iconographic evidence for anyone at all feasting may also be, insofar as we have no images of anyone in the Bronze Age Aegean eating), there are a few hints that at least elite women and probably most or all women were present at some prehistoric feasts. Comparable public feasts in both the contemporaneous Near Eastern world and in later Greek contexts often included women, including in feasts honoring some of the same divinities whom Linear B tablets tell us were worshipped in the Late Bronze Age. The Ta tablets from Pylos, representing the paraphernalia for a feast, include footstools, which are iconographically and archaeologically associated with women; this suggests that women did indeed participate. The presence of lower status women who attended feasts is more difficult to identify, but the vast quantities of food and wine known to have been provided suggest that access must have been broadly inclusive.
While fingerprint impressions have been used archaeologically to approach a range of cultural que... more While fingerprint impressions have been used archaeologically to approach a range of cultural questions, the methodologies developed to date tend to be labor intensive, statistically unsophisticated, or require large numbers of complete prints. Recently, numerous quantitative print attributes that correlate with sex in modern populations have been discovered, almost always from two-dimensional data. It is probable that there are additional, yet-unrecognized features that correlate with producer attributes, especially if we include three-dimensional data. This project is a collaboration between an archaeologist and two professional mathematicians, with the goal of building a mathematically rigorous model for sexing ancient prints. The reference sample upon which it is based is a set of high-resolution 3D scans of fingerprint impressions left by modern Greek potters of both sexes; they were chosen on the basis that they are the closest population group, both genetically and occupationally, to their ancient predecessors. A scan of a print provides a high-resolution representation, akin to a digital elevation map of the topography of the print, including ridge patterns, overall size, shape, and depression depth. We plan to use high dimensional multivariate statistical techniques to develop informative metrics that show high predictive power for the sex of the imprint maker.
Ceramics, lost-wax-cast bronzes, and plaster all preserve fingerprints left by their producers. W... more Ceramics, lost-wax-cast bronzes, and plaster all preserve fingerprints left by their producers. While fingerprints have been used to approach a range of cultural practices for ancient Aegean and Near Eastern cultures, the methodologies developed to date tend to be labor intensive, statistically unsophisticated, or require large numbers of complete prints. Scholars working with modern populations have long recognized that certain print characteristics correlate with the sex, age, or health status of the person whose hands produce them. For example, men typically have wider ridges than do women, only partially accounted for by differences in hand sizes. A few archaeologists have used distributions of mean ridge breadths to evaluate the sexes or ages of potters. More recently, anthropologists have discovered several other quantitative print attributes that correlate with sex or age. Furthermore, it is probable that yet-unrecognized features correlate with producer attributes. To find these requires the use of high-resolution three-dimensional imagery. Several methods for producing such images exist, each with costs and benefits. It also requires sophisticated data analysis, and I provide a road map for a project to obtain high-resolution scans from modern potters of known sex, whose prints will form a reference sample. We have access to the collections of museums of traditional ceramics in both Greece and Cyprus, each of which has data on many producers. In addition, potters of both sexes remain employed in both Greece and Cyprus, enabling us to contact and survey potters directly. A scan of a print provides a high-resolution representation that is akin to a digital elevation map of the topography of the print, including ridge patterns, overall size, shape, and depression depth. Members of the team are exploring a range of avenues for analysis, including using the standard digital elevation modeling capabilities build in ArcGIS software, the development of new techniques that apply three-dimensional wavelet analyses, and neural network analysis. Our goal is to develop informative metrics that show high predictive power for the sex of the imprint maker. We plan to use high dimensional multivariate statistical techniques to evaluate the predictive power of the various print metrics. In the long term, we will use these models to explore questions about the identities of artisans in antiquity and associated social implications, predominantly the extent to which division of labor was gendered.
Late Bronze Age Aegean cooking vessels illuminate prehistoric cultures, foodways, social interact... more Late Bronze Age Aegean cooking vessels illuminate prehistoric cultures, foodways, social interactions, and communication systems. While many scholars have focused on the utility of painted fineware vessels for chronological purposes, the contributors to this volume maintain that cooking wares have the potential to answer not only chronological but also economic, political, and social questions when analysed and contrasted with assemblages from different sites or chronological periods. The text is dedicated entirely to prehistoric cooking vessels, compiles evidence from a wide range of Greek sites and incorporates new methodologies and evidence. The contributors utilise a wide variety of analytical approaches and demonstrate the impact that cooking vessels can have on the archaeological interpretation of sites and their inhabitants. These sites include major Late Bronze Age citadels and smaller settlements throughout the Aegean and surrounding Mediterranean area, including Greece, the islands, Crete, Italy, and Cyprus. In particular, contributors highlight socioeconomic connections by examining the production methods, fabrics and forms of cooking vessels. Recent improvements in excavation techniques, advances in archaeological sciences, and increasing attention to socioeconomic questions make this is an opportune time to renew conversations about and explore new approaches to cooking vessels and what they can teach us.
JULIE HRUBY is Assistant Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College, where she teaches Greek archaeology. She has been working on plain-ware pottery from the pantries of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos since 2002 and has several other ongoing research projects, including the study of population attributes of human fingerprints on archaeological objects, replication of the technical processes of ceramic production, the reconstruction of Mycenaean feasting and culinary culture, and a longitudinal photographic survey of the decay of modern mud-brick vernacular architecture in the Peloponnese.
DEBRA TRUSTY is a lecturer of Classics at the University of Iowa and a PhD graduate from Florida State University. Her dissertation focused on the ability of cooking ware vessels to identify specific characteristics of Mycenaean political economies. Additional research interests include stylistic forms of ancient Greek cooking vessels, ancient foodways and their significance in Mycenaean culture, scientific analyses of ceramics, prehistoric Aegean craft production, and early state political economies.
Late Bronze Age Aegean cooking vessels illuminate prehistoric cultures, foodways, social interact... more Late Bronze Age Aegean cooking vessels illuminate prehistoric cultures, foodways, social interactions, and communication systems. While many scholars have focused on the utility of painted fineware vessels for chronological purposes, the contributors to this volume maintain that cooking wares have the potential to answer not only chronological but also economic, political, and social questions when analysed and contrasted with assemblages from different sites or chronological periods. The text is dedicated entirely to prehistoric cooking vessels, compiles evidence from a wide range of Greek sites and incorporates new methodologies and evidence. The contributors utilise a wide variety of analytical approaches and demonstrate the impact that cooking vessels can have on the archaeological interpretation of sites and their inhabitants. These sites include major Late Bronze Age citadels and smaller settlements throughout the Aegean and surrounding Mediterranean area, including Greece, the islands, Crete, Italy, and Cyprus. In particular, contributors highlight socio-economic connections by examining the production methods, fabrics and forms of cooking vessels. Recent improvements in excavation techniques, advances in archaeological sciences, and increasing attention to socioeconomic questions make this is an opportune time to renew conversations about and explore new approaches to cooking vessels and what they can teach us.
Edited by Frederick A. Cooper and Diane Fortenberry (BAR-IS 2856). Pp. 426. BAR Publishing, Oxfor... more Edited by Frederick A. Cooper and Diane Fortenberry (BAR-IS 2856). Pp. 426. BAR Publishing, Oxford 2017. £80. ISBN 9781407315348 (paper).
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Numerous ancient Greek ceramic objects preserve pre-firing plastic fingerprints from their producers. In addition to studying ancient labor systems through print-matching, archaeologists have begun to ask questions that require less specific print material, often correlating print size and biological sex. Size is a problematic criterion for a variety of reasons, and I argue that it is preferable to use other, more informative, statistics to sex producers. This technique should be transferable to contemporary forensic contexts.
JULIE HRUBY is Assistant Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College, where she teaches Greek archaeology. She has been working on plain-ware pottery from the pantries of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos since 2002 and has several other ongoing research projects, including the study of population attributes of human fingerprints on archaeological objects, replication of the technical processes of ceramic production, the reconstruction of Mycenaean feasting and culinary culture, and a longitudinal photographic survey of the decay of modern mud-brick vernacular architecture in the Peloponnese.
DEBRA TRUSTY is a lecturer of Classics at the University of Iowa and a PhD graduate from Florida State University. Her dissertation focused on the ability of cooking ware vessels to identify specific characteristics of Mycenaean political economies. Additional research interests include stylistic forms of ancient Greek cooking vessels, ancient foodways and their significance in Mycenaean culture, scientific analyses of ceramics, prehistoric Aegean craft production, and early state political economies.
Available at https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/from-cooking-vessels-to-cultural-practices-in-the-late-bronze-age-aegean.html