This book presents a status quaestionis of Roman pottery studies in the Low Countries, and will b... more This book presents a status quaestionis of Roman pottery studies in the Low Countries, and will be published on the occasion of the 33rd Congress of the Rei Cretariæ Romanæ Fautores which will be held in Leiden, the Netherlands, from 15 to 22 September 2024.
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
This book presents a status quaestionis of Roman pottery studies in the Low Countries, and will b... more This book presents a status quaestionis of Roman pottery studies in the Low Countries, and will be published on the occasion of the 33rd Congress of the Rei Cretariæ Romanæ Fautores which will be held in Leiden, the Netherlands, from 15 to 22 September 2024.
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
Island, Mainland, Coastland and Hinterland: Ceramic Perspectives on Connectivity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Proceedings of the Conference held at the University of Amsterdam, 1-3 February 2013
On Monday 7 October 2024, the interdisciplinary team working at Limyra will be presenting its res... more On Monday 7 October 2024, the interdisciplinary team working at Limyra will be presenting its research on the archaeology and history of this important Lycian city. For further information, please see: https://akmed.ku.edu.tr/en/events/limyra-day/
AKMED, the organising committee, as well as the Limyra team would be pleased if you join this day.
One segment of the TransPergMikro project, a regional survey project that focuses on the territor... more One segment of the TransPergMikro project, a regional survey project that focuses on the territory of Pergamon and which is funded by the German Science Foundation, is a three-year intensive survey at Çandarlı. Ever since Siegfried Loeschke carried out excavations at Çandarlı – ancient Pitane – in 1911 it is known as a place where terra sigillata/red slip ware was manufactured. It was, in fact, the very first production centre of its kind that was identified in the Eastern Mediterranean. The overarching aim of this survey is to document in detail this local production and the settlement context in which it took place.
During two campaigns in 2019 and 2020 we completed the intensive survey of a series of fields in the centre of the Çandarlı Peninsula. While the bulk of the collected artefacts remain to be studied, our preliminary results show that terra sigillata/red slip ware was manufactured from the first to fifth centuries AD, for which numerous vessel wasters, ceramic slag, production tools and other finds provide direct evidence. In this presentation, we wish to present our aims, methodology as well as the more significant observations so far.
The Ayios Vasileios Survey Project is part of the Ayios Vasileios Excavations Project. The broade... more The Ayios Vasileios Survey Project is part of the Ayios Vasileios Excavations Project. The broader project includes the excavations of the Mycenaean palace and the early Mycenaean North Cemetery. The survey project consists of a pedestrian survey and a geophysical exploration of the area, and is accompanied by an ethnographic survey. In this article we discuss the results of the pedestrian survey and offer a reconstruction of the habitation history of the site. In the following discussion, we first introduce the site of Ayios Vasileios and sketch a brief outline of the research carried out at the site thus far and its habitation history. Secondly, we present the pedestrian survey methodology. This is followed by an extensive discussion of the distribution and date of the collected surface material for the main periods attested at the site: the Bronze Age, the Classical-Hellenistic, the Roman, and the Medieval and Early Modern. The spatial and temporal patterns are contextualised and compared with data generated by the excavation and geophysical research already published. The integration of these different data allows us to provide a more detailed reconstruction of the extent and spatial development of the site through time.
In 2020, the Pergamon Excavation concentrated on projects of the new research programme ›The Tran... more In 2020, the Pergamon Excavation concentrated on projects of the new research programme ›The Transformation of the Pergamon Micro-Region between the Hellenistic and the Roman Imperial Period‹ (TransPergMikro). Excavation of a Hellenistic grave precinct on the north slope of the acropolis hill shed much new light on the funerary culture of the period. Now for the first time a section of a Hellenistic avenue of tombs is known in Pergamon, too. Building archaeology investigations were continued in the amphitheatre and extended to include the Roman theatre on Musalla Mezarlığı. The survey in the vicinity of the Asklepieion and on the western fringes of the ancient city yielded above all new information on utilization of the land for burials and for quarrying. The archaeological survey in the surrounding area concentrated on a river valley and an adjacent plateau north-east of Dikili, where many new features were documented relating to ancient land use and Roman bath culture. The discovery of an ancient cave sanctuary of Meter-Kybele with older layers of use going back to the Epipalaeolithic promises significant new insights into the settlement history of the micro-region and beyond. The physical geography projects in the rural hinterland and the immediate surroundings of the ancient city provided new data on the morphodynamics of the Bakırçay plain and the role of anthropogenic factors. The intensive survey in Pitane (Çandarlı) was concluded and revealed initial chronological and functional differentiations in the use of the site for pottery production. Analyses of the pollen from a drilling core from the Kara Göl supplement and expand the data on the micro-region’s environmental history and also indicate possibilities for further research. Monument conservation measures focused on completing work in the Red Hall, on the ›Gotenmauer‹ on the acropolis hill, and the Lower Rotunda at the Asklepieion.
Starting from 2018 the Italian Archaeological School at Athens runs a Seminars programme organize... more Starting from 2018 the Italian Archaeological School at Athens runs a Seminars programme organized and hosted by the Post Doctoral Fellows of the current year.
Topics presented fall within the wide-range of the Fellows’ research interests and address in particular the themes of their own projects. The talks are aimed at providing opportunity for debate and discussion. Attendance of young scholars and students is particularly encouraged. However, the talks are open to everyone interested.
📽 Our seminars will be delivered online via Zoom. We kindly ask you to register by filling this form:
In 2019, the Pergamon Excavation concentrated on projects of the new research programme ›The tran... more In 2019, the Pergamon Excavation concentrated on projects of the new research programme ›The transformation of the Pergamon micro-region between the Hellenistic and the Roman imperial period‹ (TransPergMikro). Completion of the excavation of the so-called banqueting house on the east slope of the acropolis hill produced important new findings on the construction, furnishings, amenities, and use of the unusual structure. The first systematic excavations in the amphitheatre of Pergamon attested a niche-wall as the termination of the arena, its floor and also a construction for damming up water in its interior. Building archaeology investigations were continued in the amphitheatre as well as in the extraurban thermal bath. Archaeological and geophysical follow-up investigations on the tumuli Yığma Tepe and X-Tepe were concluded. A new project in the vicinity of the Asklepieion yielded initial findings on land use and settlement structure and also discovered a previously unknown construction terrace above the sanctuary. Investigations in the surroundings of Pergamon using archaeology and physical geography concentrated on selected sections of the landscape and on certain exceptional structures and their immediate surroundings at the southwest edge of the Kaikos (Bakırçay) plain. Of particular note is a complex with rich marble architecture and evidence of the production of architectural terracotta. The first campaign of an intensive survey in Pitane (Çandarlı) was primarily aimed at ascertaining the type, scope and duration of pottery production there. Monument conservation measures again focused on the gymnasium and the Red Hall, where conservation work lasting several years on the cladding of the southeast temenos wall was concluded. The Pergamon Excavation broke new ground with a capacity building project in the excavated residential area below the expedition house.
The Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project revealed a robust and striking pattern of the ... more The Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project revealed a robust and striking pattern of the extreme dominance (>99%) of locally produced ceramics over six centuries and across different depositional contexts (in total over half a million pottery sherds). The archaeology of Jerash points towards an exceptional degree of self-sufficiency in craft products: why? The project team implemented a full quantification approach during excavation, manually and digitally recording and counting all pottery and other classes of artefacts. This enabled a full analysis of trends in production and use of ceramics throughout the archaeologically documented history of Jerash and revealed the unexpected pattern of the extreme dominance of local pottery. Archaeologists formulated a set of hypotheses to explain this pattern, and we developed an agent-based model of simple customer preference driving product distribution to evaluate several explanatory factors and their potential interactions. Our simulation results reveal that preference for locally produced ceramics at Jerash might be a plausible theory, but only if its intrinsic value was considered rather high in comparison to other goods, or if it was preferred by a majority of the population, and there was a tendency to follow this majority preference (or a combination of these factors). Here, we present a complete research pipeline of a full quantification of ceramics, analysis and modelling applicable at any archaeological site. We argue that transparent methods are necessary at all stages of an archaeological project: not only for data collection, management and analysis but also in theory development and testing. By focusing on a common archaeological material and by leveraging a range of widely available computational tools, we are able to better understand local and intra-regional distribution patterns of craft products in Jerash and in the ancient eastern Mediterranean.
The so-called Rock Sanctuary, a distinctive limestone rock outcrop with natural cavities situated... more The so-called Rock Sanctuary, a distinctive limestone rock outcrop with natural cavities situated in the periphery of the Pisidian city of Sagalassos (SW-Turkey), was a natural feature that was served a variety of functions throughout its history. Rescue excavations carried out at the site mainly yielded evidence for the deposition of specialised offerings in the form of ceramic, glass, metal and stone vessels, pieces of personal adornment, instruments for textile production, but especially many thousands of fragments of terracotta figurines. All of these identified RS as a 'special-purpose site', a natural landform that was given a cultural significance, not by means of monumentalisation but through the activities that took place there during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. It was the combination of all these objects as a whole and the very context in which these were used and placed that made it possible to identify the site as a sanctuary, more particularly, a site of popular worship. This paper presents an overview of those excavations, highlighting the significance of this site in the landscape of Sagalassos and what it can tell us about the community that conceived it and used it as a cult site, outside of the sphere of official religious practice. RS thus offered a unique glimpse into an aspect of ancient life not previously known from Sagalassos.
Bes, P., T. Brughmans, A. Lichtenberger, R. Raja and I. Romanowska 2020. “Ceramics in Cities in Context: An Overview of Published Roman Imperial to Umayyad Pottery in the Southern Levant”, in: Lichtenberger, A. and R. Raja (eds.), Hellenistic and Roman Gerasa (Turnhout: Brepols), 55–118., 2020
This article deals with a relatively new form of archaeological research in the Mediterranean reg... more This article deals with a relatively new form of archaeological research in the Mediterranean region – intensive surface survey, coverage of the landscape by teams walking in close order, recording patterns of human activity visible on the landsurface as scatters of pottery and lithics, or building remains. Since 2000, archaeologists from Dutch and Belgian universities working on Mediterranean survey projects have gathered annually to discuss methodological issues in workshops that gradually attracted landscape archaeologists from other European countries and Turkey. On the basis of these discussions, this paper, written by regular workshop contributors and other invited authors with wider Mediterranean experience, aims to evaluate the potential of various approaches to the archaeological surface record in the Mediterranean and provide guidelines for standards of good practice in Mediterranean survey.
The ancient city of Limyra was a well-developed urban centre from Classical to Byzantine times. I... more The ancient city of Limyra was a well-developed urban centre from Classical to Byzantine times. Its remains are located some five kilometres northeast of the modern coastal town of Finike, at the foot of the Toçak Dağı massif, in southeast Lycia, an ancient region on modern Turkey’s southern coast. Pottery, and amphorae in particular, from recent excavations (2016-2019) as well as excavations carried out in 2011-2012, provides us with new insights into Limyra’s long-distance exchange connections. While during the Middle and Late Roman periods amphorae predominantly originated from Eastern Mediterranean sources, a small but notable quantity comes from the Pontic area, most of which were presumably manufactured in or near Sinope. This presentation wishes to (1) present the basic evidence for Pontic amphorae in Limyra in terms of fabric, typology and archaeological context, and (2) by taking a broader, Eastern Mediterranean perspective, to throw some light on the significance of Pontic amphorae during the fourth to seventh centuries AD. https://www.minac.ro/assets/rezumate-pontica-53.pdf
As in the previous years, the research focus in the 2019 season was laid on investigations on the... more As in the previous years, the research focus in the 2019 season was laid on investigations on the urbanistic development of Limyra. Excavations and a large part of the research work had been carried out within the frame of the scientific project “The Urbanistic Development of Limyra in the Hellenistic Period”. Based upon the scientific results of the previous seasons, the scientific focus that was initially given mainly to the Hellenistic period, was extended to comprise the Roman Imperial, Late Antique and Byzantine periods as well. Therefore, the works conducted in 2019 covered a wide range.
This article deals with a relatively new form of archaeological research in the Mediterranean
reg... more This article deals with a relatively new form of archaeological research in the Mediterranean region – intensive surface survey, coverage of the landscape by teams walking in close order, recording patterns of human activity visible on the landsurface as scatters of pottery and lithics, or building remains. Since 2000, archaeologists from Dutch and Belgian universities working on Mediterranean survey projects have gathered annually to discuss methodological issues in workshops that gradually attracted landscape archaeologists from other European countries and Turkey. On the basis of these discussions, this paper, written by regular workshop contributors and other invited authors with wider Mediterranean experience, aims to evaluate the potential of various approaches to the archaeological surface record in the Mediterranean and provide guidelines for standards of good practice in Mediterranean survey.
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Books by Philip Bes
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
Book Chapters by Philip Bes
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
AKMED, the organising committee, as well as the Limyra team would be pleased if you join this day.
During two campaigns in 2019 and 2020 we completed the intensive survey of a series of fields in the centre of the Çandarlı Peninsula. While the bulk of the collected artefacts remain to be studied, our preliminary results show that terra sigillata/red slip ware was manufactured from the first to fifth centuries AD, for which numerous vessel wasters, ceramic slag, production tools and other finds provide direct evidence. In this presentation, we wish to present our aims, methodology as well as the more significant observations so far.
Topics presented fall within the wide-range of the Fellows’ research interests and address in particular the themes of their own projects. The talks are aimed at providing opportunity for debate and discussion.
Attendance of young scholars and students is particularly encouraged. However, the talks are open to everyone interested.
📽 Our seminars will be delivered online via Zoom.
We kindly ask you to register by filling this form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyGKBdtTSEP9BTpyrND60t1ciU42OoeaC_eH-XnGyqMimZkQ/viewform?gxids=7628&fbclid=IwAR0CwVCAsY9vD8AWK_ksbuRnPdcMOyphlEA9wjQq52RxoORH0yWrQeH8Y9E
https://www.minac.ro/assets/rezumate-pontica-53.pdf
region – intensive surface survey, coverage of the landscape by teams walking in close order,
recording patterns of human activity visible on the landsurface as scatters of pottery and lithics,
or building remains. Since 2000, archaeologists from Dutch and Belgian universities working
on Mediterranean survey projects have gathered annually to discuss methodological issues in
workshops that gradually attracted landscape archaeologists from other European countries and
Turkey. On the basis of these discussions, this paper, written by regular workshop contributors
and other invited authors with wider Mediterranean experience, aims to evaluate the potential
of various approaches to the archaeological surface record in the Mediterranean and provide
guidelines for standards of good practice in Mediterranean survey.