The identification of the provenance of ancient potteries as well the raw materials employed in different workshops is one of the main aim of the archeoceramic studies, involving both archaeology and archaeometry disciplines. In these framework, the correct evaluation of these aspects, cannot disregards the availability of reference groups having certain provenance and clays database; the experimental archaeology can also provide fundamental insights, producing laboratory samples by using known raw materials to verify feature of ceramics made with reference clayey sediments. The archaeological and archaeometric studies of ancient ceramics and laboratory samples provide, usually, a large number of dataset, including typological and stylistically analysis, as well the results of petrographic, mineralogical and chemical studies. However, all these dataare mostly published in single scientific contributes, sometime providing only some examples and/or partial results, so that the comparison between a new set of archaeological findings and already studied materials is quite difficult. In the last ten years, archaeologists and archaeometrists had proposed some tentative of centralization of the results, for a easy and quickly comparisons of ceramic materials on regional or national scale, by using geomatic tools [1-5]. In this streamline is framed the "Open Fabrics" Project [6], finalized to collect, for the first time, in a unique free and open database, a wide unpublished dataset about ancient ceramics from numerous archaeological sites in Tuscany with dating ranging from Late Antiquity to Middle Age; the database take also advantage from data about laboratory samples produced by experimental archaeology routines by using clays samples from the most suitable local geological sources to manufacture ceramic materials. The database, currently under construction, is managed by using Microsoft Access database and it is characterized by a great flexibility, being expandable for its implementation with multidisciplinary studies. Following the principle of GIS tools, the access to the database will allow to the usera easily comparison of studied ceramics by queries regarding both archaeological and archaeometric features. Each target (i.e. archaeological artifact) included in the database is geo-referenced, allowing a global overview on the distribution of a certain archaeological/fabric type over the regional context; it is also provided by both typological description and results of archaeometric analysis (fabric classification, mineralogical and chemical composition by X-ray fluorescence analysis). Apart from ceramic objects, the database includes as target also clays sources, each of them providing geological and geochemical characterization and geolocalized in respect to a geological map level. In this contribute, we propose the architecture of the database and its working principle, along with some data already loaded in. REFERENCES:[1] A. Hein,V.Kilikoglou (2012) ceraDAT—PROTOTYPE OF A WEB-BASED RELATIONAL DATABASE FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL CERAMICS, Archaeometry, 54, 230-243. [2] S. T. Levi, V. Cannavò, D. Brunelli, A. Di Renzoni (2015) Wikipottery: Archaeometric and archaeological catalogue and classification of Central Mediterranean Prehistoric Pottery, 2015. [3] J. B. Barreau, B. Gehres (2015) BasePetroCeram: a database for petrographic and geochemical analysis of archaeological ceramics, EMAC 2015 - 13th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics, Athenes, Greece. [4] Facem Project, first release 2011, sixth release of FACEM of December 6th, 2016 (http://facem.at/). [5] Roman Amphorae: a digital resources (http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk). [6] F. Cantini, B. Fatighenti, M. Gabriele (2015) O(pen) F(abrics): un portale di impasti on-line, in P. Arthur, M. L. Imperiale (2015) VII Congresso di Archeologia Medievale (Lecce, 9-12 settembre 2015).
TOWARDS A TUSCANY ANCIENT CERAMIC DATABASE: THE "OPEN FABRICS" PROJECT
Fatighenti Beatrice;Raneri Simona
;Gabriele Marzia;Lezzerini Marco;Cantini Federico
2018-01-01
Abstract
The identification of the provenance of ancient potteries as well the raw materials employed in different workshops is one of the main aim of the archeoceramic studies, involving both archaeology and archaeometry disciplines. In these framework, the correct evaluation of these aspects, cannot disregards the availability of reference groups having certain provenance and clays database; the experimental archaeology can also provide fundamental insights, producing laboratory samples by using known raw materials to verify feature of ceramics made with reference clayey sediments. The archaeological and archaeometric studies of ancient ceramics and laboratory samples provide, usually, a large number of dataset, including typological and stylistically analysis, as well the results of petrographic, mineralogical and chemical studies. However, all these dataare mostly published in single scientific contributes, sometime providing only some examples and/or partial results, so that the comparison between a new set of archaeological findings and already studied materials is quite difficult. In the last ten years, archaeologists and archaeometrists had proposed some tentative of centralization of the results, for a easy and quickly comparisons of ceramic materials on regional or national scale, by using geomatic tools [1-5]. In this streamline is framed the "Open Fabrics" Project [6], finalized to collect, for the first time, in a unique free and open database, a wide unpublished dataset about ancient ceramics from numerous archaeological sites in Tuscany with dating ranging from Late Antiquity to Middle Age; the database take also advantage from data about laboratory samples produced by experimental archaeology routines by using clays samples from the most suitable local geological sources to manufacture ceramic materials. The database, currently under construction, is managed by using Microsoft Access database and it is characterized by a great flexibility, being expandable for its implementation with multidisciplinary studies. Following the principle of GIS tools, the access to the database will allow to the usera easily comparison of studied ceramics by queries regarding both archaeological and archaeometric features. Each target (i.e. archaeological artifact) included in the database is geo-referenced, allowing a global overview on the distribution of a certain archaeological/fabric type over the regional context; it is also provided by both typological description and results of archaeometric analysis (fabric classification, mineralogical and chemical composition by X-ray fluorescence analysis). Apart from ceramic objects, the database includes as target also clays sources, each of them providing geological and geochemical characterization and geolocalized in respect to a geological map level. In this contribute, we propose the architecture of the database and its working principle, along with some data already loaded in. REFERENCES:[1] A. Hein,V.Kilikoglou (2012) ceraDAT—PROTOTYPE OF A WEB-BASED RELATIONAL DATABASE FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL CERAMICS, Archaeometry, 54, 230-243. [2] S. T. Levi, V. Cannavò, D. Brunelli, A. Di Renzoni (2015) Wikipottery: Archaeometric and archaeological catalogue and classification of Central Mediterranean Prehistoric Pottery, 2015. [3] J. B. Barreau, B. Gehres (2015) BasePetroCeram: a database for petrographic and geochemical analysis of archaeological ceramics, EMAC 2015 - 13th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics, Athenes, Greece. [4] Facem Project, first release 2011, sixth release of FACEM of December 6th, 2016 (http://facem.at/). [5] Roman Amphorae: a digital resources (http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk). [6] F. Cantini, B. Fatighenti, M. Gabriele (2015) O(pen) F(abrics): un portale di impasti on-line, in P. Arthur, M. L. Imperiale (2015) VII Congresso di Archeologia Medievale (Lecce, 9-12 settembre 2015).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
