Archaeological Semblance and the Remaking of Roman Pottery Practice

Markovitz, Bryan Matthew

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Overview

Year:: 2020
Contributor:: Markovitz, Bryan Matthew (creator); Preucel, Robert (Advisor); VanValkenburgh, Parker (Reader); Faudree, Paja (Reader); Brown University. Department of Anthropology (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Anthropology; Aesthetics; Performance theory; Phenomenology; Ethnography; Mediterranean archaeology; Archaeology and history; Semiotics; Roman archaeology; Actor-network theory; Pottery
Extent:: , 129 p.

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Description

Abstract:: During the summer of 2017, the author participated in an excavation of a Roman craft production facility dating to the first century, CE. The excavation took place at a site near Cinigiano, Tuscany and was led by the Marzuolo Archaeological Project (MAP). This thesis offers an ethnographic account of the excavation, while analyzing the aesthetic and performative practices used by the project's principal investigators to speculate on the historical conditions of the site, and its evidence of early production terra sigillata table wears. In reflecting on the effort of the archaeologists to make a coherent narrative appear from the archaeological evidence without relying on representational aspects of material culture studies, the author reveals how excavation practices utilized aesthetic forms of semblance (or "appearing") in the context of anthropology and performance. This perspective offers a contrast to MAP's own focus on using material evidence to trace an actor-network that might put into question established norms about terra sigillata as a representational category, and about the "Roman economy" more broadly. By analyzing how archaeological semblance played into the re-assembly of a first-century actor-network at Marzuolo, the author argues that MAP became an active producer of representational practices at the site, and in the archaeological production of knowledge.
Notes:: Thesis (A. M.)--Brown University, 2020

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Citation

Markovitz, Bryan Matthew, "Archaeological Semblance and the Remaking of Roman Pottery Practice" (2020). Anthropology Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:22xmrnu6/

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Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Anthropology department.
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