The Pottery Industries of the Roman East : Craft Communities and Working Practices

by: Murphy, E.A.

The Pottery Industries of the Roman East
Craft Communities and Working Practices

Author: Elizabeth A. Murphy, Florida State University

What was the social experience of work in the ancient world? In this study, Elizabeth Murphy approaches the topic through the lens offered by a particular set of workers, the potters and ceramicists in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Her research exploits the rich and growing dataset of workshops and production evidence from the Roman East and raises awareness of the unique features of this particular craft in this region over several centuries. Highlighting the multi-faceted working experience of professionals through a theoretically-informed framework, Murphy reconstructs the complex lives of people in the past, and demonstrates the importance of studying work and labor as central topics in social and cultural histories. Her research draws from the fields of archaeology, social history and anthropology, and applies current social theories --- communities of practice, technological choices, chaîne opératoire, cultural hybridity, taskscapes – to interpret and offer new insights into the archaeological remains of workshops and ceramics.

Highlights the multi-faceted working lives of everyday professionals through a theoretically informed framework
Integrates theoretical perspectives and datasets from archaeology, social history, and anthropology, demonstrating to readers how inter-disciplinary approaches can yield important new perspectives on the archaeological record
Integrates the archaeological data from a region (the Roman East) which has not yet received a comparative and large-scale treatment

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Workshops: models vs practice
3. Process, people and working conditions
4. Cultural practices and ritual lives of potters in the workshop
5. Potting traditions, craft learning and product innovation
6. Socially embedded technologies and local technological styles
7. Internal social dynamics of industry clusters: cooperation and competition
8. Urban industry, topographies and community relations
9. Conclusion.

Author
Elizabeth A. Murphy , Florida State University
Elizabeth A. Murphy is Assistant Professor of Classics at Florida State University. Her research focuses on the crafts- and trades-people of the Roman and Late Antique worlds and uses the archaeological record to gain insight into the social lives and practices of working communities in antiquity.

The Pottery Industries of the Roman East : Craft Communities and Working Practices

by: Murphy, E.A.

• ISBN-13: 9781009514606 / 978-1-009-51460-6
• ISBN-03: 1009514601 / 1-009-51460-1
• Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2025