On this episode of the Peopling the Past podcast, we are joined by Dr. Elizabeth Murphy, an assistant professor of Roman Archaeology at Florida State University, where she works on the history and archaeology of labour production and technology in the Roman world. She’s the co-director of the Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia Project and has excavated in at several sites ranging from Turkey to Montserrat. She is currently working on a book titled “Craft Communities and Working Practices: The Pottery Industries of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Roman and Late Antique periods”.
Listen in, as Dr. Murphy takes us through her research on pottery workshops with a particular focus on the workshops in Sagalassos, Turkey, and what the excavation of these sites can reveal about methods of production, the people involved in pottery production, raw material acquisition and the changing dining habits of citizens in the Roman Empire.
Interested in learning more? Check out these related articles by Dr. Murphy:
Murphy, E. A., and J. Poblome. 2013. “Technical and social considerations of tools from Roman period ceramic workshops at Sagalassos (Southwest Turkey). Not just tools of the trade?” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 25(2): 197-217.
Murphy, E. A. 2016. “Roman Workers and Their Workplaces: Some Archaeological Thoughts on the Organization of Workshop Labour in Ceramic Production. In: Work, Labour, and Professions in the Roman World, edited by K. Verboven and C. Laes. Leiden: Brill, 133-146.
Murphy, E. A., and J. Poblome. 2016. “From Formal to Technical Styles: Production Challenges and Economic Implications of Changing Tableware Styles in Roman to Late Antique Sagalassos.” American Journal of Archaeology 121 (1): 61-84.
Looking for a transcript of this episode? Click here.
Additional Resources Related to this Podcast
Hasaki, E. 2012. “Craft Apprenticeship in Ancient Greece: Reaching beyond the Masters.” In Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice, edited by W. Wendrich, 171-202. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Hasaki, E., ed. The WebAtlas of Ceramic Kilns in Ancient Greece, University of Arizona (https://atlasgreekkilns.arizona.edu)
Kamp, K.A., N. Timmerman, G. Lind, J. Graybill and I. Natowsky. 1999. “Archaeology Discovering Childhood: Using Fingerprints to Find Children in the Archaeological Record.” American Antiquity 64 (2): 309-315.
Lawall, M.L. and J. Lund, eds. 2011. Pottery in the Archaeological Record: Greece and Beyond. Acts of the International Colloquium held at the Danish and Canadian Institutes in Athens, June 20-22, 2008. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Leibner, U. 2010. “Arts and Crafts, Manufacture and Production.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, edited by Catherine Hezser, 264-296. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lund, J. 2009. “Engendering the Potters of Hellenistic and Roman Cyprus.” Medelhavsmuseet. Focus on the Mediterranean, no. 5, 2009. Proceedings from the International Conference ‘Finds and Results from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition 1927–1931: A Gender Perspective’, March 31–April 2, 2006, 165-170. Stockholm: Medelhavsmuseet.
Peacock, David P. S. 1982. Pottery in the Roman World: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach. London: Longman.
Peña, J.T. 2007. Roman Pottery in the Archaeological Record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Verboven, K. and C. Laes, eds. 2016. Work, Labour, and Professions in the Roman World. Leiden: Brill.
Wilson, A. and M. Flohr, eds. 2016. Urban Craftsmen and Traders in the Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.