Which shows just what a non trivial task load up a cargo of a roofs worth of roof tile onto a ship would be.

The @rogueclassism twitter feed expressed surprised at tie cargios, so I thought I may drag out the evidence I used for my Thesis (http://www.archaeopress.com/archaeopressshop/public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={C5CE327D-710F-44D9-AC3A-7C04BC75D091})

The first place to start when looking for tile wreck data is Parkers gazateer on ship wrecks: Parker A.J.1992 Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces BAR IS  

Below I have plotted out all the find spots of Roman wrecks with cargo as a primary cargo ( as opposed used in the ships galley etc).

We can see that the ship wrecks do cluster somewhat ( remembering that this was compiled in  1992 so before deep sea wreck hunting was really possible) I have shaded in areas where we can establish regional tile trading zones: The Northern Levant and the Orontes being supplied from Cilicia, the supply line along the Danube ( certainly in Bulgaria – probably somewhat wider) the trade in Campagnian roof tile and brick to North Africa, the cluster identified by Parker as related to Frejus in France. I have a couple of additional zones outside the Mediterranean: the classis Britannia bricks that have been identified by David Peacock as appearing on both sides of the channel, the late Roman pink grog tempered zone in Britain ( which is interesting as this would have to be transported over land). There are a number of other regional CBM zones in Britain that are beginning to emerge as I get to see them (Mills, P The Supply and Distribution of Ceramic Building Material In Roman Britain, Late Antique Archaeology 10., 451-470. http://www.brill.com/products/book/local-economies ) There are a number of barges inland in Belgium and the Netherlands which were carrying tiles  known as well – but not plotted here.

We can also see something of a cluster in the Adriatic sea - - I’m not aware of any work there to determine if they are part of a trading zone, but it looks like there is one there.

Coming to Sardinia we can see a few points already on the map – if the tiles are from Italy as suggested than I will have to extend that trading zone next time I produce this map.

To put the number of tile wrecks into context – some 4% of the cargos listed in Parker are tile cargos ( compared to 2% of stone cargos). To my mind this is a lot.

So why this long distance transport of tile. The most common model was that these are ‘ballast cargoes’ – ships that are coming from Italy to pick up grain for the annona which would otherwise be empty. Obviously this model takes a battering given how widespread regional trades are, outside the areas of the annona ( e.g. tiles to Beirut are perhaps going the wrong way). As the photos of the divers conveys, manufacturing the tiles, transporting them to a ship then loading them, unloading them and transporting them to a building site are not trivial tasks – you also need to have specialist who know how to roof a building. This ultimately is part of my argument that Roman roof tiles should be considered as high cost  high status items ( of which more perhaps later)

Using Archaeological Archives A case study of finds from Roman Essex.

 

This is a short overview of the work carried out for the Town and Country in Roman Essex: Settlement Hierarchies in Roman Essex project which produced the book:  Perring, D. and Pitts, M Alien Cities: Town and Country in Roman Essex

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeologyse/publications/monographs/#Mono7

as well as this digital archive at ADS http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/romanessex_eh_2011/index.cfm

I have not read ‘alien cities’ ( its beyond my usual realm of work, and I haven’t had time!) and haven’t had a chance to look at the digital archive so this is more a blog about my first impressions.

This is quite a useful overview of some of the problems involved in interrogating archives and trying to bring together data from lots of different sources, A problem I have dealt with on a number of occasions…

This project covered a number of finds types, not just pottery, although ceramic building materials weren’t looked at (sigh). The amalgamation of ways of analyzing coin methodologies was interesting, and expanding it to cover IA coins as well may be useful. It’s not really my area, and I don’t get much in the way of IA coins in my patch, but it may be useful to keep that in mind when next I have to deal with coin data. What was worrying about the data was the point about the differences in what was published and what was retrievable in the archive – a point  that is made repeatedly throughout the document about all finds - but I was assuming that there was a standard way of presenting coin data, even if there are diverging ideas on how to analyze it.

Some of the problems with animal bone data I was familiar with.  Generally where I am trying to analyze integrated finds data sets I have used counts to compare different ratios between find types and how they change. The next step is comparing minimum numbers of individuals   between groups, although how that is calculated from animal bones has been a matter of discussion for some time to say the least (!). In my ideal world we would also be looking at ‘animal equivalents’ (cf Moreno-Garcia M., Orton C. and Rackham J. 1996 A new statistical tool for comparing animal bone assemblages”, JAS 23 437–53) .as analogous to EVEs/ RE s (Orton C. 1989 An introduction to the quantification of assemblages of pottery, Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 2 94–97).and indeed PIES (Orton C. and Tyers P. 1991 Slicing the pie—a framework for comparing ceramic assemblages, Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 4 (1991) 79–81.)

Similarly with vessel glass there are problems with what is recorded. Personally I think that what is recorded for vessel glass should be broadly in line with the same metrics for ceramic vessels – which is not something that was apparently recommended here.

Registered finds covered object and material types, but not simple namesa Also a point is made about the inconsistency of how some objects are recorded as registered or otherwise: fired clay objects, loom weights , querns and I would include nails, which actually often have useful positional data attached to them, but are often treated as ‘bulk’..

 

Pottery is of course covered in great depth, and many familiar problems are encountered. It is at times had to work out whether a fabric or form typology is being referred to. It also occurs that we made need a formal definition/ standard of what constitutes a type series. Certainly the lack of standard referral to existing typologies is a problem, as well as the lack of standard metrics and what actually is being recorded. I personally have basic metrics of count, weight and minimum number of rims and will do rim equivalents and base equivalents at analysis stage as well (and if you want to be pedantic, can calculate EVE as [RE+BE] / 2 if you want to strictly adhere to the original definition. The lack of MNR in the metrics covered in the assessment her could certainly well result in the ignoring of otherwise usable data sets.

An aspect of the project design was to look at key groups. Working mainly on rural sites in the north I very rarely come across a site assemblage large or complex enough to break down into key groups – often its hard enough to get the details of the  phase groups out of project directors!

One interesting aspect of this project design was the concentration on pit ‘consumption’ groups because of assumed date ranges. – In the Midlands we are now getting patterns of deposition from the LIA strongly implying regions of pit deposition Vs ditch deposition, over and beyond the status implications in whether or not pottery is deposited in horizontal or vertical strat by site type. I also wondered whether ditch terminals would count – given how many structured deposits seem to be coming out of them these days.

The publication ends with some key recommendations, relating to existing and creating type series, (although missing out setting into place procedures for updating typologies, a particular bug bear of mine)

Overall a useful document, if a rather depressing one.

This weekend I was at the Study Group for Roman Pottery Conference at Norwich. I think that this was the first time I had been in Norfolk since a very wet family holiday in the early 80s.

There was the usual very good mix of papers, opportunities to mix with colleagues – blinking in the unaccustomed light having been freed from the pot shed for a few days, and some nice excursions.  Overall it was a very well run conference an we all owe Alice Lyons a lot of thanks for that!

The Friday afternoon mainly concentrated on Roman Norfolk, and Eastern Britain, which is of interest, and indeed I have been involved in over the years. There was quite an interesting example of what looked like a canteen for a servile workforce shown by Andrew Peachy, which reflect structures that Jerry Evans has described on the North West Kings Street – where servile populations seem to be working for private suppliers of commodities ( Iron, salt, leather, tile etc) for the Military. This perhaps parallels with the settlements from 5th century Antioch hinterland I reported on a few years ago.

Saturday saw two sessions: one on Urban projects, including a paper aiming to push forward the publication of the important Mancetter Hartshill Kiln excavations by Jane Evans and Laura Griffin.

The third session was jointly held with the Prehistoric ceramics research Group ( which I am also a member of and gave us up dates on the joint Prehistoric/ Roman/ Medieval pottery guidance project ( which will be very timely) the Reference resources project and the upcoming pottery residues guidance document – which is potentially very useful.

The afternoon saw us decamping to Caistor St Edmunds to view the site of the roman town, and then Burgh which had some impressive standing remains, and nice tile courses, although why there was a cavalry unity posted at such wet environs was an interesting question.

And now back to the cavern of the pot shed for another year…

Well, that was an exciting year!

 I have just finished a paper (on the social life of tile) and thought that this would be a good time to get into good habits. Blogging took a hit because of a rather unexpected ( but nice) surge in work. This has gone quiet again, but mainly because everyone is out in the field.
 
I have a number of projects which don't have any attached funding that I will try to finish off before the paid work surges again. I am struck once again ( and this came out of the CIfA workshop I organised in Cardiff
 how much project management resembles the iceburg of cliche - 9/10ths being hidden ( and the 1/10th is a Gantt chart). Anyway the Gantt chart of my life now has a permanent task holder of blog entry