La présente communication porte sur les vases peints nagadiens. Les vases White cross-lined de Nagada I-IIAB ne retiendront que peu notre attention et nous nous concentrerons que les Decorated de Nagada IIC-D. En effet, il apparaît au travers de leur décor que des règles strictes régissent aussi bien le choix des éléments, leurs associations que leur positionnement sur la surface du vase. Elles sont strictes et témoignent d’une hiérarchie au sein des éléments constitutifs du décor. Après avoir dégagé autant que possible ces règles, pour reconstituer une syntaxe de l’image nagadienne, on tentera une mise en parallèle avec les grandes lignes de la syntaxe la plus ancienne connue pour l’écriture hiéroglyphique, celle de l’Ancien-Empire.

S. Valentini, G. Guarducci, and N. Laneri (eds.), Archaeology of Symbols: ICAS I. Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (MaReA vol 3), Oxford: Oxbow, 2024

This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasises the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology. Symbols must not be conceived only as allegory but also, and perhaps mainly, as reason (raison d'être) and meaning (culture). They may be considered key elements leading to interpretation, not only in their physical manifestation but by being infused with the gestures, beliefs and intentions of their creators, created in a specifi c context and with a specifi c chaîne opératoire. In this volume a variety of case studies is offered, representing disparate ancient cultures in the Mediterranean and central Europe and the Near East. The thread that connects them revolves around the prominence of symbols and allegorical aspects in archaeology, whether they are considered as expressions of iconographic evidence, material culture or ritual ceremonies, seen from a multicultural perspective. This (and subsequent ICAS) volumes, therefore, aims to embrace all the different aspects pertaining to symbols in archaeology in a specific 'place', allowing the reader to deepen their knowledge of such a fascinating and multifaceted topic, by looking at it from a multicultural perspective.

D. Bolger and L. Elder (ed.) The Development of Pre-State Societies in the Ancient Near East: Studies in Honour of Edgar Peltenburg. Oxford. Oxbow Books, 2010

2015

Fundvergesellschaftungen bearbeitet (Klazomenai). Archaische Keramiktraditionen weniger bekannter, inländischer Fundorte (z.B. Tabae) werden auf die lokale Bevölkerungsstruktur zurückgeführt, während spätklassische bis frühhellenistische, lokale Produktionen und deren attische Beeinflussung behandelt werden (Iasos, Priene). Bei archaischer und hellenistischer Keramik aus Kalabrien und Sizilien werden strukturelle Fragen aufgeworfen, die für das Verständnis kleinasiatischer Waren hilfreich sein dürften. So ist die Auswertung kultureller Interaktionselemente von Bedeutung: auf welcher Weise sich z.B. Bildformen der Keramik der frühen griechischen Kolonisten auf die Produktionen der inländisch-sikulischen Werkstätten auswirkten. Ferner ergeben die Vergleiche, die bei der frühen "grauen Keramik" über unteritalisch-sizilische Fundkomplexe zu ziehen sind, dass enge Beziehungen, via Euböa, zu Kleinasien bestanden. Für die in mittelhellenistischer Epoche weit exportierte sog. Magenta Ware wird Syrakus als eines der Produktionszentren vermutet, während für die Erforschung von Ernährung und Essgewohnheiten in Campanien des 3.-5. Jh. n.Chr., Form-Typologie, Waren-Verteilung, technische Eigenheiten und Fundvergesellschaftungen als stellvertretende Indizien zur Bewertung hinzugezogen werden. Was die Spätantike betrifft, so wird die Herkunftsproblematik der in kilikischen Fundplätzen stark vertretenen spätrömischen C-Ware (sog. phokäische Ware) ebenso behandelt wie die Bandbreite der spätantiken Keramik von Kyme und ihre Aussage für Handel und Rang. Die Beitragsvielfalt schließt mit Untersuchungen zur attischen Keramik und deren Exporten ab. Es sei hierbei auf einen Beitrag zu einem überlegenswerten ikonographischen Wandel von der spätprotoattischen zur früharchaischen,

in R. Berg, A. Coralini, A. Koponen, R. Välimäki (eds) Tangible Religion. Materiality of Domestic Cult Practices from Antiquity to Early Modern Era, 2021

The chapter focuses on vases and vase shapes to explore their materiality and semiotics in Roman domestic and ritual contexts. To this end, I focus on a group of Julio-Claudian cinerary vases in coloured stone that present a double-handled hemispherical body resting on a short foot and with a lid with a pear-shaped finial. Due to the striking resemblance to a (modern) soup bowl, I called this shape “tureen”. Previous scholars had noticed these urns’ “atypical” design, which appeared random if compared to the other known types of Roman cinerary containers and with no obvious funerary connection. Instead, I suggest that the tureen’s ‘unconventional’ shape was symbolically charged, and thus meaningful. I further argue that it resulted from the synthesis of a series of more ancient ritual vases connected to both the domestic and ritual spheres. I start from the observation that the choice of a given shape for a cinerary container could not be made randomly, but on the account of its perceived familiar, sacred character or semiotic reference to the cultic sphere. To illustrate this point, I discuss the tureen shape’s hybrid ancestry by recalling the use and function of its architypes considering recent debates on material culture, memory and skeuomorphism. Although no tureens have been found in “physical” form in Roman domestic contexts, there is evidence from visual representations that the iconography of the shape itself could have played an important role in domestic religion and in everyday life. I shall thus set the discussion further against the images of vases, of which the tureen seems to be the materialisation, featuring in Roman domestic frescoes to speculate upon its potential connection with Roman domestic cults. By discussing the ritual meaning of these painted objects within their scenes, I aim to demonstrate that they are not simple parerga or accessories but meaningful visual symbols that acting upon the senses made the sacred a tangible reality in everyday life. Furthermore, the evidence emerging from the creation and use of the stone tureens compels us to frame this phenomenon further in the early Imperial cultural and ideological climate. The tureens do not in fact come into use as urns until the Augustan period. I argue that this is more than a chronological coincidence, but possibly the material actualization of the Augustan visual and religious syntax. Within the framework of lived religion and sensory studies, the aim is to extrapolate the ritual role of the tureen and other vase shapes in Roman religious and domestic contexts to shed further light on the relationship between the sacred and materiality in antiquity.

2019

2014

Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local, 2016

Architectural Draughtsmanship, 2017

In the contribution is assumed that, within the larger Visual Culture, the Drawing (especially considering the graphics trace as signifier) is a strong character in the formal language. If this is true always, of particular interest appears the role of the "tracer mean" in the decoration of ceramic, support that may enhance the expressive characteristics inherent in visual project: by the immediate spontaneity of the manual sign, freely conducted (e.g. in decorations landscapes and figures) up to the rigor of geometric patterns, also realized through stencil and "masks". Another goal of this paper is to probe the relationship between expressive and technical aspects and contained meanings. Without excluding the essential cultural matrices in the training of artisans and artists, viewed in a first reference historical-critical context. Keywords Visual project Á Drawing Á Graphic trace Á Decoration Á Ceramic 1 Introduction/State of Art All over the world, in the history of art, craft and architecture, ceramics (including porcelain, majolica, pottery) had the widest circulation, with gradually different functions and meanings. Beyond the different realization techniques, manufacturing and production, particularly complex is the field of decorations (even architectural), with specific interest in visual and graphic. Regarding decorative patterns, we can see typological repertoires of other decorative elements: geometric (as the Viennese ceramics of Eighteenth and Nineteenth century), naturalistic (flora and fauna) and the "figures" or landscapes one. Considering the period between the Sixteenth century and the present day, in a huge repertoire, we can therefore mention many original schools and "factories",

A comprehensive interrogation of Egyptian Predynastic C-ware suggests there is little substantive evidence to support many of the interpretive revisions make in the past few decades regarding the symbolism and ideological content of the wares painted decoration. And although C-ware still remains enigmatic, this paper nonetheless uses the available data to formulate a number of conclusions with regard to the chronology, development and 'meaning' of the C-ware decorative designs. Firstly, the evidence for the ware being placed at the very beginning of the Nagada sequence (i.e. PNC 1a) is robust and based, in part, on a general seriation of the Nagada period, as well as on the direct morphological links the C-ware ‘keeled’ pots have with their Badarian counterparts. The development of the C-ware decorative linage is similarly interrogated and leads to the conclusion that a number of painted plate/dish designs are descended from top down representations of keeled pottery decoration which were themselves largely the products of basket work designs

2020

The analysis of the ornament is the key issue in the studies of the applied decorative art. Nevertheless , the principal points pertaining to the nature of ornament, its expressivity, semantics, compositional principles and cultural value, have only been covered intermittently. This is primarily due to the disengagement of the various academic fields involved in the studies of ornament: art history, cultural anthropology, ethnography, archeology, etc. It seems important to synthesize the methods and approaches as well as set up the basis for developing the general principles for the studies of ornament, that would take into account all its various aspects. The definition of ornament through its decorative function does not encompass its essential features: rhythm, meter, and symmetry. Ornament can be considered as a strategy of visualizing rhythm and can be regarded as a specific art form. Apart from the formal trend, based on systematization of ornaments, the approaches to ornament as the basis of ethnocultural reconstructions play a prominent part. Studies concerning the semantics of ornament offer a whole range of opinions, but the widespread notion that ornament is a set of signs and symbols calls for a critical reappraisal. At the same time, ornament plays an important part in the process of intercultural and intracultural communications on the level of signal and index, being a special kind of "art-rhythm". The interdisciplinary approach opens a much broader range of ideas concerning the options for studying ornaments and offers solutions for subsequent research. One of the most promising possibilities is the comprehensive and cross-cultural analysis of ornament as the element of a communication system, based on the search for the links between the development of the ornamental traditions and styles as well as the developments in the other spheres of human culture. Keywords: ornament, theory of ornament, history of ornament, definition of ornament, ornament in archeology, ornament in ethnography, symmetry in ornament.

Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World – Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Cologne/Bonn 2018, Vol. 20, 2021

2024

The main approaches for the study of Tripolye-Cucuteni painted ornaments Elena Starkova | Get into the groove: Decorative techniques and motifs on the Late Eneolithic pottery from the site of Adžine Njive (Western Serbia) Marija Svilar, Dragan Milanović, Miroslav Kočić | The development of ceramic decoration at the Late Bronze Age settlement of Hlyboke Ozero-2: Can we learn more with data mining methods? Anastasiia Korokhina | Apulo-Lucanian Hellenistic Ware. An entangled node between Aegean and Italic pottery production Carlo De Mitri | Ars ornamentum: Analysis of the decorative repertoire present on the tin-glazed wares of southern production from Cencelle (VT) Flora Miele MESSAGES AND MEANINGS | Double zigzag decoration in the Prehistory of Eastern Europe Nadezhda Kotova and Simon Radchenko | Pottery Function and Use: A Diachronic Perspective | Mixed pottery traditions in the 5 th millennium western Serbia: Insights from the site of Šanac-Izba near Lipolist Jasna Vuković and Boban Tripković | Trapped in the aesthetics: Understanding style and decoration of handmade pottery in Albania Esmeralda Agolli | Shapes and meanings. A preliminary study of the matt-painted pottery decorations and their role in the communication systems of ancient communities in Southern Italy (mid-7 th to mid-5 th century BC) Cesare Vita | Transformation of pottery styles during the formation of kingdoms. A Scandinavian example from c. 500-800 AD Thomas Eriksson | Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels Ivan Bugarski | Message on the pot: Sgraffito pottery decoration and group identities in the medieval Balkans Vesna Bikić DECORATIVE STYLES AND CULTURAL INTERACTIONS | Rocky Road to Sokolica: Middle Bronze Age pottery in Central Serbia from Vatin to Bubanj-Hum IV-Ljuljaci Culture Marija Ljuština and Katarina Dmitrović | Basarabi decorative style as a material culture trait of the initial stages of the Early Iron Age in the western parts of the Serbian Danube region Ivan Ninčić

Worldview in Narrative and Non-narrative Expression, 2021

Using the example of the decorated Attic vases of the archaic period, this chapter demonstrates how the creation of objects of material culture reflects the unconscious idea of how the world and man function. These objects, which seem typical products of culture, are in fact constructed on the basis of embodied human experience (the world perceived through the eyes and ears, entangled in materiality etc.). Decorations on Attic vases are considered to be strongly conventional, formulaic and to refer to poetic narratives. Similarly, the Greek worldview, the values and beliefs that permeate them seem to be culture-bound. Meanwhile, the analysis of vase paintings and the accompanying inscriptions shows that they reflect a mental picture of material reality, where visually perceived stimuli are accompanied by sounds of speech, which are bothtied up with the cultural and social context. The inscriptions reflect the natural presence of speech sounds in the Greek community on the one hand, and on the other, they refer the viewer to all associations with the cultural content of visual representations (references to myths, cultural conventions, but also the obvious “Greekness” of the message due to the alphabetic notation corresponding to the Greek language). The whole message is therefore complementary and cumulative, just like the way in which the human mind perceives reality. Another feature of the cultural message is redundancy, similar to the natural message, so that even a minor violation of conventions (as in the case of the so-called nonsense inscriptions, which were not rare in the archaic period) does not disturb meaning, as long as all its elements fit into the Greek worldview, familiar to the recipient.

De mazonerías y follajes tudescos a artesones romanos. El léxico ornamental como elemento de identidad y de linaje (siglos XV-XVI

Dissertationes Archaeologicae ex Instituto ArchaeologicoUniversitatis de Rolando Eötvös nominata, 2024

Attic black-figure vases from the Late Archaic and Early Classical periods are often neglected by scholars. Most of them are not included in the Beazley Archive Pottery Database, significantly hindering related research. This paper presents such a vase from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. The authors propose that the scene on the lekythos, akin to others from the era, is a simplified version of a more elaborate one.

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