OSTRAKON 2019

Proceeding with a cycle of Wrocław meetings that concentrate on various issues related to pottery and glass throughout history, we kindly invite you to attend this year’s conference. This time the discussion will be focused on „Ceramics and glass in interdisciplinary research”. The aim of the symposium is to integrate representatives of different disciplines whose research interests are tightly connected with historic ceramics and glass. Finds of ceramics and glass, which are common at archaeological sites, provide a valuable source for a research on production, use and significance of pottery and glassware in all historic periods. In an interdisciplinary research the lack of common ground is particularly visible, which is caused by the low number of events that would enable scholars to discuss problems and exchange their experiences. Our Symposium attempts to fill this gap. During The 3rd International Symposium on Pottery and Glass OSTRAKON „Ceramics and glass in interdisciplinary research”, the following issues will be discussed: 1. Technology of pottery and glass. Physical and chemical analysis. Archeometry. Research methodology. 2. Discoveries. 3. Conservation, restoration, reconstruction. Cultural heritage documentation and protection. 4. Ceramics and glass as a subject of research of the history of culture. 5. Ceramics and glass as a means of resolving complex issues in history research. 6. Past technologies – new opportunities, modern techniques – past skills. 7. Sociotopography, spatial and functional arrangement of sites or objects basing on the finds of ceramics and glass.

Proceeding with a cycle of Wrocław meetings concerning the topic of pottery and glass throughout history, we would like to invite you to participate in the 2nd International Symposium OSTRAKON which main theme is 'Pottery and glass in art. Art in pottery and glass'. The intention of the organizers is to make the subject of consideration as broad as possible range of topics and detailed studies related to the production technology and other workshop issues, as well as a variety of functional and stylistic aspects related to daily and public life, social status, economic and cultural relations, aesthetic, religious and symbolic values. Wide panorama of discussed problems will be also an appropriate forum for presentation of studies and achievements in the field of contemporary conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic pottery and glass, as well as to pay attention to events, phenomena and trends in the antique market. We especially recommend to participants the particular panel of presentations referring to the main theme of the symposium with a distance and in tongue-in-cheek manner. 'Art of pottery' and 'Art of glass' will be a pretext for presenting individual, isolated and not having analogies finds as well as phenomena and observations of a unique, one of a kind, which sooner or later in their professional life all researchers encounter, often not having the appropriate occasion to make them public. We hope that the proposed formula of issues will allow the symposium attendees to deeper reflection on the importance and place of pottery and glass in human culture, both in the past and nowadays. Like in the last year, our aim is to give the Conference an interdisciplinary character, that is why we kindly invite representatives of different disciplines – archaeologists, anthropologists, glassmakers, historians, art historians, artists, technologists and specialists in restoration and reconstruction of glass and ceramics.

Paweł Rzeźnik: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych im. E. Gepperta we Wrocławiu, Katedra Konserwacji i

Center for conservation and archaeology of Montenegro is committed to preserving the environment which includes cutting down on unnecessary paper and plastics with engaging in new technologies and re-using materials.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020

Much like weapons, vessels made from glasses and ceramics have longbeen held as objects of very high technology. Ceramic technology mastery is even at the foundation of metallurgy. In producing glass, potteries and enamelled metals, three critical, and energy intensive steps are needed : obtaining fine powder, firing, and building appropriate kilns. Control of the colour also requires advanced physical and chemical knowledge. Indeed, if ceramic production is somewhat the art of forming a heterogeneous matter (only some components melt), glass or enamel production requires the object to pass through a homogeneous liquid state to obtain the desired microstructure and properties. This chapter presents the different destructive, non-destructive and non-invasive analytical methods that can be carried out in laboratory, on shards or sampling with fixed 'big' instruments, or on site (museums, reserves, etc.) with mobile set-ups. After a brief overview of the history of pottery, the implications of the processes involved (grinding, shaping, sintering, enamelling, decoration) on micro-and nano-structures (formation / decomposition temperature, kinetic / phase rules, sintering) is given. The emphasis is given to information that can be obtained by XRF and Raman mobile non-invasive measurements. Examples illustrating how these studies help to document technology exchanges and exchange routes are also given.

The aim of this paper is to overview and summarize glass finds from period between the second half of the 5th and the beginning of the 7th century found in the area of present-day Slovenia. Late antique glass in this part of the southeastern Alps was for a long time overshadowed by the more conspicuous Roman material from between the 1st and 4th century. Some later glass was published along with other finds but it has not yet been properly studied. This study is based on published and unpublished glass from fortified hilltop settlements in Slovenia which represent the main settlement form of the period. Glass vessels and window glass were found especially often in ecclesiastical buildings but also in private houses. Workshops have not yet been confirmed beyond doubt but they are certainly indicated. Considering the relatively low number of imported pottery and the generally autarkic character of the late antique fortified hilltop settlements in Slovenia the quantity of glass finds is surprising. They are represented by stemmed goblets, which are most numerous, and also other forms such as beakers, bottles, balsamaria and occasionally bowls and plates. Glass lamps with handles appear above all in the churches, but can also be found in other contexts. The overall character of the glass finds fits very well within the spectrum of the Early Byzantine glass in the Mediterranean. It indicates that the region of present-day Slovenia was in spite of its dangerous position on the main incursion routes into Italy and the consequent devastations of the 5th century at least in some ways still a part of the economic and commercial networks of the Mediterranean.

The lowland open settlement of Němčice and the oppidum of Staré Hradisko belong to the most important production and trade centres of the Late Iron Age – La Tène period in central Europe. Both are located in the Middle Danube region, in Moravia along the so-called Amber Route, the major trade route connecting the Mediterranean with the Baltic. Besides significant manufacturing activities such as coinage both sites provided large quantities of La Tène glass associated with evidence of local glass-working. The Němčice collection is, with nearly 2,000 Iron Age glass objects dating to the 3rd -2nd cent. BC , the largest of its kind in Europe. It is unique not only by its size, but also by its glass-working waste numbering 451 items and comprising raw glass, semi-finished products and rejects. Finds of this type are rare in Europe and elsewhere, for that matter. The Staré Hradisko glass of the 2nd-1st cent. BC has some 478 items but it also includes glass-working waste and it is the richest site in Late Iron Age Europe as far as the number of imported Hellenistic glass vessels is concerned. Glass-working waste as well as finished artefacts from both sites were subjected to chemical analyses which confirmed that they belong to soda-lime, natron-based glass, imported from primary glass workshops in the Mediterranean and worked in secondary La Tène workshops. Two different groups, earlier and later, were distinguished based on glass composition suggesting the origin of raw glass in two different glass-making areas. This volume offers a detailed analysis of both the collection from Němčice and the oppidum of Staré Hradisko, including typological classification, discussing the provenance, distribution and chronology of glass objects, and assessing their significance as markers of cultural identities of the La Tène population. Complete catalogues of glass finds and their documentation are included.