Levantine Ceramics: The Application

SPRING 2012 RESEARCH INCUBATION AWARDEE 

Andrea Berlin (Archaeology, College of Arts & Sciences)

The project seeks to create a robust, interactive, easy-to-use web application for ceramics of all periods produced and exchanged in the Levant from antiquity through modern times. This application will be both an archive and a tool. Users would be able to search for and group together material by region (e.g., the central Levant from Beirut to Haifa), time period (e.g., under the Roman empire), or function (e.g., fine tableware or transport jars). The application should allow investigation of a wide array of topics, e.g., identification of manufacturing centers large and small, tracking the distribution of products and so the movement of people, along with their tastes and ideas. Local craft traditions could be studied against the ebb and flow of trade among various cultural groups and their trajectories compared under different political regimes, e.g., Ptolemaic Egypt (330-31 BCE), the Umayyad caliphate (661-750 CE), and the Ottoman Turks (1516-1917 CE).

This work was funded by a Hariri Research Award made in June, 2012.