Roman cooking ware terminology, function, real use: problems and solutions for standardization, recording, sharing

Submitted by Laura Banducci, Carleton University

Kerameikos.org has focused thus far on creating and connecting data about Greek painted pottery; it could be extended to serve usefully in Roman pottery studies. In Roman pottery there are similar complexities of language differences (within ancient languages, and among modern researchers) which create obstacles to knowledge sharing. In the case of some wares, namely cooking vessels, we also have substantial cultural differences which befuddle attempts to associate like form with like form. For example, a casserole in North American English can mean two very differently-shaped vessels. Then, in Italian the idea of a casseruola only applies to one of these English forms. The term “casserole” itself has a particular food associated with it. There are cooking jars versus cooking bells, pans, versus trays, etc. The examples of this are myriad.

Furthermore, the understanding of function and use is quite a significant facet in many research questions regarding cooking wares, since food and cooking can touch upon technology, environment, and cultural identity. Yet function and use are typically understood from the observation of form. These formal definitions are wrapped not only in our own cultural biases but also frequently in the connections we have drawn between vessels named in ancient texts and artefacts (Bats 1988). Yet, scrutiny of Latin sources reveals that “patinae” “ollae” or “testa” are used in inconsistent ways (Donnelly Forthcoming 2015), thus their strict association with certain shapes, recipes or food groups is inappropriate.

This paper elucidates these problems and proposes several solutions for the roundtable. I suggest a standardized way of choosing terms for shape using specific physical descriptions. Next, a major way to contribute to the understanding of both intended function of these vessels and their actual ancient use, is to add the study of use-wear analysis to ceramic study as a standard practice. Use-wear analysis or “ceramic alteration analysis” (Skibo 1992) is increasingly acknowledged to be the next logical step in the close study of utilitarian vessels (Lis 2010; Pena 2014; Swift 2014; Banducci 2014). Traces of wear can be combined with observations made about form to determine use.  This type of analysis also has the potential to reveal multi-functionality, including both contemporaneous multiple uses of one object as well as the use of an object for its non-intended purpose. The difficulty has been in creating a recording system to observe essentially qualitative data (the observation of different types of wear) in a quantitative way. The recording system is comprehensive enough to admit wide variability while also sufficiently well-defined to permit focused analyses of characteristics within and across the dataset. This system was inspired in part by the framework used by conservators completing surveys of the conditions of artefacts in museum collections. Databases of wear and morphology have the potential to be scalable to many different types of archaeological vessels – tracking function, use, use-life. Disseminating systematic ways of observing and recording this information requires a robust digital platform like kerameikos.org.