An Approach to the Drawing of Pottery and Small Finds for Excavation Reports Author(s): Robert Houston Smith Source:

World Archaeology, Vol. 2, No. 2, Urban Archaeology (Oct., 1970), pp. 212-228 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124133 Accessed: 06/11/2008 10:04
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An approach to the drawing of potteryand small findsfor excavation reports

Robert Houston Smith

Three years ago, when beginning preparation of a report on excavations I directed at Pella in Jordan (soon to appear as Pella of the Decapolis), I decided to reconsider the entire problem of the drawing of artefacts. After critically examining a wide range of excavation reports, both recent publications and older ones which continue to be used frequently, I found a certain broad agreement in practice but little fresh thought for several decades. Books on archaeological method generally take the drawing of artefacts for granted, and those which do discuss drawing, such as Grinsell-Rahtz-Warhurst (I966), touch only on a few basic points in an eclectic manner. Even Delougaz (1952), Shepard (I956), Gardin 1956 and x958) and others who have suggested new approaches to the description and classification of artefacts do not discuss the aims, principles and methods of the drawing of archaeological finds. This lack of development of a theory and practice of drawing is the more striking because of numerous deficiencies which one finds in the drawings and accompanying descriptive catalogues in excavation reports. Because they tend to be overlooked by excavators and the artists who work under their direction, these weaknesses deserve special notice. They fall into five main groups. First there is incompleteness of information. Although no drawing, since it is a stylized two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object, can be exhaustively descriptive, drawings in excavation reports often fail to convey certain basic information. A drawing in a typical report may, for example, show the exterior of a potsherd but not a section; it may show a jar, but not a detail or section or top view of the handle; it may depict a sherd, but not give as much of the form or design of the original vessel as could be recovered through intelligent study and skilful drawing; it may show a moulded lamp, but only give a top view or at best a top view and an elevation; it may represent a metal artefact, but not indicate corrosion which may have impaired the artist's ability to discern the form or decoration clearly; it may show a wavy black line on the side of a bowl without indication as to whether the line represents paint, indentation or embossing. The list of such deficiencies of basic information could be continued at length. Another common deficiency, found in the descriptive catalogue which by custom accompanies the drawings, is that of imprecision and inconsistency in terminology. Although rightly sensing, for instance, that the hardness of ceramic vessels may have potential significance, archaeologists often use vague terms such as 'soft fired' or 'medium-hard firing'. Descriptions of colour are equally treacherous; what one archaeo-

An approach to the drawing of pottery and smallfinds

2I3

logist sees as 'pinkish' another will see as 'buff' and still another will call 'light brown'. Likewise, what one viewer identifies as a 'slip' a second will call a 'self-slip' and a third may say has no slip at all. So far as the drawings of objects are concerned, the conventions by which the shapes of artefacts are depicted sometimes differ, not only from one excavation report to another but even within the same volume. Sometimes the deficiency is one of irrelevant or even misleading drawing or description. Some excavation reports, for example, represent the burnishing (polishing) on a vessel by long pen strokes or by stippling or by cross-hatching, any of which methods can upon occasion be mistaken for painted decoration or can clutter the drawing confusingly. Some reports give considerable uninterpreted, and therefore useless, stratigraphic data for each artefact. Reports sometimes include drawings of potsherds in head-on view, whereas a perspective view of certain kinds of decorated potsherds on their original axes might convey the designs more clearly. Failures of this kind are both subtle and numerous. Still another deficiency is the archaeologist's occasional introduction of his own presuppositions into his drawings or descriptions of objects without adequate warning. Sometimes, for instance, when his calipers cannot reach deeply inside a narrow-necked vessel for measurement of wall thickness, the excavator or his artist guesses at the form of the cross-section without indicating how much is conjectural. Again, the archaeologist who describes a ceramic vessel as 'hard fired' seems to presuppose that hardness of ware is solely a function of firing temperature rather than being also the product of the kind of clay used, the conditions under which the vessel has been preserved and still other possible factors. Disagreement about slip is likewise sometimes caused by archaeologists' attempts to describe vessels poiologically (that is, on the basis of assumptions about how they were made) rather than phenologically (that is, on the basis of their actual appearance). A final major deficiency, less serious than the preceding ones, is the unnecessary inconvenience which current practices of publication sometimes create for the user of an excavation report by separating the description from the drawing of the artefact. Greatest inconvenience is created when a catalogue appears in a separate section of the report, less when descriptive lists appear opposite each plate of drawings. Wherever the written catalogue is placed, however, the reader often has difficulty keeping his place as his eyes move from a plate of drawings to the written descriptions, especially if he is comparing several artefacts in the same volume. This difficulty cannot, by virtue of the nature of the excavation report, be eliminated, but might conceivably be alleviated. In spite of these various shortcomings, the basic method of drawing artefacts which archaeologists have used for many years is obviously sound. In considering, therefore, a system for drawing pottery and other objects from Pella, I asked myself what minimal modifications of common practices would ameliorate as many of the deficiencies as possible. These modifications could not be random or piecemeal, for the method needed to be internally consistent. The approach also needed to be flexible, so that in the publication of future finds from Pella it could be expanded to include any additional kinds of information which might seem desirable, or be contracted to omit any kinds of data which experience proved to be undesirable. Furthermore, so far as possible, I wanted the system to be phenologically descriptive.

21I4

Robert Houston Smith

The approach which I devised, then tested by application to the drawing of hundreds of vessels, potsherds and small objects from Pella, appears in the table on pp. 221-27. This method attempts to increase the consistency and amount of information given about artefacts, and departs from present practices by placing all of the routine information on the drawings themselves, through the use of symbols and other conventions, thereby obviating the need for this information to be given in a written descriptive list accompanying the drawings. Of necessity this system utilizes certain technical terms, some of which enter the vocabulary of archaeological methodology for the first time; others are familiar, but some of them have meanings which, because of the requirements of the total system and the limitations imposed by the monochromatic, two-dimensional nature of the medium itself, differ slightly from those which archaeologists have sometimes given. The most important of these are: surface: the outermost area of an artefact, consisting of the exterior and the interior (if any) exterior: the outside surface of an artefact interior: the inside surface of a vessel, i.e. of any concave or hollow artefact capable of holding or transmitting contents top view: a drawing of an artefact resting in its natural position, as viewed by parallel projection on a horizontal plane elevation: a drawing of an artefact resting in its natural position as viewed by parallel projection on a vertical plane surface side: that part of a drawing, usually an elevation, which shows the surface of an artefact section side: that part of a drawing, usually an elevation, which shows a section (i.e. cross-section, usually a half-section on the axis) of an artefact field: the space immediately surrounding the drawing of an artefact slip: any coating of fired clay on the entire exterior or entire interior, or both, of a ceramic vessel, or in the case of damaged vessels is partially visible and can reasonably be assumed to have covered the entire exterior or entire interior, or both, and which differs measurably in colour (i.e. by at least one notation) from the ware of the vessel paint: any non-fugitive pigmented substance except glaze which appears selectively on the surface of a vessel wash: any fugitive pigmented substance which appears selectively on the surface of a vessel It will be noticed that I have followed the practice of many American archaeologists in placing the section side on the right, whereas European archaeologists almost always place the section on the left. I could discover no theoretical basis for preferring one side to the other, and chose what was most familiar to me. Full sections are drawn only when wall-thickness can be measured; otherwise the section is left incomplete, the direction of its continuation being shown with two dashes. When it might obscure the form of the rim in section, the top-line of the drawing is not permitted to intersect the section. If a rim or other part of an artefact is extremely small and intricate, a i: i detail is used. Any bands representing black paint on the interior of vessels are interrupted just before

An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds

215

touching the section if there is any possibility that they might obscure the section. Singlehandled vessels are drawn with the handle on the section side, but display the surface of the handle rather than the section, so that the profile of the body will suffer no loss of clarity. Spouts appear on the surface side of the elevation; when a section is desirable, it is shown in a detail, as fig. 22, no. 59. The elevations of moulded clay lamps routinely show only the surface, in order that any designs on them will be clear; when the top or base is depressed, a section is required, either as a detail or as a partial section in the manner shown in fig. 23, no. 157. Such lamps regularly consist of top and bottom halves, but the symbol for juncture is not used in order to avoid cluttering the drawing. As is the case with handles (see table), this juncture is presupposed unless explicitly stated otherwise. With regard to the merits of the description of colour and hardness of ceramic artefacts there is much to be said on each side of the question, and this is not the place to delve into the problem. Whatever the theoretical considerations, the fact is that the great majority of excavation reports do give some sort of description of colour, and only slightly fewer describe hardness of ceramic finds. In choosing to describe both features of pottery from Pella, I therefore was following established custom. It may be that in future publications of pottery from Pella I shall not feel the need to give this information for each object, but shall discuss the ranges of colour and hardness of groups or types of pottery (as I am doing in any case in Pella of the Decapolis), somewhat as Van Beek (1969) and Franken (I969) have done. Once I had decided to describe colour and hardness, the question was which systems to has stated the case for the practical superiority of the utilize. Shepard (x956: 102-I7) Mohs hardness scale and the Munsell system of colour notation, and no better methods have yet appeared. Since Shepard wrote, the Munsell Color Company has issued a chart of colours of plant tissues which serves as a useful supplement to the earlier chart of soil colours, particularly in the violet, blue and green hues. Neither of these works (Munsell 1954 and Munsell I963) gives so wide a range of whites as some of the pottery from Pella warrants, but when ceramic colours fall beyond the range of whites in the charts I simply designate them as W (white) - as, for instance, in the underslip of No. 842 in fig. 23. Munsell (I954) is also weak, for archaeological purposes, in its range of browns. The introduction to that work suggests that one interpolate intermediate colours as necessary, but to avoid a confusing proliferation of numbers I always choose the nearest available colour on the charts. For the convenience of archaeologists who may not have the Munsell charts at hand, I am publishing with the report a list of the Munsell colour notations with the Munsell Color Company's preferred verbal equivalents, namely that of the Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC) and the United States National Bureau of Standards (NBS), published in I955. Readers who are not familiar with the notations will admittedly be inconvenienced by having to refer frequently to the table, but the increased precision in colour denotation may well be worth this inconvenience. It is always easy for a reader to ignore data which do not interest him, but impossible for him to create desired information which is lacking. In determining hardness on the Mohs scale, I routinely scratch several places on the surface of each ceramic vessel or potsherd, attempting to avoid touching inclusions, and chose the hardness number which seemed most representative. In making these

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An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds

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tests I initially worked with a geologist so that the procedures would conform, so far as possible, to standard geological practices. Because of the lack of uniform hardness in pottery, each hardness number should be allowed a tolerance of ?0o5; hence a stated hardness of 2-25 must be understood to allow a possible actual range of approximately
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I have made no provision for the placement of information about the texture of ceramic pieces on drawings. It is true that many excavation reports attempt a routine description of inclusions (i.e. temper or 'grits'), usually with terms such as 'small white grits' or 'coarse grey temper'. Unfortunately, descriptions of this sort convey almost no useful scientific information. Excavators sometimes specify that inclusions are 'limestone', 'flint' or the like, but it is safe to suspect that in some cases these identifications are only assumptions. Many ceramic vessels, furthermore, have inclusions of various sizes, and the inclusions differ in the sharpness of their edges (a factor of some importance in determining the source of the inclusions). To give an accurate description of inclusions would require much time and skilled technical analysis, and in any case would not be possible for unbroken vessels. Even if such information were obtained, it could not be recorded on a drawing with a simple notation such as is possible for colour and hardness. (See further in Shepard x956: 117-21.) This is not to say that the study of inclusions is not valuable, for it has considerable potential archaeological significance in terms of the origin of wares, the technique of manufacture, the function of vessels and other relevant information; but inclusions seem, at present, to be treated better by a discussion of groups of pottery in the excavation report, supplemented by photographs. The indication of repository in the description of excavated finds is not a new concept; for many years reports have sometimes included a list of the museums in which the excavated objects have been permanently deposited. The only novelty, perhaps, is in the indication of the repository on each drawing. If at a later time this information no longer seems sufficiently relevant to be placed on the drawing, there is nothing to prevent the preparation of a separate list of repositories for the Pella reports. The only two repositories required for the publication of our finds from Pella are the Jordan Archaeological Museum and the Art Museum of The College of Wooster, the sponsoring institution. These repositories have been designated by 'Am' and 'Wo'. Other designations will be devised, should need arise, according to the principle given in the table. In selecting symbols to indicate non-ceramic materials I found that no existing conventions were suitable. The symbols which I devised require only a few simple templates such as circles, oblongs, rectangles and triangles for their execution, and afford relative ease in differentiation from one another. When a symbol designating a material appears in the field, it indicates that the entire object consists of that material; when the object consists of more than one material, the symbol for the predominant material appears in the field and the portion of differing material (demarcated, if clarity requires it, by a pattern of diagonal lines covering it) is designated with its symbol and an arrow leading to the appropriate area of the drawing. Materials for which there are no symbols - for example, emerald and amber beads on a gold pendant from Pella - are labelled verbally. This system makes no provision for the routine placement of stratigraphic data on the drawing of each artefact, for the reason that such data would sometimes be superfluous. When all of the objects on a plate of drawings come from a single locus, such as a tomb

2I8

Robert Houston Smith

deposit, a single caption suffices for the entire plate (as, for example, fig. 22). When objects of varied stratigraphic provenances appear together, they are labelled with a brief but complete stratigraphic code, customarily placed near the registration number in the field of the drawing. At Pella the largest divisions of the ancient site bear roman numerals, the next smaller divisions are assigned capital letters, the next smaller have arabic numbers and the smallest are designated by lower-case letters. The code gives each of these divisions in order, separated byperiods, beginning with the largest division. Hence the code I.A.37.a means 'Area I, Plot A, Locus 37, Level a'. When enumeration exceeds the range of the alphabet, double letters are used, such as 'aa', 'ab', 'ac'. The significance of this information is, of course, made clear through the text of the report and the accompanying maps and plans. Numbers 276, 219, 345, 43 and 157 in fig. 23 are shown with stratigraphic codes; in an actual plate of artefacts from varied stratigraphic contexts, each drawing would have a stratigraphic code. The arabic number one, elsewhere unserified (i.e. I), is serifed (i.e. 1) in stratigraphic codes in order that it be not confused with the unserifed roman numeral I (see No. 345 in fig. 23). The drawings brought together in fig. 23 do not represent an actual plate from Pella of the Decapolis but have been selected to illustrate some (though by no means all) of the conventions which I have already discussed or which are specified in the table, as well as to show how we have handled several problematic cases. No. 985 shows the method of indicating the original position of a decorated potsherd on its axis, so that the viewer can visualize the design intelligently. The exterior of potsherd 994 is not, properly speaking, a detail of the section (in which case it would appear to the right of the section) but a surface side, the conventional vertical divider used in drawings of complete vessels being replaced by a short horizontal line. The representation of veining in the alabaster vessel, No. 43, is not required, and would have been omitted had there been any possibility that it might be confused with decoration in black paint. Numbers 276 and 219 show how special features of objects sometimes require verbal clarification. I have tried to avoid creating conventions for features which are rare, lest the system become unwieldy. When such features cannot easily be indicated on the drawing, they are discussed in the text of the report. The use of applied screens is limited to the representation of random stippling and glaze. For the former, a coarse screen with bold dots is required in order that the dots be clearly visible when the drawing is reduced to I :4. For the latter, a screen of approximately 22 dots to the running inch and a dot thickness of 2o 0% is generally used, any finer screen tending to become blotchy when reduced i :4. When a vessel has two or more colours of glaze in a design, the different colours are represented by screens of varying dot thickness (io% to 30%) but the same 22 dots to the inch. When the design is intricate, as Nos. 494-I019 in fig. 23, a xo% screen is placed over the entire glazed area and pieces of the same kind of screen are placed at a 45? angle on top of the lower screen to produce a pattern of greater density on those areas covered by the glazed design. As the example shows, this method tends to produce rather muddy grey tones which I would have preferred to avoid, but at the moment this seems to be the most practical way of handling this difficult problem of representation. The text of the excavation report treats, so far as they have relevance, other features of the Pella artefacts, such as ceramic typology, quality of workmanship, signs of wear,

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220

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techniques of manufacture, methods of burnishing (polishing) ceramic vessels, functional uses and historical implications - in short, everything that an excavation report might be expected to include about the artefacts. This system in no way replaces the discursive text of the report; if anything, it tends to encourage a greater amount of analysis. It is impossible to separate this system from a consideration of some of the mechanics which are involved in applying it to our finds from Pella. The standard scale for the publication of drawings in the report is I:4 (i.e. i the size of the artefact). This affords a suitable visual size; if the ratio were smaller, details of some artefacts would become obscure, and if it were larger an unnecessary amount of space would be required without corresponding improvement in detail. Artefacts with a major dimension of less than about 2 cm. are, however, published at natural size (i : I), though a : :2 ratio would have been possible for many of these small finds. I have maintained the I:4 ratio even for water jars, though I would have been acting somewhat more in accord with present practices if I had used a i: 8 ratio. A ratio indicator is placed in parentheses after the caption of each plate (see fig. 22). (I prefer this rather than a centimetre scale on the plate, but since the ratio indicator provides the viewer with no means of checking the precision of the reduction, the photoengraver must be absolutely accurate in reducing the original drawings to the desired ratio.) If the sample plate shown in fig. 22 had no caption, the ratio indicator would have been placed beside the plate number. Drawings at other scales are, when possible, grouped on separate plates; when this is not practical, each object published at a ratio other than i: 4 has its own ratio indicator in its field, which takes a precedence over the ratio indicator for the plate as a whole (see No. 345 in fig. 23; the other drawings are at the standard ratio of I :4). Of obvious importance is the appearance of the drawings when they are positioned on a plate. Because the plate size of this journal is smaller than that of Pella of the Decapolis, it is impossible to reproduce here a finished plate from the latter without further reduction in the size of the drawings. I have assembled, therefore, in fig. 22 a special sample plate. It will be noted that the conventions do not create undue clutter. So that it can be more easily read, the plate has been given an arabic number instead of the antiquated roman numeral which publishing tradition has long favoured. For completeness, this presentation should include a brief explanation of how these drawings were prepared. They were drawn four times larger than the size to which they were to be reduced - that is, most objects were drawn to their natural size, but a few very small objects were drawn four times larger than their actual size. The drawings were inked on Mylar drawing film, a highly effective synthetic, in random order, with a No. z (o05 mm.) Rapidograph drawing pen, and the completed sheets were photographically reduced to i: 4. Although some of the lettering was done with a Leroy or Unitec lettering guide directly on the Mylar sheets, a considerable amount of lettering was experimentally (and highly successfully) applied after the inked drawings had been reduced to a set of master photographic prints. This latter was accomplished by having a list of all numbers and letters which were to be placed on the drawings typewritten and printed out on an International Business Machines Selectric Composer, using an 8 point Univers Medium type fount for all lettering and numbering except the registration numbers, those being printed with an i i point Univers Medium fount. The print-out of words and figures was

An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds

221

given a protective coating of aerosol lacquer on the front and adhesive wax on the back, then, with the aid of a layout table and T-square, attached to the master prints of the drawings. The addition of lettering to the drawings by this electronic means was much faster and slightly neater than hand-lettering. The time required for the completion of a two- by three-foot sheet of Mylar drawings, including that spent in sketching the objects prior to inking, was approximately two eight-hour days; the addition of numbering and lettering by machine, the paste-up and other operations necessary for the completion of camera-ready layouts required approximately another eight-hour day. There is no question that this preparation time was longer than that which would have been required by customary drawing practices; I am inclined to believe, however, that the results are worth the time and effort. Because of the increased complexity of information placed on the drawings, exceptional care in proofreading has proved to be essential. Each drawing in Pella of the Decapolis receives three proofings - one after the inking of the drawing and symbols is completed, another after the lettering and numbering have been placed on the photographic reductions, and another after the plates have been assembled. Indications of corrections to be made are, in the first instance, pencilled lightly on the drawings themselves; thereafter they are marked on inexpensive xerographic photoduplicates which are discarded after the final corrections have been made. 5.xi.I 969 The College of Wooster, Ohio

Conventions for the description

of artefacts

For clarity,each of the models below illustratesonly one convention used in the descriptionof artefacts.Actual drawingsemploy a combinationof conventions. I Form An artefact is conventionally represented by an elevation bisected by a verticalline. The left side is the surface,showing the ~exterior in perspective.The right side is the section, showing both the section in solid black and the interior. outline and a line on the Carination is indicatedby an appropriate surface which follows the carination as closely as possible. To avoid unnatural harshness, the carination line often does not quite touch the outline. ,,:-7 %;,, "'< -9^~ t Hypothetical reconstruction of missing portions of an object is accomplishedwith a line of dashes. This convention is used only when the original shape or decoration can be extrapolated with considerableaccuracy.

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An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds feature 4 An annular a

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of an artefact,such as a handle or a ring, section a top view is given. Two lines markthe unless requires of The section shows the lower part of the point sectioning. annulus as if it were rotatedtowardsthe viewer.

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A decorated or otherwise especially significant handle is shown in a go-degree detail, in perspective and on proper horizontal plane. A single line is drawn between the two views. A handle decorated along its entire length can best be shown extended. A go-degree detail is given. Two lines, showing the length coveredby the extension, are drawnbetween the two views. The assumed original presence of a handle, the form or position of which is not certain enough to permit a hypothetical reconstruction, is indicated by an H placed where the handle probablywas. The assumed original presence of a spout, the form of which is not certain enough to permit a hypotheticalreconstruction,is indicated by an S placed where the spout probablywas.
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2 Wareandfinish of ceramic artefacts Hardness of ware is determined on the Mohs scale to the nearesto025(e.g., 2, 2'25, 2'5, 2'75, 3). The number,precededby its symbol, may be placed anywhere in the field, but usually appearsin the upper right. Hardness of glaze is determined on the Mohs scale to the nearest 0'25. The number, preceded by the symbol for hardness and an *, may be placed anywhere in the field, often near the designationof hardnessof ware.

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Straw inclusions are indicated by this symbol, placed anywhere in the field, most often in the upper left. Strawimpressionson the surface only are ignored. Absence of this symbol indicates rock inclusions or no inclusions.

224

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Ware of uniform colour, i.e. without sufficient variation to be indicatedon the Munsell colour charts,is indicated by the appropriate colour notation and placed anywhere in the field, usually above the drawing.
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Variegated colour of ware in which a ware'scolour rangesover at least two Munsell colour notations, is indicated by the use of two, or in rare cases three, Munsell colour notations which demarcatethe extremes in colour variation.
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The colour of the exterior ware, if differentfrom that of the wareas a whole or from that of the wareof the interior,is indicated by the placement of the appropriateMunsell colour notation on the surface-sideof the elevation. The colour of the interior ware, if differentfrom that of the ware as a whole or from that of the ware of the exterior, is indi cated by the placementof the appropriatecolour notation on the section-side of the elevation. Burnishing is indicated by a circle. When a vessel lacking slip has been burnished,the symbol follows the colour notation of the ware. When it is only on the exterior or interior, the symbol is side of the elevation. placed on the appropriate

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The colour of the core, when differingfrom that of the ware by at least one unit in the Munsell colour charts, is designated by this symbol, followed by the appropriatecolour designation.It is placedin the field on the section-side.
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Burnished slip is indicated by a symbol which combines the symbols for 'slip' and 'burnishing', followed by the colour notation.This designationis positionedon the elevationaccording to the rules given for the designationof ware.
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Slip with a satiny finish not achieved by burnishing is designatedby this symbol, followed by the colour notation. This designationis positioned on the elevation accordingto the rules given for the designationof ware.

An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds

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Coloured paint is indicatedby a patternof stippling (= random dots) over the areaof the vessel covered by the decoration.Black is not so designated.An arrowleads from the colour notation to the area covered by the paint.
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Two or more colours of paint are indicatedby variationsin the size of the stippled dots (but not their distancefrom one another). Arrowslead from the colour notationsto the appropriate areas.
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(t),

Traces of paint which are too slight to reveal the original design are indicated by placement of the colour notation, followed by the symbol '(t)' (for 'traces'), on the exterior or interior. Traces of paint which are too slight to reveal the original colour fully are identifiedby the closest colour notationpossible, such as 'sR' or even simply 'R', followed by the symbol '(t)' (for 'traces'). Black paint is indicated by solid black. Where it touches a section, narrow white spaces can be left to separate the black areas.It cannot be confusedwith embossingor indentation,since those featuresare identifiedby symbols. Hypothetical reconstruction of black paint utilizes dashes, the recommendedconvention.Hypothetical reconstruction of coloured paint utilizes dots, to accord with the stippling covering the painted area. Wash is indicated by stippling in the same way that coloured from colouredpaint by this paint is denoted, but is differentiated symbol, which is followedby the colournotation.An arrowpoints to the stippled areaindicatingthe wash.

R(t)

,w
_,

%_jp^^

,rw,5 R 14/

5 GY 516\

Glaze is indicated by a screen over the area of glaze. Several colours of glaze require screens of differing intensity. An arrow leads from the colour notation to the area of glaze. To avoid possibleconfusionbetween the screen and stippling,the symbol *, signifying'glaze',precedesthe colournotation.Underglaze, being both colouredand selectivelyapplied,is treatedas colouredpaint; the area covered by it is therefore stippled. An arrowleads from the colour notation to the area of underglaze. The symbol t, signifying the 'underglaze',precedes the colour notation.

226

Robert Houston Smith 3 Other information The artefact number, in I point type (44 point type if lettered on the drawing),is usually placed below the elevation or in the lower right field. The object is never given any other number in the excavationreport. Several nearly-identical artefacts may be represented by a single drawing.The artefactnumbersare placed in a verticalrow, each numberexcept the last being followed by a comma. Several artefacts made from the same mould may be representedby one drawing.The symbol for 'moulding'is placed in the field. After the last numberappearsa symbol signifyingthat 'all these are from the same mould'. Two or more similar artefacts, of known number, represented by the same artefact number are indicatedby a circle enclosing a number which shows the total number of artefactsso represented. When the artefacts are of unknown number, but more than one and less than ten, this symbol is used. When the artefactsare of unknownnumber,but more than ten, this symbol is used. The disposition of an artefact is shown by an abbreviation, usually in the lower right. The first two letters identify the city and its major archaeological museum; the third, used when necessary,identifies other repositoriesin the same city.
0 --

903

a,4

7,,,.,

7,103 i03

\6011 CA
?Y

Y~~~
U,

? 8

NyF

t---%)

Smoke-blackening deposited after fabrication is denoted by this symbol placed in the field or the exterioror the interior. On lamps it appears in the field. When position is significant, an arrowleads from it to the blackening. The size of the original artefact, when not specifiedotherwise, is assumedto be four times the linearsize of the drawing(= ratio or a printed 1:4). Any other proportionrequiresa ratio-indicator centimetre-scaleplacedin the field. A corroded metal artefact, and occasionallysome other artehas proceededto the point of possibly fact, in which deterioration obscuring detail of form or decoration, is indicated by this symbol as a warningto the viewer. A potsherd of known original orientation on its vessel but too fragmentary to merit an elevation is shown in a perspective frontalexteriorview and in section.

1:1

J7

V~

1\8

An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds

227

C>'J

A potsherd of known horizontal orientation on its vessel but of unknown top- bottom orientation is shownas the preceding, plus a symbol meaning 'potsherd should perhaps be turned upside down'. A potsherd of unknown orientation on its vessel is shown in non-perspective frontal exterior view and in a section which is arbitrarilypositionedvertically,with a symbol meaning 'orientation of potsherd is unknown'.

4 Materials These symbols may be placed anywherein the field, usually on the surface side.
a

alabaster antimony

-s diorite
eI electrum

o lapis lazuli
A

a plaster j porphory
.

'

leather

o agate

e faience

c# lead 6 limestone
: malachite

pyroxenejade

m basalt i bitumen
c: bone,

> flint
-

, rock crystal *v sandstone _ schist O shell (except pearl)

J silver

glass

o gold
Au granite

@ marble A nephritejade ^ obsidian e onyx

+ papyrus

ivory ? brass 8 bronze

X grass
M gypsum

4 carnelian
0c clay (unfired) ^ cloth
oa copper

d haematite m iron
* jasper

. 'steatite o turquoise o undetermined stone E wood

parchment t paste

jet

oo pearl

References Brodribb, C. I970. Drawing archaeological finds for publication.London (not published at the time of the preparationof this article; appearedSpring, 1970). Delougaz, P. I952. Potteryfrom the Diyala region.Chicago. Franken,H. J. I969. Excavationsat Tell Deir Allah. Leiden. de l'outillage;outils en metal de l'dge du bronze, Gardin, J.-C. I956. Le ficlier mecanographique des Balkansa l'Indus.Beirut. Gardin, J.-C. 1958. Four codes for the description of artifacts: an essay in archaeological 60:335-57. technique and theory. AmericanAnthropologist.

228

Robert Houston Smith

Grinsell, L., Rahtz, POand Warhurst, A. I966. The Preparationof Archaeological Reports. London. Munsell Color Company. 1954. Munsell Soils Color Charts. Baltimore. (Available from the
Munsell Color Company, Inc., 2441 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, Maryland 2X2x8, United

States.) Munsell Color Company. I963. MunsellColorCharts for Plant Tissues.Baltimore.(Availableas above.) for the Archaeologist.Washington. (Reprinted unchanged Shepard, A. 0. I956. Ceramics for new comments 1965.) except prefatory U.S. Departmentof Commerce,National Bureauof Standards,Circular553. I955. TheISCCNBS Methodof DesignatingColorsand a Dictionaryof ColorNames. Washington, D.C. at a Pre-Islamic Site in Southern Van Beek, G. W. I969. Hajar Bin Humeid; Investigations Arabia. Baltimore.

Abstract Smith, R. H. An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds for excavation reports

Present practicesin the drawingof archaeological finds, little changed for decades, have certain deficiencies. The author describes a system of drawing which he devised for a forthcoming report on excavationsat Pella in Jordanwhich amelioratessome of these defects. The method increases the consistency and amount of information pertaining to excavated artefacts and transfers to the drawings themselves much of the informationnow commonly presented in written descriptivelists in excavationreports. This is accomplishedby means of symbols and other conventions,a synopsis of which is given in a six-page table. The authoralso explainsthe of drawingsand layout of plates so far as they have bearingon the system which he preparation proposes.