A selection of ceramics through the ages (5 second delay) Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology The Collections:
PotWeb: Ceramics online
@ the Ashmolean Museum
Early Europe & Near East
Classical to Medieval
Europe from 1500
Oriental & Islamic
2000 years of pottery forms and shapes
Pottery vessels used by people in antiquity can be classified into shapes familiar to everyone today.
 
The catalogue will begin in the first century AD before the Roman Conquest and culminates with studio pottery of the twentieth century AD. The ceramic vessels are drawn largely from archaeological sites and supplemented by material privately collected, now curated by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
 
This is the structure of the online catalogue that is currently under development. There will be three levels of information:
 
  • A thumb-nail image with recommended name for the form
 
 
  • A standard image with the common name of the ware, its height, unique PotWeb identifier, production centre, distribution, use, specific date, publication, historic context and collector/excavator; the common name also appears as a floating caption to the thumb-nail image
 
 
  • Detailed images will be included where necessary
 
  Chronological periods represented in this study:  
  Romano-British AD 43 - 400  
  Early Saxon AD 350 - 650  
  Middle Saxon AD 650 - 850  
  Saxo-Norman AD 850 - 1150  
  Early Medieval AD 1000 - 1250  
  Highly decorated 13th - 14th centuries  
  Late Medieval AD 1350 - 1450  
  Early Post-Medieval AD 1450 - 1600  
  Post-Medieval AD 1600 - 1720  
  Modern 1720 -  
The terms used above are set out in H. Blake & P. Davey Guidelines for the Processing and Publication of Medieval Pottery from Excavations (HMSO 1983)
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last updated: jcm/6-dec-2001