Robert Houston Smith_An Approach to the Drawing of Pottery and Small Finds for Excavation Reports

8/22/2019 Robert Houston Smith_An Approach to the Drawing of Pottery and Small Finds for Excavation Reports

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An Approach to the Drawing of Pottery and Small Finds for Excavation ReportsAuthor(s): Robert Houston SmithSource: World Archaeology, Vol. 2, No. 2, Urban Archaeology (Oct., 1970), pp. 212-228Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124133

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An approacho the drawingof potteryandsmallfindsfor excavation eportsRobertHouston Smith

Three years ago, when beginning preparation of a report on excavations I directed atPella in Jordan (soon to appearas Pella of theDecapolis), I decided to reconsider the entireproblem of the drawing of artefacts. After critically examining a wide range of excavationreports, both recent publications and older ones which continue to be used frequently, Ifound 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, andthose which do discuss drawing, such as Grinsell-Rahtz-Warhurst (I966), touch only ona few basic points in an eclectic manner. Even Delougaz (1952), Shepard (I956), Gardin1956 and x958) and others who have suggested new approaches to the description andclassification of artefacts do not discuss the aims, principles and methods of the drawingof archaeological finds.

This lack of development of a theory and practice of drawing is the more strikingbecause of numerous deficiencies which one finds in the drawings and accompanyingdescriptive catalogues in excavation reports. Because they tend to be overlooked byexcavators and the artists who work under their direction, these weaknesses deservespecial notice. They fall into five main groups.First there is incompleteness of information. Although no drawing, since it is a stylizedtwo-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object, can be exhaustivelydescriptive, 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 asection; it may show a jar, but not a detail or section or top view of the handle; it maydepict a sherd, but not give as much of the form or design of the original vessel as couldbe 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 metalartefact, but not indicate corrosion which may have impaired the artist's ability to discernthe form or decoration clearly; it may show a wavy black line on the side of a bowlwithout 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 customaccompanies the drawings, is that of imprecision and inconsistency in terminology.Although rightly sensing, for instance, that the hardness of ceramic vessels may havepotential significance, archaeologists often use vague terms such as 'soft fired' or'medium-hard firing'. Descriptions of colour are equally treacherous; what one archaeo-


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An approachto the drawingof pottery and smallfinds 2I3logist 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 thirdmay say has no slip at all. So far as the drawings of objects are concerned, the conventionsby which the shapes of artefacts are depicted sometimes differ, not only from one excava-tion report to another but even within the same volume.Sometimes the deficiency is one of irrelevant or even misleading drawing or descrip-tion. Some excavation reports, for example, represent the burnishing (polishing) on avessel by long pen strokes or by stippling or by cross-hatching, any of which methods canupon occasion be mistaken for painted decoration or can clutter the drawing confusingly.Some reports give considerable uninterpreted, and therefore useless, stratigraphic datafor each artefact. Reports sometimes include drawings of potsherds in head-on view,whereas a perspective view of certain kinds of decorated potsherds on their originalaxes might convey the designs more clearly. Failures of this kind are both subtle andnumerous.Still another deficiency is the archaeologist's occasional introduction of his own pre-suppositions into his drawings or descriptions of objects without adequate warning.Sometimes, for instance, when his calipers cannot reach deeply inside a narrow-neckedvessel for measurement of wall thickness, the excavator or his artist guesses at the formof the cross-section without indicating how much is conjectural. Again, the archaeo-logist who describes a ceramic vessel as 'hardfired' seems to presuppose that hardness ofware is solely a function of firing temperature rather than being also the product of thekind of clay used, the conditions under which the vessel has been preserved and stillother possible factors. Disagreement about slip is likewise sometimes caused by archaeo-logists' attempts to describe vessels poiologically (that is, on the basis of assumptionsabout how they were made) rather than phenologically (that is, on the basis of their actualappearance).A final major deficiency, less serious than the preceding ones, is the unnecessaryinconvenience which current practices of publication sometimes create for the user of anexcavation reportby separating the description from the drawing of the artefact. Greatestinconvenience is created when a catalogue appears in a separate section of the report, lesswhen descriptive lists appear opposite each plate of drawings. Wherever the writtencatalogue is placed, however, the reader often has difficulty keeping his place as his eyesmove from a plate of drawings to the written descriptions, especially if he is comparingseveral artefacts in the same volume. This difficulty cannot, by virtue of the nature of theexcavation report, be eliminated, but might conceivably be alleviated.In spite of these various shortcomings, the basic method of drawing artefacts whicharchaeologists have used for many years is obviously sound. In considering, therefore, asystem for drawing pottery and other objects from Pella, I asked myself what minimalmodifications of common practices would ameliorate as many of the deficiencies aspossible. These modifications could not be random or piecemeal, for the method neededto be internally consistent. The approach also needed to be flexible, so that in the pub-lication of future finds from Pella it could be expanded to include any additional kinds ofinformation which might seem desirable, or be contracted to omit any kinds of datawhich experience proved to be undesirable. Furthermore, so far as possible, I wanted thesystem to be phenologically descriptive.


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21I4 Robert Houston SmithThe approach which I devised, then tested by application to the drawing of hundredsof 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 givenabout artefacts, and departs from present practices by placing all of the routine informa-tion 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 listaccompanying 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, butsome of them have meanings which, because of the requirements of the total system andthe limitations imposed by the monochromatic, two-dimensional nature of the mediumitself, differ slightly from those which archaeologists have sometimes given. The mostimportant 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 ofholding or transmitting contentstop view: a drawing of an artefact resting in its natural position, as viewed by parallelprojection on a horizontal planeelevation: a drawing of an artefact resting in its natural position as viewed by parallelprojection on a vertical plane

surfaceside: that part of a drawing, usually an elevation, which shows the surface of anartefactsection 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 artefactfield: the space immediately surrounding the drawing of an artefactslip: any coating of fired clay on the entire exterior or entire interior, or both, ofa ceramic vessel, or in the case of damaged vessels is partially visible and can reason-ably be assumed to have covered the entire exterior or entire interior, or both, andwhich differs measurably in colour (i.e. by at least one notation) from the ware of thevesselpaint: any non-fugitive pigmented substance except glaze which appears selectively onthe surface of a vesselwash: any fugitive pigmented substance which appears selectively on the surface of avesselIt will be noticed that I have followed the practice of many American archaeologists inplacing the section side on the right, whereas European archaeologists almost alwaysplace the section on the left. I could discover no theoretical basis for preferring one sideto the other, and chose what was most familiar to me. Full sections are drawn only whenwall-thickness can be measured; otherwise the section is left incomplete, the direction ofits 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 arim or other part of an artefact is extremely small and intricate, a i: i detail is used. Anybands representing black paint on the interior of vessels are interrupted just before


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An approachto the drawingof pottery and smallfinds 215touching the section if there is any possibility that they might obscure the section. Single-handled vessels are drawn with the handle on the section side, but display the surface ofthe handle rather than the section, so that the profile of the body will suffer no loss ofclarity. Spouts appear on the surface side of the elevation; when a section is desirable, itis shown in a detail, as fig. 22, no. 59. The elevations of moulded clay lamps routinelyshow only the surface, in order that any designs on them will be clear; when the top orbase is depressed, a section is required, either as a detail or as a partial section in themanner 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 isthe case with handles (see table), this juncture is presupposed unless explicitly statedotherwise.

With regardto the merits of the description of colour and hardness of ceramic artefactsthere is much to be said on each side of the question, and this is not the place to delveinto the problem. Whatever the theoretical considerations, the fact is that the greatmajority of excavation reports do give some sort of description of colour, and onlyslightly fewer describe hardness of ceramic finds. In choosing to describe both features ofpottery from Pella, I therefore was following established custom. It may be that in futurepublications of pottery from Pella I shall not feel the need to give this information foreach object, but shall discuss the ranges of colour and hardness of groups or types ofpottery (as I amdoing in anycase in Pella of theDecapolis),somewhat as Van Beek (1969)and Franken (I969) have done.Once I had decided to describe colour and hardness,the question was which systems toutilize. Shepard (x956: 102-I7) has stated the case for the practical superiority of theMohs hardness scale and the Munsell system of colour notation, and no better methodshave yet appeared. Since Shepard wrote, the Munsell Color Company has issued a chartof colours of plant tissues which serves as a useful supplement to the earlier chart of soilcolours, particularly in the violet, blue and green hues. Neither of these works (Munsell1954 and Munsell I963) gives so wide a range of whites as some of the pottery from Pellawarrants, but when ceramic colours fall beyond the range of whites in the charts I simplydesignate 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. Theintroduction to that work suggests that one interpolate intermediate colours as necessary,but to avoid a confusing proliferation of numbers I always choose the nearest availablecolour on the charts. For the convenience of archaeologists who may not have theMunsell charts at hand, I am publishing with the report a list of the Munsell colournotations with the Munsell Color Company's preferred verbal equivalents, namely thatof the Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC) and the United States National Bureau ofStandards (NBS), published in I955. Readers who are not familiar with the notationswill admittedly be inconvenienced by having to refer frequently to the table, but theincreased precision in colour denotation may well be worth this inconvenience. It isalways easy for a reader to ignore data which do not interest him, but impossible forhim to create desired information which is lacking.

In determining hardness on the Mohs scale, I routinely scratch several places onthe 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 approachto the drawingof pottery and smallfinds 217tests I initially worked with a geologist so that the procedures would conform, so far aspossible, to standard geological practices. Because of the lack of uniform hardness inpottery, each hardness number should be allowed a tolerance of ?0o5; hence a statedhardness of 2-25 must be understood to allow a possible actual range of approximatelyI75-2'75-I have made no provision for the placement of information about the texture of ceramicpieces on drawings. It is true that many excavation reports attempt a routine descriptionof 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 usefulscientific 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 onlyassumptions. Many ceramic vessels, furthermore,have inclusions of various sizes, and theinclusions differ in the sharpness of their edges (a factor of some importance in determin-ing the source of the inclusions). To give an accurate description of inclusions wouldrequire much time and skilled technical analysis, and in any case would not be possiblefor unbroken vessels. Even if such information were obtained, it could not be recorded ona drawing with a simple notation such as is possible for colour and hardness. (See furtherin 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 ofwares, the technique of manufacture, the function of vessels and other relevant informa-tion; but inclusions seem, at present, to be treated better by a discussion of groups ofpottery 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 theexcavated objects have been permanently deposited. The only novelty, perhaps, is in theindication of the repository on each drawing. If at a later time this information no longerseems sufficiently relevant to be placed on the drawing, there is nothing to prevent thepreparation of a separate list of repositories for the Pella reports. The only two reposi-tories required for the publication of our finds from Pella are the Jordan ArchaeologicalMuseum and the Art Museum of The College of Wooster, the sponsoring institution.These repositories have been designated by 'Am' and 'Wo'. Other designations will bedevised, should need arise, according to the principle given in the table.

In selecting symbols to indicate non-ceramic materials I found that no existing con-ventions were suitable. The symbols which I devised require only a few simple templatessuch as circles, oblongs, rectangles and triangles for their execution, and afford relativeease in differentiationfrom one another. When a symbol designating a material appears inthe field, it indicates that the entire object consists of that material; when the object con-sists of more than one material, the symbol for the predominant material appears in thefield and the portion of differing material (demarcated, if clarity requires it, by a patternof diagonal lines covering it) is designated with its symbol and an arrow leading to theappropriateareaof 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 thedrawing 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


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2I8 Robert Houston Smith

deposit, a single caption suffices for the entire plate (as, for example, fig. 22). Whenobjects of varied stratigraphic provenances appeartogether, they are labelled with a briefbut complete stratigraphic code, customarily placed near the registration number in thefield of the drawing. At Pella the largest divisions of the ancient site bear romannumerals, the next smaller divisions are assigned capital letters, the next smaller havearabic numbers and the smallest are designated by lower-case letters. The code giveseach 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 enumerationexceeds the range of the alphabet, double letters are used, such as 'aa', 'ab', 'ac'. Thesignificance of this information is, of course, made clear through the text of the report andthe accompanying maps and plans. Numbers 276, 219, 345, 43 and 157 in fig. 23 areshown with stratigraphic codes; in an actual plate of artefacts from varied stratigraphiccontexts, each drawing would have a stratigraphic code. The arabic number one, else-where unserified (i.e. I), is serifed (i.e. 1) in stratigraphic codes in order that it be notconfused 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 ofthe Decapolis but have been selected to illustrate some (though by no means all) of theconventions which I have already discussed or which are specified in the table, as well asto show how we have handled several problematic cases. No. 985 shows the method ofindicating the original position of a decorated potsherd on its axis, so that the viewer canvisualize 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 asurface side, the conventional vertical divider used in drawings of complete vessels beingreplaced 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 thatit might be confused with decoration in black paint. Numbers 276 and 219 show howspecial features of objects sometimes require verbal clarification. I have tried to avoidcreating conventions for features which are rare, lest the system become unwieldy. Whensuch features cannot easily be indicated on the drawing, they are discussed in the text ofthe report.The use of applied screens is limited to the representation of random stippling andglaze. For the former, a coarse screen with bold dots is required in order that the dotsbe clearly visible when the drawing is reduced to I :4. For the latter, a screen of approxi-mately 22 dots to the running inch and a dot thickness of 2o% is generally used, any finerscreen tending to become blotchy when reduced i :4. When a vessel has two or morecolours of glaze in a design, the different colours are represented by screens of varyingdot thickness (io% to 30%) but the same 22 dots to the inch. When the design is intri-cate, as Nos. 494-I019 in fig. 23, a xo% screen is placed over the entire glazed area andpieces of the same kind of screen are placed at a 45? angle on top of the lower screen toproduce a pattern of greater density on those areas covered by the glazed design. As theexample shows, this method tends to produce rather muddy grey tones which I wouldhave preferred to avoid, but at the moment this seems to be the most practical way ofhandling this difficult problem of representation.The text of the excavation report treats, so far as they have relevance, other features ofthe Pella artefacts, such as ceramic typology, quality of workmanship, signs of wear,


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220 Robert Houston Smith

techniques of manufacture, methods of burnishing (polishing) ceramic vessels, func-tional uses and historical implications - in short, everything that an excavation reportmight be expected to include about the artefacts. This system in no way replaces thediscursive text of the report; if anything, it tends to encourage a greater amount ofanalysis.It is impossible to separate this system from a consideration of some of the mechanicswhich are involved in applying it to our finds from Pella. The standard scale for thepublication of drawings in the report is I:4 (i.e. i the size of the artefact). This affords asuitable visual size; if the ratio were smaller, details of some artefacts would becomeobscure, and if it were larger an unnecessary amount of space would be required withoutcorresponding improvement in detail. Artefacts with a major dimension of less thanabout 2 cm. are, however, published at natural size (i :I), though a :2 ratio would havebeen possible for many of these small finds. I have maintained the I:4 ratio even forwater jars, though I would have been acting somewhat more in accord with presentpractices if I had used a i: 8 ratio. A ratio indicator is placed in parentheses after thecaption of each plate (see fig. 22). (I prefer this rather than a centimetre scale on theplate, but since the ratio indicator provides the viewer with no means of checking theprecision of the reduction, the photoengraver must be absolutely accurate in reducing theoriginal 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 otherscales are, when possible, grouped on separate plates; when this is not practical, eachobject published at a ratio other than i: 4 has its own ratio indicator in its field, whichtakes 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 appearanceof the drawings when they are positioned on aplate. Because the plate size of this journal is smaller than that of Pella of theDecapolis, itis impossible to reproduce here a finished plate from the latter without further reductionin 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 moreeasily read, the plate has been given an arabic number instead of the antiquated romannumeral which publishing tradition has long favoured.For completeness, this presentation should include a brief explanation of how thesedrawings were prepared. They were drawn four times larger than the size to which theywere to be reduced - that is, most objects were drawn to their natural size, but a few verysmall objects were drawn four times larger than their actual size. The drawings wereinked 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 photographicallyreduced to i: 4. Although some of the lettering was done with a Leroy or Unitec letteringguide 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 ofmaster photographic prints. This latter was accomplished by having a list of all numbersand letters which were to be placed on the drawings typewritten and printed out on anInternational Business Machines Selectric Composer, using an 8 point Univers Mediumtype fount for all lettering and numbering except the registration numbers, those beingprinted with an i i point Univers Medium fount. The print-out of words and figures was


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An approachto the drawing of pottery and smallfinds 221given 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 thedrawings. The addition of lettering to the drawings by this electronic means was muchfaster and slightly neater than hand-lettering. The time required for the completion of atwo- by three-foot sheet of Mylar drawings, including that spent in sketching the objectsprior to inking, was approximately two eight-hour days; the addition of numbering andlettering by machine, the paste-up and other operations necessary for the completion ofcamera-ready layouts required approximately another eight-hour day. There is no ques-tion that this preparationtime was longer than that which would have been required bycustomary drawing practices; I am inclined to believe, however, that the results areworth the time and effort.Because of the increased complexity of information placed on the drawings, exceptionalcare in proofreading has proved to be essential. Each drawing in Pella of the Decapolisreceives 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 reduc-tions, and another after the plates have been assembled. Indications of corrections to bemade are, in the first instance, pencilled lightly on the drawings themselves; thereafterthey are marked on inexpensive xerographic photoduplicates which are discarded afterthe final corrections have been made.5.xi.I 969 The Collegeof Wooster,Ohio

Conventions for the description of artefactsFor clarity,eachof the models below illustratesonly one conventionused in the descriptionofartefacts.Actualdrawingsemploy a combinationof conventions.

I FormAn artefact is conventionally represented by an elevationbisectedby a vertical ine. The left side is the surface,showingthe_^t ~exterior in perspective.The rightside is the section,showingboththe sectionin solid black andthe interior.Carination is indicatedby anappropriate utlineandaline on thesurfacewhich follows the carination as closely as possible. Toavoid unnaturalharshness, the carination line often does notquite touch the outline.

,,:-7 %;,, Hypothetical reconstruction of missing portions of an"'< -9^~ t object is accomplishedwith a line of dashes.This conventionisused only when the originalshape or decorationcan be extra-polatedwith considerableaccuracy.


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An annular feature of an artefact,such as a handle or a ring,requiresa sectionunless a top view is given. Two lines markthepoint of sectioning. The section shows the lower part of theannulusas if it were rotatedtowardsthe viewer.A decorated or otherwise especially significant handle isshown in a go-degreedetail, in perspectiveand on properhori-zontal plane. A single line is drawn between the two views.

A handle decorated along its entire length canbest be shownextended. A go-degree detail is given. Two lines, showing thelengthcoveredbythe extension,are drawnbetween the twoviews.

The assumed original presence of a handle, the form orposition of which is not certainenough to permita hypotheticalreconstruction,is indicated by an H placed where the handleprobablywas.The assumed original presence of a spout, the form of whichis not certainenough to permit a hypotheticalreconstruction, sindicatedby an S placedwhere the spout probablywas.

The assumed original presence of a handle or spout, theformof whichis not certainenoughto permithypotheticalrecon-struction,is indicatedby S/H placedwhere the spout or handleprobablywas.

2 Wareand inishof ceramic rtefactsHardness of ware is determined on the Mohs scale to thenearesto025 (e.g., 2, 2'25, 2'5, 2'75, 3). The number,precededbyits symbol, may be placed anywhere in the field, but usuallyappears n the upper right.Hardness of glaze is determined on the Mohs scale to thenearest0'25. The number,precededby the symbol for hardnessand an *, may be placed anywherein the field, often near thedesignationof hardnessof ware.Straw inclusions are indicatedby this symbol, placed anywherein the field,most oftenin the upperleft. Straw mpressionson thesurfaceonly are ignored.Absence of this symbol indicatesrockinclusionsor no inclusions.

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Coloured paint is indicatedby a patternof stippling (= randomdots) overthe area of the vessel coveredby the decoration.Blackis not so designated.An arrow eads from the colournotationtothe areacoveredby the paint.Two or more colours of paint are indicatedby variations n thesize of the stippleddots (butnot their distancefromone another).Arrows eadfrom the colournotations o the appropriate reas.

Traces of paint which are too slight to reveal the originaldesign are indicated by placement of the colour notation,followed by the symbol '(t)' (for 'traces'), on the exterior orinterior.Traces of paint which are too slight to reveal the originalcolour fully areidentifiedby the closest colournotationpossible,such as 'sR' or even simply 'R', followedby the symbol'(t)' (for'traces').Black paint is indicated by solid black. Where it touches asection, narrowwhite spaces can be left to separatethe blackareas.It cannotbe confusedwith embossingor indentation,sincethose featuresareidentifiedby symbols.Hypothetical reconstruction of black paint utilizes dashes,the recommendedconvention.Hypothetical reconstruction ofcoloured paint utilizes dots, to accord with the stipplingcoveringthe paintedarea.Wash is indicatedby stippling in the same way that colouredpaintis denoted,but is differentiatedrom colouredpaint by thissymbol,whichis followedby the colournotation.An arrowpointsto the stippledarea ndicating he wash.Glaze is indicated by a screen over the area of glaze. Severalcoloursof glaze requirescreens of differingintensity. An arrowleads from the colour notation to the area of glaze. To avoidpossibleconfusionbetweenthescreenandstippling, he symbol*,signifying glaze',precedes he colournotation.Underglaze, beingboth colouredandselectivelyapplied, s treatedas colouredpaint;the area coveredby it is thereforestippled.An arrow eads fromthe colour notation to the area of underglaze.The symbol t,signifyingthe 'underglaze',precedesthe colournotation.

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3 OtherinformationThe artefact number, in I point type (44 point type if letteredon the drawing), s usuallyplaced below the elevationor in thelowerright field. The object is nevergiven any other numberinthe excavationreport.Several nearly-identical artefacts may be representedby asingle drawing.The artefactnumbersareplacedin a verticalrow,each numberexceptthe lastbeingfollowedby a comma.

Several artefacts made from the same mould may berepresentedby one drawing.The symbolfor 'moulding' s placedin the field.After the last numberappearsa symbol signifyingthat'all these are from the same mould'.Two or more similar artefacts, of known number, repre-sented by the same artefact number are indicatedby a circleenclosinga numberwhich shows the total number of artefacts orepresented.

When the artefacts are of unknown number, but more thanone and less than ten, this symbol is used.Whenthe artefactsare of unknownnumber,but more thanten,thissymbolis used.

The disposition of an artefact is shown by an abbreviation,usually in the lower right. The first two letters identify the cityand its major archaeologicalmuseum; the third, used whennecessary, dentifiesother repositories n the same city.Smoke-blackening deposited after fabrication is denotedbythis symbol placedin the field or the exterioror the interior. Onlamps it appearsin the field. When position is significant,anarrow eads fromit to the blackening.The size of the original artefact, whennot specifiedotherwise,is assumedto be fourtimes the linearsize of the drawing = ratio1:4). Any otherproportionrequiresa ratio-indicator r a printedcentimetre-scaleplaced n the field.A corroded metal artefact, and occasionallysome other arte-fact, in which deteriorationhasproceededto the pointof possiblyobscuring detail of form or decoration, is indicated by thissymbolas a warningto the viewer.A potsherd of known original orientation on its vessel buttoo fragmentary to merit an elevation is shown in a per-spectivefrontal exteriorview and in section.

1:1

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226 Robert Houston Smith

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An approachto the drawing of pottery and smallfinds 227A potsherd of known horizontal orientation on its vessel butof unknown top- bottom orientation is shownasthepreceding,plus a symbol meaning'potsherdshould perhapsbe turned up-side down'.A potsherd of unknown orientation on its vessel is showninnon-perspectivefrontal exteriorview and in a section which isarbitrarilypositioned vertically,with a symbol meaning'orienta-tion of potsherdis unknown'.

4 MaterialsThese symbolsmay be placedanywhere n the field, usuallyon the surface side.a alabaster' antimonyo agatem basalti bitumen

c: bone,ivory? brass

8 bronze4 carnelian0c clay(unfired)^ clothoa copper

-s dioriteeI electrume faience> flint- glasso goldAu graniteX grassM gypsumd haematitem iron* jasper

jet

o lapislazuliA leatherc# lead6 limestone: malachite@ marbleA nephrite ade^ obsidiane onyx+ papyrusi parchmentt paste

oo pearl

a plasterj porphory

. pyroxene ade, rockcrystal

*v sandstone_ schistO shell (exceptpearl)

J silver. 'steatiteo turquoiseo undeterminedstoneE wood

ReferencesBrodribb,C. I970. Drawing archaeologicalindsfor publication.London (not publishedat thetime of the preparationof this article;appeared Spring, 1970).Delougaz,P. I952. Pottery rom theDiyala region.Chicago.Franken,H. J. I969. Excavationsat Tell Deir Allah. Leiden.Gardin,J.-C. I956. Leficlier mecanographiquee l'outillage;outilsen metalde l'dgedu bronze,desBalkansa l'Indus.Beirut.Gardin, J.-C. 1958. Four codes for the descriptionof artifacts:an essay in archaeologicaltechniqueand theory.AmericanAnthropologist. 0:335-57.

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228 Robert Houston SmithGrinsell, L., Rahtz, POand Warhurst,A. I966. The Preparationof ArchaeologicalReports.London.Munsell Color Company. 1954. Munsell Soils Color Charts.Baltimore. (Availablefrom theMunsell Color Company, Inc., 2441 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, Maryland 2X2x8, UnitedStates.)Munsell ColorCompany.I963. MunsellColorChartsor Plant Tissues.Baltimore. Availableasabove.)Shepard, A. 0. I956. Ceramicsor the Archaeologist.Washington. (Reprinted unchangedexcept for new prefatorycomments1965.)U.S. Departmentof Commerce,NationalBureauof Standards,Circular553. I955. TheISCC-NBS Methodof DesignatingColorsanda Dictionaryof ColorNames.Washington,D.C.Van Beek, G. W. I969. Hajar Bin Humeid;Investigations t a Pre-IslamicSite in SouthernArabia.Baltimore.

AbstractSmith,R. H.An approach to the drawing of pottery and small finds for excavation reportsPresentpractices n the drawingof archaeologicalinds, little changedfor decades,have certaindeficiencies.The author describesa system of drawingwhich he devised for a forthcomingreporton excavationsat Pella in Jordanwhich ameliorates ome of these defects. The methodincreases the consistency and amount of informationpertainingto excavatedartefactsandtransfersto the drawingsthemselves much of the informationnow commonly presentedinwrittendescriptive ists in excavationreports. This is accomplishedby means of symbolsandotherconventions,a synopsisof which is givenin a six-pagetable. The author alsoexplainsthepreparation f drawingsandlayoutof platesso faras they have bearingon the systemwhich heproposes.

Documents

Robert Houston Smith_An Approach to the Drawing of Pottery and Small Finds for Excavation Reports