Ken Dark. Byzantine pottery.

Ken Dark. Byzantine pottery. KEN DARK. Byzantine pottery. 160 pages, 70 figures, 58 colourplates. 2001. Stroud & Charleston (SC): Tempus; 0-7524-1942-0paperback 19.99 [pounds sterling]. Visitors to museums in Greece Here are lists of some important museums and archaeological places or buildings that function as museums in Greece: AthensNational Archaeological Museum of Athens Acropolis of Athens Acropolis Museum, Athens Benaki Museum National Gallery (Athens) , Turkey or Bulgaria, the modernstates now occupying f the territories of the Byzantine empire, areunlikely to become familiar with the daily artefacts or pottery of theByzantine world. For the most part, museum collections at both anational and a regional level begin with the material culture ofprehistoric communities and continue through into the material world ofClassical Greece and Rome. In modern Greece in particular, but to alesser degree in the other two countries, the collections present ahomogenous homogenous - homogeneous view of the ancient world in terms of sculptures, artefacts,coins and ceramic products, a perspective which almost invariably in��var��i��a��ble?adj.Not changing or subject to change; constant.in��vari��a��bil endsin late Antiquity with the ubiquitous products of African red slipware slipware,pottery decorated with various colors of slip, a thin mixture of clay and water. Slip may form a design on a contrasting background, or lines may be scratched through a coating of slip to show the color beneath, in the style called graffito. and its eastern Mediterranean imitators. Having read this book, aninformed tourist, while sheltering from the mid day sun in thearchaeological museums of Naxos or Corfu, will find little or frothing froth?n.1. A mass of bubbles in or on a liquid; foam.2. Salivary foam released as a result of disease or exhaustion.3. Something unsubstantial or trivial.4. of the ceramic evidence represented here. Only in the specialist museumsat Istanbul, Athens, Corinth or Thessaloniki are there significantcollections of Byzantine ceramies, and in none of these can the displayof medieval material match the wealth of evidence now displayed in thenew Crypta Balbi museum in Rome. Since Byzantium is often characterisedas a theocratic the��o��crat?n.1. A ruler of a theocracy.2. A believer in theocracy.the state, it is hardly surprising that it is representedthrough its religious art and architecture; but, as this book shows to awider public, the secular images found on the pottery of the Byzantineworld are not only every bit as engaging as the medieval ceramics ofwestern Europe or the Islamic Near East (see especially pls. 48-9), butalso have the potential to inform about wider aspects of Byzantinesociety and life. Unlike earlier studies, Dark presents the ceramic tradition as aseamless thread from the late Roman products studied by John Hayes tothe glazed wares of the medieval period best understood from excavationsat Corinth and Istanbul. Although he argues for 'a thousand yearsof continuity' in practice the earlier late-Roman materialrepresents only an introductory chapter and much of the discussion isconcerned with later fine and coarse wares. For the latter, it can beseen that there is little change in amphora and other types before thetwelfth century, but for fine wares there is a major shift of productioncentres to the capital with the appearance of different fabrics andforms, especially the Constantinopolitan white glazed wares which cometo dominate from the seventh to the twelfth century. The decoration ofthese and other glazed products forms the main illustrative material ofthis book. These are largely drawn from published studies by Talbot Riceand from the Corinth excavations, with some fragments from Londonmuseums. In general, the colour reproduction is adequate, although it isnot stated in the captions that paintings rather than photographsillustrate the Corinthian wares. For a book on pottery, many of thedrawings are fairly crude and it is not clear how much editorial controlwas exercised over both the illustrations and the text (the illustrationfor Fig. 31 is omitted). Dark raises and alludes to a number of major issues relating to thecontribution of ceramic studies for the understanding of Byzantinesociety and the cultural relations between Byzantium and its neighbours.The ceramic tiles and icons found in Bulgaria and as far away as Cordoba cor��do��ba?n.See Table at currency.[American Spanish c��rdoba, after Francisco Fern��ndez de C��rdoba (1475?-1526?), Spanish explorer.]Noun 1. demonstrate the importance of 'cultural exports' but he isless convincing on the primacy of Byzantine production of glazed waresin the Near East. As might be anticipated from the author of a book onarchaeological theory, Dark is not content merely to describe form andconsider chronology, and the penultimate chapter is entitled'Ceramics as a source for reconstructing Byzantine culture'.Once again, he raises more questions than can be dealt with in a shortchapter but it does, at least, provide an agenda for future research.Each chapter is provided with end-notes, which include fullbibliographical references. However, these are rather tiresomelyrepeated with very limited use of abbreviations and there is noconsolidated bibliography, a real loss in a work aiming to be anintroduction for students and non-specialists. JAMES CROW School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University,Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne,city (1991 pop. 199,064) and metropolitan district, NE England, on the Tyne River. The city is an important shipping and trade center. The famous coal-shipping industry began in the 13th cent. , England. (Email: j.g.crow@ncl.ac.uk)