Books by Philip Bes
(2024) Roman Pottery in the Low Countries. Past Research, Current State, Future Directions (PALMA 32)
This book presents a status quaestionis of Roman pottery studies in the Low Countries, and will b... more This book presents a status quaestionis of Roman pottery studies in the Low Countries, and will be published on the occasion of the 33rd Congress of the Rei Cretariæ Romanæ Fautores which will be held in Leiden, the Netherlands, from 15 to 22 September 2024.
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
Book Chapters by Philip Bes
Ayios Vasileios. Roman-Period Pottery
Urban and Rural Hyettos: Late Hellenistic to Late Roman Pottery
Early and Middle Islamic Amphorae from the Tüpraş Field Excavations
Horvat Kur: the Pottery from Area A
Horvat Kur: the Pottery Assemblage from the 2012 Soundings
This paper strives to go beyond the common, traditional points on an archaeological map by illust... more This paper strives to go beyond the common, traditional points on an archaeological map by illustrating the potential, as well as biases and limitations, of using large numbers of ceramic-based data to obtain a more nuanced understanding of the complex traces of past human action in an urban and peri-urban setting. An extramural area to the north of the ancient city of Tanagra (Boeotia, Central Greece), which was studied through intensive field survey by the Ancient Cities of Boeotia Project between 2000 and 2006, is used as a case-study. Geophysical research shows that this area appears to have been almost void of structures during the last phase of major occupation in the Late Roman period. The body of Late Hellenistic to Late Roman ceramics collected on the surface, however, reflects some activities here. By evaluating these ceramics from a spatial and quantitative comparative perspective, unique snapshots of the intensity, chronology and nature of the activities can potentially be created. But the formation of the surface record, biases during field collection and macroscopic study of the ceramics, and the small size of analytical samples for some periods influence and limit our interpretations. In all, Tanagra may serve as a case in point regarding typical issues in survey archaeology and pottery studies.
Usually, the life of an archaeologist is not about finding long-forgotten legendary cities, thoug... more Usually, the life of an archaeologist is not about finding long-forgotten legendary cities, though the sensation of discovery does play an important role. Few things may be more satisfying than finding something new that, as a matter of course, happens very often in archaeology. In the end, of course, it is about what we can learn about people and communities in the past from what we find. For some of us, our research does not deal with ancient theatres, for example, magnificent though these may be. The three of us are somehow strongly drawn to one (though certainly not the only!) of the most common categories of artefacts found during archaeological excavations and surveys: pottery sherds. Now, anyone who has been to an archaeological museum remembers the displays full of complete or beautifully restored vessels. In reality, we are almost always dealing with broken vessels, simply because people back then also broke things, threw these away, which was then carried off as garbage, and so on. But what makes these sherds such an appealing archaeological topic? Besides personal preferences, as archaeologists we assume that in the past things to some degree did not happen accidentally or naturally, simply because there were people involved. What we look for, find and study can help us to understand how these people lived, worked and believed in their social and natural environment. Even something seemingly insignificant as a pottery vessel was made by one or more persons, who put their ideas and efforts into that vessel. We can focus on an oil lamp-which people put in a grave after a loved one passed away, for example-all the way to the 'global' economy of the Roman world. Perhaps you might compare it to studying your own iPhone and Apple's worldwide impact. So, studying pottery helps to understand how people in the past cooked, ate, traded
Kinetic Landscapes. The Cide Archaeological Project: Surveying the Turkish Western Black Sea Region
The (Oxford) Encyclopediae of the Bible and Archaeology, 2013
Uploads
Books by Philip Bes
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
Book Chapters by Philip Bes
A free copy of the book will be handed out to each participant of the congress who will have registered by 30 June 2024, as well as each contributing author. This volume is already available for pre-order, though please refrain from buying it in case you will join the congress or are a contributing author. For further information and the table of contents, see https://www.sidestone.com/books/roman-pottery-in-the-low-countries.
During two campaigns in 2019 and 2020 we completed the intensive survey of a series of fields in the centre of the Çandarlı Peninsula. While the bulk of the collected artefacts remain to be studied, our preliminary results show that terra sigillata/red slip ware was manufactured from the first to fifth centuries AD, for which numerous vessel wasters, ceramic slag, production tools and other finds provide direct evidence. In this presentation, we wish to present our aims, methodology as well as the more significant observations so far.
https://www.minac.ro/assets/rezumate-pontica-53.pdf
region – intensive surface survey, coverage of the landscape by teams walking in close order,
recording patterns of human activity visible on the landsurface as scatters of pottery and lithics,
or building remains. Since 2000, archaeologists from Dutch and Belgian universities working
on Mediterranean survey projects have gathered annually to discuss methodological issues in
workshops that gradually attracted landscape archaeologists from other European countries and
Turkey. On the basis of these discussions, this paper, written by regular workshop contributors
and other invited authors with wider Mediterranean experience, aims to evaluate the potential
of various approaches to the archaeological surface record in the Mediterranean and provide
guidelines for standards of good practice in Mediterranean survey.