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For Sale or Sailors? Towards a Galley Ware Functional Designation Methodology

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Abstract

Publications of materials recovered from ancient shipwreck sites in the Mediterranean increase every decade with each subsequent excavation, adding a wealth of data to the study of ancient Mediterranean societies. To date, however, there have been few detailed discussions of how recovered ceramics are designated as cargo or galley ware. As the field of maritime archaeology continues to grow, the time is ripe to advance methodologies to define and categorize galley ware ceramics, which can thereby aid studies of ancient seafarers and their relationships to the wider societies to which they belonged. This paper presents a methodological framework to aid in the identification of galley wares recovered from ancient Mediterranean shipwrecks and applies the methodology in two case studies. The larger goal of the study is to initiate within the field discussions of functional attribution in order to move beyond intuition and towards an applicable methodological framework.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to research assistant Tyler Strobel for his fruitful aid during the research phase of this project, and to Dr. Deborah Carlson for comments on an early draft of this paper. Special thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions and criticisms, and to JMAR’s editors—Dr. Athena Trakadas in particular—for shepherding this paper through the publication process. Any errors or leaps of logic are my own.

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  1. Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive, Lewisburg, PA, 17837, USA

    Kristine M. Trego

  2. Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Affiliated Scholar, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA

    Kristine M. Trego

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  1. Kristine M. Trego
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Correspondence to Kristine M. Trego.

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Trego, K.M. For Sale or Sailors? Towards a Galley Ware Functional Designation Methodology. J Mari Arch 14, 273–289 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-019-09236-x

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