Avshalom Karasik

A complete, automatic procedure for pottery documentation and analysis

The Computerized Archaeological Laboratory, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem started to operate on January 1st 2010. Its purpose is to harness mathematical and computational methods to support archaeological research, documentation and visualization. The laboratory is equipped with modern, high precision scanners which provide digital three dimensional models of archaeological finds. We concentrated on ceramic and lithic artifacts, and developed several tools and algorithms which are used routinely as the standard procedure for their analysis and publications. The current paper summarizes the main novel features which are relevant to ceramics: 1) Efficient, high precision data acquisition using 3D scanners. 2) A stable and reliable algorithm which automatically finds the symmetry axis of pottery fragments. 3) A user friendly interface which creates print quality drawings of the objects. 4) A new procedure for automatic typology and classification of ceramic assemblages, which is based on mathematical representations of the cross-section profiles. These four steps of documentation and analysis are now the routine tasks in the lab. So far we have successfully tested the procedure for more than 10,000 fragments from a large variety of archaeological excavations

Documentation and Analyses on the National Scale at the Israel Antiquities Authority: The Story of One (Broken) Sherd

This article reviews the methods and tools which are used in the new digital laboratory at the Israel Antiquities Authority. In collaboration with the Computerized Archaeology Laboratory at the Hebrew University, we apply techniques and ideas from computer graphics and mathematics, and integrated them into the methodologies of archaeological research and documentation. The laboratory operates optical scanners which provide accurate 3D digital models of archaeological artifacts, then publish, store, and analyze these models by computer programs developed in-house. The treatment protocol of finds and the capabilities of the digital lab are demonstrated using the example of one unique pottery fragment with an incised inscription.

New Typological Analyses of Early Bronze Age Holemouth Jars from Tel Arad and Southern Sinai

Abstract A novel computerized method for the morphological typology of ceramics was applied to the assemblages of Early Bronze holemouth jars found at Tel Arad and in Southern Sinai. This analysis demonstrates, in agreement with commonly accepted conclusions, that the holemouth cooking-pots found in Arad, which were made of materials alien to the Arad environment, and the holemouth jars found in Southern Sinai cannot be differentiated by their rim morphology. Nevertheless, in contrast to the common belief that the rims of holemouth jars in Arad are all similar, independent of their petrographic composition, we show that there are small but statistically significant differences between these two groups, as well as between the locally-produced vessels from Arad and Southern Sinai.

The Royal Judahite Storage Jar: A Computer-Generated Typology and Its Archaeological and Historical Implications

Abstract The paper presents an objective, repeatable and independent computergenerated typology of the iron Age II Oval Storage Jar (OSJ), also known as the lmlk or Royal Judahite Storage Jar. It demonstrates that this jar was in use from the late 9th to the early 6th century BCe and that it was distributed beyond the confines of the Judahite administrative system. The OSJ first appeared as a local phenomenon that was limited to the Shephelah, with no particular political or ethnic affiliation. During the early to mid-8th century BCe, the production of some of the jars became standardized, which is evidence of the consolidation of the Kingdom of Judah and its territorial expansion into the lowlands region. By the late 8th century BCe, at least one or more of the workshops producing these jars became integrated into the royal Judahite administrative system that stamped jar handles, and this established the workshops main function until the destruction of Judah in the early 6th century BCe.

Computerized Ceramic Typology

This article describes how to expedite the time-consuming process of cataloging shards of pottery found at archaeological excavations. The authors devised a method to scan and then separate the potsherds by size and shape. Analyzing relics from the ancient city of Dor in this way found a provable evolution in the construction and design of pottery. Bowls were analyzed from several periods of the Iron Age and the curvature measurements, along with the tangent angle and carination points were mapped.