201-211

• Aulsebrook, S.

The poor preservation of many Mycenaean lead vessels, most of which have been found crushed within layers of settlement destruction debris, limits the quality and quantity of information that potentially can be recovered from these artefacts. This problem has substantially hampered investigation into their social function and status during the Late Bronze Age on the Greek mainland, despite their appearance at many major sites. Using the example of a lead vessel found within the House of Lead at Mycenae, this article presents a mathematical method for the reconstruction of vessel capacity from five basic measurements that are often still retreivable even from crushed specimens: their weight, rim circumference, width of the rim, thickness of the rim, and thickness of the body. Vessel capacity is an important, yet often neglected, metric that directly relates to the use of these objects. Results from this model are compared against those derived from pottery assemblages to strengthen the argument that the most common form of lead vessel was a nonportable, multi-functional storage solution. Evidence from the ceramic corpus suggests that some form of standardisation existed regarding vessel capacity, and further exploration of this issue is needed to gauge the degree of its relevance to the metal assemblage. The wider application of this model will enable the integration of another dataset into this debate, and allow better engagement with these lead vessels from the perspective of their intended users.

• History and Archaeology
• Mathematics

• Archaeology and history

Bronze Age Greece, lead vessels, volume, geometric modelling, vessel capacity, household storage

1. Adrymi-Sismani, V. (2004-2005) Le palais de Iolkos et sa destruction. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Vol. 128-129, 1-54.Adrimi-Sismani, V., Rehren, T. and Asderaki-Tzoumerkioti, E. (2009) Two Mycenaean lead vessels: composi-tion and manufacture. In Αρχαιολογικό ΄Εργο Θεσσαλίας και Στερεάς Ελλάδας 2 (2006). Πρακτικά Επι-στημονικής Συνάντησης, Βόλος 16.3-19.3.2006, Volume Ι, A. Mazarakis Ainian (ed.). Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας and Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού, Volos, Thessaly, 695-705.Alberti, M.E. (2012) Vessels in cooking fabrics from Petras House I.1 (LM IA): overview and capacity measures. In Petras, Siteia - 25 years of excavations and studies. Acts of a two-day conference held at the Danish Institute at Athens, 9-10 October 2010. Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens 16, M. Tsipopoulou (ed.). The Danish Institute at Athens, Athens, 235-54.Arnott, R. (2005) Disease and the prehistory of the Aegean. In Health in Antiquity, H. King (ed.). Routledge, London and New York, 12-58.Aulsebrook, S. (2012) Political Strategies and Metal Vessels in Mycenaean Societies: Deconstructing Prestige Objects through an Analysis of Value. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.Bintliff, J.L. (1977) Natural Environment and Human Settlement in Prehistoric Greece: based on original fieldwork. British Archaeological Reports Supplementary Series 28. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.Broneer, O. (1939) A Mycenaean fountain on the Athenian acropolis. Hesperia, vol. 8, 317-433.Chapla, P.G. (2004) How much Weight is too much for Manual Lifting: Determining a Weight Limit Guide-line for Team-Effort Lifting Tasks. Masters Dissertation, New Jersey Institute of Technology.Christakis, K.S. (2005) Cretan Bronze Age Pithoi: Traditions and Trends in the Production and Consumption of Stor-age Containers in Bronze Age Crete. INSTAP Academic Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Christakis, K.S. (2008) The Politics of Storage: Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete. Prehistory Monographs 25. INSTAP Academic Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Demakopoulou, K., Mangou, E., Jones, R.E. and Photos-Jones, E. (1995) Mycenaean Black Inlaid Metalware in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens: A Technical Examination. Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. 90, 137-153.Doumas, C., and Constantinides, A.G. (1990) Pithoi, size and symbols: some preliminary considerations on the Akrotiri evidence. In Thera and the Aegean World III. Vol. 1: Archaeology. Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Santorini, Greece, 3-9 September 1989, D.A. Hardy, C.G. Doumas, J.A. Sakellarakis, and P.M. Warren (eds.). The Thera Foundation, London, 41-44.Edwards, E., Gosden, C. and Phillips, R.B. (2006) Introduction. In Sensible Objects: Colonialism, Museums and Material Culture, E. Edwards, C. Gosden and R.B. Philips (eds.). Berg, Oxford, 1-31.Evans, A. (1935) The Palace of Minos. Volume IV Part II. Macmillan, London.French, E.B. (1963) Pottery groups from Mycenae: a summary. Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. 58, 44-52.French, E.B. (2002) Mycenae: Agamemnon's Capital. The Site in its Setting. Tempus Publishing Ltd., Gloucester-shire.French, E.B., Iakovidis, S.E., Ioannides, C. Jansen, A. Lavery, J. and Shelton, K. (2003) Archaeological Atlas of Mycenae. The Archaeological Society at Athens Library 229. The Archaeological Society at Athens, Athens.Graham, J.W. (1962) The Palaces of Crete. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Graves-Brown, P.M. (2000) Introduction. In Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture, P.M. Graves-Brown (ed.). Routledge, London, 1-9.Haskell, H.W. (1984) Pylos: stirrup jars and the international oil trade. In Pylos Comes Alive: Industry and Ad-ministration in a Mycenaean Palace, C.W. Shelmerdine and T.G. Palaima (eds.). Archaeological In-stitute of America, New York, 97-107.Higgins, R. (1955) Atreus Ridge, 1955. Unpublished field notebook. Notebook x063 currently held at the My-cenae Archive at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.Hinde, R.A. (1998) Mind and artefact : a dialectical perspective. In Cognition and Material Culture: the Archae-ology of Symbolic Storage. McDonald Institute Monographs, C. Renfrew and C. Scarre (eds.). McDon-ald Institute for Research, Cambridge, 175-179.Ingold, T. (2007) Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues, vol. 14(1), 1-16.Katsa-Tomara, L. (1990) The pottery-producing system at Akrotiri: an index of exchange and social activity. In Thera and the Aegean World III. Vol. 1: Archaeology. Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Santorini, Greece, 3-9 September 1989, D.A. Hardy, C.G. Doumas, J.A. Sakellarakis, and P.M. War-ren (eds.). The Thera Foundation, London, 31-44.Karo, G. (1930) Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai. F. Bruckmann, München.Knappett, C. (2012) Materiality. In Archaeological Theory Today. 2nd ed., I. Hodder (ed.). Polity Press, Cam-bridge, 188-207.Lang, M. (1964) The Palace of Nestor excavations of 1963, part II: Pylos pots and the Mycenaean units of ca-pacity. American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 68, 99-105.Moore, A. (1988) The Cult Rooms from the “Citadel House” excavations at Mycenae. PhD thesis, University of Manchester.Mossman, S. (1993) Mycenaean Lead: Archaeology and Technology. PhD thesis, University of Birmingham.Mudd, P. (1984) The pottery: pithoi and pithoid jars. In The Minoan Unexplored Mansion at Knossos BSA Sup-plementary Volume 17, M.P. Popham (ed.). Thames and Hudson, London, 178-179.Phillips, J. and Cline, E. (2005) Amenhotep III and Mycenae: further evidence. In Autochthon: Papers presented to O.T.P K. Dickinson on the occasion of his retirement, Institute of Classical Studies, University of Lon-don, 9 November 2005. BAR-IS 1432, A. Dakouri-Hild and S. Sherratt (eds.). Archaeopress, Oxford, 317-328.Rodriguez, E.C. and Hastoff, C.A. (2013) Calculating ceramic vessel volume: an assessment of methods. An-tiquity, vol. 87, 1182-90.Senior, L.M. and Birnie III, D.P. (1995) Accurately estimating vessel volume from profile illustrations. Ameri-can Antiquity, vol. 60, 319-34.Stronk, J.P. (1972) A pithos from Epano Zakro. Talanta, vol. 4, 85-86.Thalmann, J.-P. (2007) A seldom used parameter in pottery studies: the capacity of pottery vessels. In The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III. Proceed-ings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd EuroConference, Vienna, 28th of May - 1st of June 2003. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie 37, M. Bietak and E. Czerny (eds.). Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 431-8.Tsountas, C. (1886) Excavations at Mycenae 1886 (in Greek). Praktikates en Athenais Archaiologikes Etaireias 1886, 59-79.Ventris, M.G.F. and Chadwick, J. (1956) Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge.Wace, A.J.B. (1955) Mycenae, 1955. Archaeological Reports, vol. 2, 39-40.Wace, A.J.B. (1956) Mycenae 1939-1955: Preliminary Report of the Excavations of 1955. Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. 51, 103-122.