Belgrade Conference on Archaeological Pottery (BECAP) is an international biennial conference aiming at gathering specialists from the field of pottery studies, organized by the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, and the Institute of Archaeology.
BECAP 22 – Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission
Belgrade, 12-13th May 2022
Since the beginning of the discipline, decoration on ceramic vessels was considered one of the most important features of pottery; motifs and designs were important in defining archaeological cultures and understanding chronological sequences. With time, the research topics
related to decoration broadened and today many potential lines of investigation are possible, making pottery designs still challenging and inspiring. Instead of focusing on typology, BECAP 22 is aimed to address the topics related to pottery decoration through three main themes:
* Technology: the procedures and techniques of applying specific designs; artisans’ skill and knowledge transfer; organization of production related to decoration; characterization and origin of raw materials needed for applying of the designs; identification and usage of tools used for decoration execution; the relations between pots’ function/usage and decoration.
* Style: meaning of the motifs; the relations between the decoration and users of the pots, i.e. elite and people of high status vs. others; (dis)continuity of specific motifs and their meaning through time; creativity and (or) conservatism in decoration techniques and the choices of motifs.
* Methodology: methods of processing and quantification of pottery decoration.
The contributors are invited to address some of the following issues:
* case studies of wide chronological and geographical span dealing with pottery decoration: technological aspects, including archaeometry, and style;
* theoretical-methodological contributions related to the research of decoration including quantitative methods;
* ethnoarchaeological case studies and experiments designed and conducted to resolve the issues related to the application of specific decoration techniques.
(from the call for papers)
Deadline for the submission of abstracts 15th December 2021, information and application: becapconf@gmail.com