This paper explores a particular ceramic type, Vista Alegre Striated, an assumed locally produced utilitarian cooking vessel, recovered at the coastal Maya site of Vista Alegre during the Terminal Classic period (AD 800-1100). This study investigates the variations present within this type and how these differences inform production practices at the site and in the region. I use a three-point comparison of recovery locations: a pit feature at the site representing a single depositional episode, intrasite recovery locations, and a regional sample. Through these analyses I highlight various diversities in rim formations that suggest a diversity of producers over time.

Στην παρούσα εργασία θα προσπαθήσουμε να μελετήσουμε τη διαδικασία παραγωγής κεραμοποιίας μεγάλης κλίμακας. Η προσπάθεια αυτή ξεκινά με την ιστορική αναδρομή στην κεραμοποιία και την περιγραφή μιας σύγχρονης μονάδας κεραμοποιίας. Ακολούθως, εξετάζονται οι μέθοδοι με τις οποίες γίνεται η μεταφορά θερμότητας σε επιφάνειες και όγκους. Τέλος, καταλήγουμε στις εξισώσεις που διέπουν τη μεταφορά θερμότητας και στο τελευταίο κεφάλαιο προσπαθούμε να εφαρμόσουμε τις εξισώσεις αυτές σε μια πραγματική μονάδα παραγωγής κεραμοποιίας μεγάλης κλίμακας. / In this work we try to study the process of large-scale ceramic production. This effort begins with the historical background in ceramics and description of a modern ceramics . Next, we will consider the methods by which heat is transferred to surfaces and volumes. Finally , we come to the equations describing the heat transfer and in the last chapter we try to implement these equations in a real plant ceramics.

Recent excavations uncovered numerous small rooms constructed on top of the Danta Acropolis at El Mirador, Guatemala. The characteristics of the settlement and the material items indicated that it was a late occupation and lacked the features associated with large Maya polities and Classic Maya culture. This thesis focused on describing the continuities and changes that occurred from the Late Classic to the Terminal Classic at El Mirador based on the ceramic assemblage and architecture. Significant continuity and stability of the pottery making community is reflected in the ceramic assemblage. Additionally, it was desirable to gain an understanding of how the Terminal Classic occupation at El Mirador differed from other Maya cities. The comparisons show that on a general level, despite being a small settlement, El Mirador participated in many of the cultural patterns that characterize the Terminal Classic period. Two levels of ceramic production are postulated for the Late Classic period, one sustaining production of fine wares (polychromes) and the other sustaining production of basic production (utilitarian wares). The people inhabiting El Mirador in the Terminal Classic period were materially less well-off, and did not pursue activities associated with high culture as their counterparts did in larger cities. Nevertheless, they were not culturally isolated and they had access to trade items and small quantities of prestige goods.

The aim of this research is to investigate the functions of ceramic vessels from two well-defined contexts at Tell Ahmar that have been dated to the Middle Bronze Age II (c. 1800-1600 BC). In addition, correlations between socioeconomic activities and ceramic production at a local and regional level are further investigated. Since there is no one-to-one relation between vessel type and vessel function, the research adopts a multi-dimensional approach formed by the following hierarchical investigations. Firstly, a ceramic typology for the Middle Bronze Age pottery from Tell Ahmar, the first to be undertaken, is constructed to provide a working platform for further analyses. Secondly, interpretations of vessel functions are made based on the techno-morphological implications of vessel use. Moreover, since the ceramic assemblage under investigation represents the systemic inventory of artefacts in use in the rooms at the time of the site abandonment, function of the rooms and relative associations with the composition of the ceramic room assemblage at Tell Ahmar are investigated. In addition, comparative analysis from Northern Mesopotamian and Syrian sites are used in conjunction to suggest functional activities for the defined vessel shapes at Tell Ahmar. Inferences of vessel function are finally supported by the results of ceramic residue analysis and by epigraphic and iconographic evidence of vessel use. Functional activities (i.e. transport, storage and processing) are further discussed in order to make socioeconomic inferences at both local and regional levels. This analysis indicated that one of the major activities at Tell Ahmar was associated with long-distance transport and storage, while for those shapes characterised by a perforated base, an association with beer production is suggested. At a regional level, a general similarity of vessel shapes is noted, this being stronger among the Euphrates River Valley sites than in Inner Syria or in the Khabur Valley. However, when these similarities are examined in detail, ceramic production indicates some local distinctions. These variations, which are not associated with any ancient political boundaries, may be explained in terms of local preferences and requirements that emerged within long-distance flourishing relationships established during this period.

O presente trabalho se propõe a analisar as marcantes diferenças entre os mercados italiano e brasileiro de cerâmica para revestimento. Desde os anos 60, marco de início da produção industrial moderna de pisos e azulejos, a Itália assumiu a liderança e o Brasil ocupou o terceiro lugar; apenas recentemente a China assumiu a liderança absoluta, como produtor, porém não tem ainda forte expressão como exportador. O estudo visa a melhorar a compreensão das causas geradoras de tais diversidades, a verificar a sua persistência e a estimular uma reflexão dos produtores nacionais a respeito da evidente necessidade de uma profunda reestruturação do setor, buscando recuperar competitividade através da modernização tecnológica e, principalmente, dos sistemas de gestão estratégica. Inicialmente é descrito o que é um produto cerâmico, como é classificado e o estado atual das normas; é fornecida uma imagem geral do mercado mundial, expondo a distribuição de produção e consumo, detalhando as realidades italiana e brasileira, com dados atualizados. Em seguida, é analisado o processo de monoqueima, identificando as diferenças entre os dois países. Finalmente, uma análise das estratégias adotadas identifica as causas históricas da situação atual. Verifica-se a subsistência das motivações que justificam as escolhas tecnológicas, gerando uma lista de recomendações, base para futuras pesquisas sobre a viabilidade de adequar o Brasil, para recuperar competitividade e abrir novos espaços de mercado. / The present work intends to analyze the outstanding differences between the Italian and the Brazilian ceramic tile markets. Since the sixties, \"square one\" of the modern ceramic tile industrial production, Italy took on the leadership and Brazil the third place; just recently China took on the absolute leadership as a producer, but still do not have strong expression as an exporter. This study aims at improving the comprehension of the causes that generate these differences, verifying their current persistency and stimulating a reflexion by the national producers about the clear need of a deep business field restructuration, searching for competitivity recuperation through technological and, mainly, strategic management system modernization. In the beginning there are a description of a ceramic product, its classification and a survey of the Standards state of the art. A general view of the world market is also supplied, exposing production and sale distribution and detailing the Italian and Brazilian realities, using up-to-date data. Following, the single-firing process is precisely analyzed, identifying the differences between the two countries. Finally, an analysis of the adopted strategies identifies the historical causes of the present situation. It\'s verified the subsistence of the reasons that support the technological choices, creating a list of observations, base for future researches about the viability to up-date the Brazil ceramic reality, to generate higher competitiveness and open new market spaces.

abstract: This dissertation investigates socio-economic strategies adopted by a small craftworking community situated on the edge of one of the earliest, largest and most complex cities in Mesoamerica. The focus of investigation is San Jose 520, a hamlet located on the southeastern margin of Teotihuacan and occupied primarily during the Tlamimilolpa and Xolalpan phases (ca. A.D. 200-500). Its inhabitants were potters of low socio-economic status living in small, architecturally simple residential structures. The investigation complements much more numerous studies of higher-status groups residing in Teotihuacan's famous apartment compounds, much larger and architecturally more formal structures clustered primarily within built-up parts of the city. The founding residents of San Jose 520 might have initially been immigrants, arriving at Teotihuacan after most of the city was already filled in and occupied, and therefore settling in a spatially marginal area with limited potential for farming. Archaeological field and lab investigations demonstrate that they adopted ceramic production as a strategy of economic survival in a competitive urban system. They specialized in the manufacture of the outcurving bowl--a vessel widely used at Teotihuacan for food service and certain ritual activities. At smaller scales of production, these potters also made other types of serving and ritual vessels and figurines. Evidence relating to mortuary and domestic rituals indicates participation in a number of the rituals typical of other sectors of Teotihuacan society, but not all. The most general goal of this investigation is to improve understanding of how socially and spatially marginal peoples possessing low economic status developed and exploited viable economic niches in pre-industrial urban systems. The San Jose 520 potters appear dynamic in their economic adjustment--in part by enhancing their production system over time through the adoption of various specialized pot-making tools (some as yet undocumented for Teotihuacan), and to some extent by modifying their product line, they survived for many generations. Nevertheless, they never succeeded in significantly raising their economic status; at the time of their apparent disappearance sometime in the Xolalpan phase, these potters and their households continued to constitute a case study of urban poverty in a massive pre-industrial city. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2011

O presente trabalho se propõe a analisar as marcantes diferenças entre os mercados italiano e brasileiro de cerâmica para revestimento. Desde os anos 60, marco de início da produção industrial moderna de pisos e azulejos, a Itália assumiu a liderança e o Brasil ocupou o terceiro lugar; apenas recentemente a China assumiu a liderança absoluta, como produtor, porém não tem ainda forte expressão como exportador. O estudo visa a melhorar a compreensão das causas geradoras de tais diversidades, a verificar a sua persistência e a estimular uma reflexão dos produtores nacionais a respeito da evidente necessidade de uma profunda reestruturação do setor, buscando recuperar competitividade através da modernização tecnológica e, principalmente, dos sistemas de gestão estratégica. Inicialmente é descrito o que é um produto cerâmico, como é classificado e o estado atual das normas; é fornecida uma imagem geral do mercado mundial, expondo a distribuição de produção e consumo, detalhando as realidades italiana e brasileira, com dados atualizados. Em seguida, é analisado o processo de monoqueima, identificando as diferenças entre os dois países. Finalmente, uma análise das estratégias adotadas identifica as causas históricas da situação atual. Verifica-se a subsistência das motivações que justificam as escolhas tecnológicas, gerando uma lista de recomendações, base para futuras pesquisas sobre a viabilidade de adequar o Brasil, para recuperar competitividade e abrir novos espaços de mercado. / The present work intends to analyze the outstanding differences between the Italian and the Brazilian ceramic tile markets. Since the sixties, \"square one\" of the modern ceramic tile industrial production, Italy took on the leadership and Brazil the third place; just recently China took on the absolute leadership as a producer, but still do not have strong expression as an exporter. This study aims at improving the comprehension of the causes that generate these differences, verifying their current persistency and stimulating a reflexion by the national producers about the clear need of a deep business field restructuration, searching for competitivity recuperation through technological and, mainly, strategic management system modernization. In the beginning there are a description of a ceramic product, its classification and a survey of the Standards state of the art. A general view of the world market is also supplied, exposing production and sale distribution and detailing the Italian and Brazilian realities, using up-to-date data. Following, the single-firing process is precisely analyzed, identifying the differences between the two countries. Finally, an analysis of the adopted strategies identifies the historical causes of the present situation. It\'s verified the subsistence of the reasons that support the technological choices, creating a list of observations, base for future researches about the viability to up-date the Brazil ceramic reality, to generate higher competitiveness and open new market spaces.

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the legacy of industrial spaces, the effect of this legacy on the surroundings, and how these spaces then become disconnected and isolated after industrial activity is decommissioned. The research forms part of an NRF research scheme that specifically focuses on building the resilience of cities through innovation in the planning, design and construction of the built environment. The hypothesis on which the dissertation is based states that a process of reintegration of a decommissioned industrial site with the immediate surroundings would enable such a site to become a positive space of transition, and would allow for the reconciliation of society and the ecology that was exploited by the industry. It sees the decommissioning of industrial infrastructure not as a loss or abandonment of obsolete capital, but as the release of energy and potential that can be positively reconstructed. The mechanistic and reductionist world-view that contributed to an unhealthy relationship between people and their ecological surroundings is theoretically explored through the hybridization theories proposed by Bruno Latour (Latour 1993), and the regenerative methodologies put forth by members of Regenesis (Mang, Reed 2012a). The potential of obsolete industrial infrastructure to provide powerful leverage points for changing paradigms from mechanistic to ecological is discussed in the light of its history of developing from craft to large-scale production. Craft becomes an important mechanism for the integration of people with the value and purpose of their work, and also of natural materials and the cultural objects they become. The theories stated above are architecturally applied to an industrial site in Eersterust, Pretoria, which is on the verge of being decommissioned. The site is approached as a constantly evolving and living entity. It is investigated in terms of its patterns and cycles, and these are illustrated as a narrative of all the forces that have impacted on it over millions of years. The narrative provides clues as to possible programmes and site lifecycles, and enables those phenomena that will nurture the biophysical evolution of the site to be given form. The concept of potential sets arises from this investigation, and informs an architecture that aligns itself with both the ecological and cultural forces on site, and represents the hybridization of the two. Potential sets distinguish patterns of ecological, social and industrial phenomena that occur on site over different time frames. These patterns aid the understanding of the ecological purpose of the site and the alignment of the built intervention with this purpose. A building is imagined that will create solutions for public, industrial and ecological spaces, with different levels of engagement between the three. The concept of a solvent enforces the notion of hybridity and allows for new relationships between the public, industrial processes and natural cycles to develop. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2014 / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

A series of recent excavations on the 2nd Century AD Antonine frontier forts of the Midland Scottish valley, have produced results which suggest that the army was making its own pottery on an appreciable scale. This was at a time when pottery production was thought to have moved almost exclusively into civilian hands. The possible local ware groups identified by the excavations were largely independent of firm source indicators such as kiln and waster material and the number of available samples was often-small. A program of Neutron Activation and Thin Section petrological analyses was undertaken along with an investigation into Textural Analysis, a facet of the Petrological toolkit. The aim was both to define the site ware groups and a group of specialist vessels thought to be local to Scotland, the Mortaria, and to make statements as to their provenance. Although the Mortaria analysis was limited by problems of sample group size and availability, by improving the objectivity of the statistical handling of the derived data sets and developing methods for the high level study of textural data, the site ware groups were defined successfully at both the "intrall and "inter" site levels. The analyses also furnished interpretations as to the mode and nature of the site production schemes. Through the full analysis of' site Daub samples linked to more traditional provenancing techniques, in all but one case the ware groups could be assigned to the source sites, where contrasting production modes could be identified with military as opposed to civilian production.

Nesta tese, estudamos os vasos cerâmicos produzidos pelo Pintor de Gela, um artista ático, cujo período de atividade vai da última década do século VI a meados do século V. Esse Pintor pertence à geração de artistas tradicionalistas que prossegue produzindo vasos de figuras negras no período em que a técnica de figuras vermelhas é introduzida e adotada por diversos artistas em Atenas. O Pintor de Gela pode ser considerado um artista completo, uma vez que tanto molda como decora seus vasos com a mesma dedicação; ele pensa como um ceramista, porque ele é um deles, consciente do volume sobre o qual ele coloca os elementos da imagem que constrói, consciente assim da natureza do objeto suporte da imagem e das manipulações e rotações que serão feitas ao longo de sua utilização. Em sua obra, o Pintor apresenta qualidades artísticas interessantes e importantes que devem ser levadas em conta sob diversos aspectos: a originalidade técnica com a qual produz vasos em que se percebe a preocupação com simetria, volume e proporção; a capacidade de abstração e ordenação de imagens; a criatividade e liberdade artísticas com que apresenta novas representações e versões de temas desenvolvidos por outros artistas e oficinas contemporâneos a ele. A produção desse Pintor merece uma revisão e novas interpretações já que o que possuímos de publicações dedicadas ele é muito pouco em relação à sua importância como artista pertencente a um período tão produtivo da arte grega. Apontamentos sobre qualidade artística, estilo, produção e cronologia podem ser feitos a partir do estudo sistemático de seus vasos, inseridos no universo de artistas e da produção de vasos áticos de figuras negras. O conhecimento da produção desse artista, tanto no nível formal quanto imagético, contribui para uma caracterização e maior conhecimento do desenvolvimento técnico e artístico pelos quais passa a cerâmica grega, permitindo questionamentos sobre o que conhecemos da arte, tecnologia e iconografia gregas do período / This thesis deals with the pottery vases produced by the Gela Painter, an attic artist who worked from the last decade of the sixth to the beginning of the fifth century BC. This painter belongs to a generation of traditional artists who keeps on producing black figured vases when the red figured technique is introduced and adopted by many artists in Athens. The Gela Painter can be considered a complete artist due to the fact that he makes and decorates his vases with the same dedication. He thinks as a ceramist because he is one - he is aware of the volume in which he creates the elements of image, conscious of the nature of the object in which the image is placed and of the manipulations and shifts that will happen during its use. In his work, the Painter shows interesting and important artistic qualities which have to be considered under different aspects: the technical originality used to produce his vases through which it is possible to notice his worries about symmetry, volume and proportion; the capacity of abstracting and arranging images; the artistic creativity and liberty with which he shows new representations and versions of the same theme developed by other contemporary artists and workshops. This Painter\'s production deserves to be reviewed and re-interpreted due to the fact that all the works dedicated to him are really few when we take into account his importance as an artist belonging to such a fruitful period of the Greek art. Considerations about artistic quality, style, production and chronology can be taken out studying his vases systematically, always having in mind the production of attic black figured vases universe. The knowledge of this Painter\'s production, taking into account both its form and imagery characteristics, contributes to a better characterization and a greater understanding of the artistic and technical development seen in the Greek ceramic production, allowing us to question what we know about art, technology and iconography of this period