Corpus of domestic ceramics from the Early Middle Ages (6th-12th centuries): in the Lorraine valley.
| N° d'inventaire | 21141 |
| Format | 21 x 29.7 |
| Détails | 588 p., illustrations, paperback. |
| Publication | Nancy, 2018 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | |
For a quarter of a century, preventive archaeology has uncovered a large number of rural and urban settlement sites occupied between the 6th and 12th centuries, what historians now call the Early Middle Ages. It provides considerable and previously unpublished documentation that should shed new light on the various aspects of the material culture and economy of this period, which is still often poorly understood. Recent publications have shed light on forms of settlement, metalworking techniques, and funerary practices. It remained to examine culinary practices—conservation, preparation, cooking, and serving of liquids—for too long overshadowed by funerary ceramics. It remained to overcome the difficulties of fragmented and sparingly decorated furniture. It remained to go beyond the taste for exceptional objects to focus on the prosaic, the everyday. This is the difficult task that Rachel Prouteau has taken on. The book offers a unique corpus of ceramic furniture discovered in nearly sixty sites spread along the Lorraine valley. It presents standardized monographs that combine analysis and an exceptional series of technical drawings of the artifacts. The author has successfully organized this data by technical groups and by types of containers, proposing a renewed chronological evolution over the long term. It provides researchers, museographers, and more broadly all those interested in the material culture of the medieval West with a first-rate working tool that will stand as a milestone. The author is well equipped to envisage a second volume that will offer an overview of the typochronologies of all the furniture.
For a quarter of a century, preventive archaeology has uncovered a large number of rural and urban settlement sites occupied between the 6th and 12th centuries, what historians now call the Early Middle Ages. It provides considerable and previously unpublished documentation that should shed new light on the various aspects of the material culture and economy of this period, which is still often poorly understood. Recent publications have shed light on forms of settlement, metalworking techniques, and funerary practices. It remained to examine culinary practices—conservation, preparation, cooking, and serving of liquids—for too long overshadowed by funerary ceramics. It remained to overcome the difficulties of fragmented and sparingly decorated furniture. It remained to go beyond the taste for exceptional objects to focus on the prosaic, the everyday. This is the difficult task that Rachel Prouteau has taken on. The book offers a unique corpus of ceramic furniture discovered in nearly sixty sites spread along the Lorraine valley. It presents standardized monographs that combine analysis and an exceptional series of technical drawings of the artifacts. The author has successfully organized this data by technical groups and by types of containers, proposing a renewed chronological evolution over the long term. It provides researchers, museographers, and more broadly all those interested in the material culture of the medieval West with a first-rate working tool that will stand as a milestone. The author is well equipped to envisage a second volume that will offer an overview of the typochronologies of all the furniture.