Handbook of Ancient Cypriot Ceramics

You can find them in almost every muse­um that houses anci­ent objects: cer­a­mics from the island of Cyprus. If you are fasci­na­ted by this uni­que type of pot­te­ry – what can hap­pen rather quick­ly – and if you want to know more about it, you will be con­fron­ted with a lar­ge amount of lite­ra­tu­re on spe­cial aspects of anci­ent Cypri­ot pot­te­ry publis­hed here and the­re, but you will look in vain for an up-to-date hand­book on this type of pot­te­ry. In 1976 the “Manu­el de céra­mi­que chy­prio­te — pro­blè­mes his­to­ri­ques, voca­bu­lai­re, métho­de” writ­ten by the renow­ned archaeo­lo­gist Mar­gue­ri­te Yon had been publis­hed – a volu­me in which fun­da­men­tal aspects of Cypri­ot cer­a­mics are dealt with in an exem­pla­ry man­ner – but almost four and a half deca­des after the publi­ca­ti­on of this book our know­ledge of Cypri­ot cer­a­mics has incre­a­sed signi­fi­cant­ly. A group of experts in Cypri­ot cer­a­mics are now meant to pre­sent this new sta­te of know­ledge in a book (writ­ten in Eng­lish) that can right­ly be con­si­de­red a Hand­book of Anci­ent Cypri­ot Cer­a­mics – a hand­book, pre­sen­ting the Cypri­ot pot­te­ry from the Neo­li­thic peri­od until Late Anti­qui­ty (5th mill­en­ni­um BC until 7th cen­tu­ry AD). Sup­por­ted by the AMRICHA non-pro­fit orga­niz­a­ti­on the archaeo­lo­gist Sabi­ne Rog­ge, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Insti­tu­te for Inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry Cypri­ot Stu­dies (Uni­ver­si­ty of Müns­ter) for more than 20 years, has suc­cee­ded in attrac­ting well-known experts to this project.

 

In April 2020, the­re should have been a mee­ting of the­se experts (from Aus­tra­lia, Cyprus, Den­mark, Fran­ce, Greece, Gre­at Bri­tain, Cyprus) in Leip­zig, whe­re the AMRICHA non-pro­fit orga­niz­a­ti­on is based – a mee­ting that should have star­ted this hand­book pro­ject. All fun­da­men­tal ques­ti­ons con­cer­ning the book’s struc­tu­re and con­tent should have been dis­cus­sed the­re in the form of a work­shop, and immedia­te­ly after­wards the experts should have star­ted to wri­te their respec­ti­ve book chap­ters. As the coro­na virus beca­me more and more widespread in February/March of this year, it beca­me clear that it was no lon­ger pos­si­ble to think about hol­ding the long-plan­ned work­shop in Leip­zig, espe­cial­ly with such an inter­na­tio­nal group of par­ti­ci­pants. Even the idea of sol­ving the pro­blem by post­po­ning the work­shop for a few mon­ths (to autumn 2020) quick­ly tur­ned out to be illu­so­ry. We brief­ly con­si­de­red hol­ding the work­shop in the form of a video con­fe­rence, but it soon beca­me clear that the return of such a digi­tal mee­ting could not com­pe­te with the return of a real mee­ting whe­re the par­ti­ci­pant meet face to face. Now we hope to be able to rea­li­ze the work­shop in spring 2021 – one year later. Tho­se who want to acqui­re a solid basic know­ledge of anci­ent Cypri­ot pot­te­ry, brief­ly and com­pre­hen­si­ve­ly, will have to wait a litt­le, but in the not too distant future they will be able to do so, due to the then publis­hed Hand­book of Anci­ent Cypri­ot Cer­a­mics.

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