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ANCIENT WORKSHOPS AND ANCIENT ‘ART’
Author(s) -
HEILMEYER WOLFDIETER
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
oxford journal of archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.382
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1468-0092
pISSN - 0262-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0092.2004.00218.x
Subject(s) - provenance , scholarship , archaeology , presentation (obstetrics) , production (economics) , history , ancient art , art history , geology , law , economics , petrology , medicine , macroeconomics , radiology , political science
Summary. There is a tension between the understanding of the term ‘workshop’ in art historical scholarship and the actual locations of production unearthed by archaeology. Yet countless ancient works of art bear traces of their own production, and many working sites have produced unfinished products. The differing approaches can be combined, to a greater extent than they have been, to attain a more comprehensive understanding of ancient art production. A first step is an exhaustive analysis of the interactions between the provenance, processing, inherent quality, logistics, presentation and preservation of any material used in art production. But the products themselves also have much to reveal about their conditions of production.