7 - Illustration

Summary

Introduction

Pottery is normally drawn in a highly stylised manner, and archaeologists soon become so used to the system that they find it remarkable that, given a sherd of pottery, an illustrator unfamiliar with the conventions will actually draw what he or she sees. Wheel-thrown or other vessels with a central symmetry are conventionally shown with a central vertical line. On one side of this line the cross-section of the vessel wall and the interior surface of the pot is shown, and on the other, the exterior surface of the pot is shown. The convention most widely followed is to show the interior view on the left and the exterior on the right, but in some publications, in particular those from Eastern Europe and the United States, this is reversed.

As a means of producing a simple record of a vessel, for use by a pottery researcher or as part of an archive for example, pottery drawing can be quick, cheap and effective. Once a decision is made to make drawings to a publication standard, showing texture and surface treatment, illustration can become very slow and expensive. It can become one of the most costly elements in pottery research. It is therefore important to consider at an early stage what exactly you will be using pottery illustrations for and what implications this will have on your project design.