KINDS OF FINDS
Inscriptions: read the text as an object
Words are only part of the evidence. Writing surface, preservation and find context belong to the same reading question.
3 objects · 5 articles and guides
EXPLORE THROUGH OBJECTS
Finds
From an inscription to a ceramic vessel: reading routes that begin with an object and ask how it becomes evidence.
Pottery, inscriptions, coins, weapons, glass, amulets and ships pose different questions. Start with a find category, continue to a method guide and compare a case study. Material and function are different categories: a ceramic vessel can bear writing, while stone can serve several kinds of tool.
In this section
KINDS OF FINDS
Pottery: beyond the silhouette
Read a sherd as part of an assemblage, and ask why a similar shape is only the beginning of identification.
5 objects · 5 articles and guides
READING OBJECTS
Coins: minting, use and deposition
Start with documented identification and continue into context: a route to the coin guide and the Persian and Roman periods.
2 objects · 3 articles and guides
READING OBJECTS
Weapons: form, use and context
Slingstones, spearheads and swords raise different questions. Learn to separate an object’s identification from evidence for a battle.
1 object · 1 article or guide
READING OBJECTS
Glass: reading the technique
Two blown glass jugs in the same collection, two techniques the records describe in words: a four-part mold versus a dip mold with trails. What the photograph shows, and what only the record says.
2 objects
READING OBJECTS
Amulets and scarabs: one form, two kinds of record
Two scarabs in the same collection: one "from Canaan" by the record's geography field, one from the debris of a tomb at Lisht excavated by the museum. What each kind of record allows one to say, and what it does not.
2 objects
READING OBJECTS
Ships and boats: wood, sea and lake
Two wooden hulls from the north of the country, both found by chance, both conserved for years. The records date them in two different ways, and the site reads each as worded.
2 objects