Roman Amphorae: a digital resource on the Internet

Abstract: The field of Roman amphora studies has been growing at a tremendous rate during the last 50 years, with an increasing number of new forms and fabrics coming to light, some of which are only known regionally. The Southampton Amphorae Web site was published in 2006 under the auspices of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS), thanks to a generous grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the UK. The aim of the site was to create a digital database on the internet with a searchable interface in which detailed information on as wide a type series of Roman amphora forms as possible would be readily available to a wide range of researchers and archaeologists in the field. This would start with the Greco-Italic forms of the late Roman Republic and continue down to the Byzantine period. Thus, it is a comparative collection of vessels that is presented, rather than the finds from one particular site. The aim of the website was to produce an electronic database incorporating digital images of Roman amphorae that could readily be accessed by archaeologists working in the field, ancient historians, museums, and laboratories. With the help of many distinguished colleagues not attached to the University of Southampton, the amphora database now has around two hundred and fifty amphora types listed. Each type, or variant division, has one »page« per amphora form. The latter contains a short text on provenance, dating, distribution, and an extensive bibliography of the more important published works. There are line drawings to scale, normally 1:10, of complete or almost complete type-vessels, backed up where possible by colour photographs. Also available are clear colour images of hand specimen fabrics at ×10 and ×20 and colour photomicrographs of petrological thin sections. The database is an interrogatory searchable relational resource, which is easily accessible and does not require any particular computer skills to use. Hopefully, this resource should particularly help those working in the field or on post-excavation publications to more easily identify diagnostic amphorae forms or even bodysherds.