Making Stone Vessels

The last two chapters considered some general approaches to value and then concentrated on the subject of eastern Mediterranean trade. This chapter is yet more specific, looking closely at the details of how stone vessels are made. Production strategies are not simply a sum total of local technical knowledge but are steeped in local values. Working stone into vessels involves balancing a variety of sometimes conflicting priorities and parameters: the properties of the stone, the availability of specific tools, a preference for particular designs, the intended quality of the finished product, and acceptable levels of accidental breakage. In any given cultural context, this balance will reflect both some conscious, strategic choices on the part of the artisan and the inertia of an inherited crafting tradition (for a similar perspective on potting, see Gosselain 2000). Both short-term decisions and longer-term traditions can be interrogated for how they reflect value-led priorities and stone objects offer particularly rich opportunities for such analysis (though chipped stone has hitherto received most of the limelight: Renfrew and Zubrow 1994). Stone-working is a subtractive process, one which begins with a raw lump and gradually reduces it to a finished artefact by removing fragments, usually in a carefully ordered sequence. Telltale traces of these production stages are often well preserved both on half-finished objects and on final products. Understanding the details of such sequences casts light on a whole range of producer and consumer-driven interests.