Tracing the specialisation and the chaîne opératoire of a pottery workshop in Egypt (mid 9th-mid 8th century BCE), the example of Medamud

Abstract

Medamud, located in Upper-Egypt, was a ceramic production centre for over 1500 years specialized in marl clays fabrics. The French Mission of Medamud (MFM) is documenting the workshops to study the “chaîne opératoire” of the ceramics and to shed a new light on the craft structure in Ancient Egypt. Given the current state of the available documentation, we will focus on locate its different stages in order to shed light on how potters circulated within the workshop and to reconstruct part of its functioning. The example of a workshop (complex E.1) dated between the middle of the 9th and 8th centuries BC provides the most accomplished example.