Two Collaborative Projects for Coroplastic Research, III. The Work of the Academic Year 2015-2016.
Abstract
An international team of 7 researchers has been meeting biannually to collaborate on two projects that are envisaged as aids for coroplastic research. The first is the Handbook for Coroplastic Research (HaCoSt), a tool designed for those new to the field of coroplastic studies. The second project has been nicknamed Winter On-Line. This concerns the creation of a searchable version of Franz Winter, Die Typen der figürlichen Terrakotten, 1903, in wiki format.
Index terms
Keywords:
handbook for Coroplastic Research, greek terracottas, greek terracotta figurines, searchable database, Franz Winter.Outline
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- 1 See “Two Collaborative Projects for Coroplastic Research,” Newsletter of the Association for Coropl (...)
1As in 2014,1 a team that comprised Marina Albertocchi (Ca Foscari University, Venice), Christine Aubry (University of Lille), Stéphanie Huysecom-Haxhi (CNRS Lille), Arthur Muller (University of Lille/IUF), Marion Muller-Dufeu (University of Lille), Ambra Pace (University of Messina), Antonella Pautasso (IBAM-CNR Catania), and Jaimee Uhlenbrock (State University of New York at New Paltz) met at the University of Catania from November 10 to November 14, 2015 in order to continue work on the Handbook for Coroplastic Research and Winter On-Line.
Fig. 1. The HaCoSt team at the National Archaeological Museum of Gela, November 2015. Standing, Stéphanie Huysecom-Haxhi, Christine Aubry, Jaimee Uhlenbrock, Arthur Muller, Marion Muller-Dufeu; crouching, Antonella Pautasso, Marina Albertocchi. Team member Ambra Pace was not present for this photograph

© Salvatore Rizza
2The meetings began with a discussion concerning the funding, format, and organizational issues involved in the publication of The Handbook for Coroplastic Research. Antonella reported that she has to wait for another year to resubmit her funding request to IBAM-CNR Catania for the experimental archaeology project on serial production, for which she made an unsuccessful request for support last year. In October of 2017 there may be the possibility of yet another reunion of the HaCoSt project, even though Arthur may already have retired.
3The following reports were made:
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Arthur reviewed the progress of the Proceedings of the Izmir and Lille conferences. Volume 2 of the Izmir conference and the proceedings of the Lille conference will come out in a few weeks, while Volume 1 of the Izmir conference will be published in the spring of 2016.
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There also was a report of recent coroplastic activities by Stephanie at Kirrha and by Arthur at Epidamne-Dyrrhachion.
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Arthur reported on the activities of the Learning Center of the University of Lille 3, and especially the exhibition that will take place in March 2016 on the process of studying coroplastic material as it relates to archaeological research in Lille. This will include a re-creation of a fountain with water and votive terracottas, a grave with terracottas as grave goods, and shelves that will have drawers supporting photographs of the contents of storage boxes from Lille-sponsored excavations. The goal of this exhibition is to answer the what, the why, and the how of coroplastic research
1. The Handbook for Coroplastic Research (HaCoSt)
4During the meetings the following aspects of the HaCoSt project were discussed:
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Andrea Babbi and Oliver Pilz will write the chapter on rupture and continuity from the Late Bronze Age to the Proto-Geometric period. They have asked if it should be divided into two chapters. It was agreed that if there is enough information it should be two separate chapters.
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Jaimee Uhlenbrock submitted a final draft of the chapter “Research Perspectives in Greek Coroplastic Studies: The Demeter Paradigm and the Goddess Bias.” It was reviewed, and Arthur corrected French phrases, while Marina suggested the inclusion of more recent attitudes.
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Jaimee presented the first draft of the chapter “Trade, Distribution, and the Market Value of Figurative Terracottas.”
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A discussion was held regarding the list of contexts within which figurative terracottas may be found that was compiled by Antonella and Marina. It was agreed that there should be a more narrative chapter to accompany this. It also was suggested that the list of contexts could be shortened and could comprise a lexicon separate from the one that is dedicated to technical aspects.
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Attention was directed to a lexicon developed by Marion that concerns the stylistic analysis of figurative terracottas.
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A general discussion was held concerning the technique chapter and bibliography was suggested that could illustrate certain aspects of technique.
5In addition, the following commitments were made:
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Julie Hruby will submit a first draft of her chapter on the capturing of fingerprints in clay objects and their use in coroplastic research.
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Giocomo Biondi will write a chapter on authenticity.
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Christina Marangou has agreed to write a chapter on the anthropological approach to figurine study.
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Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou and Giorgos Papantoniou will write the chapter on archeometric processes as aids in coroplastic research.
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Violaine Jeammet will contribute a chapter on figurative terracottas in museums.
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Gilbert Naessens will write a chapter on photographing figurative terracottas.
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Arthur’s chapter on the processes of derivative production will be brief because he has already published this in several different contexts.
6In addition, Daniel Graepler was asked to write a chapter on the use of statistical analysis for coroplastic research, but he refused as he no longer studies coroplastic material.
7It was agreed that the main chapters should have a general limit of roughly 30 000 words, while others, such as the chapters on authenticity, museography, analytical processes, and photography, for example, should be limited to roughly 20 000 words. A deadline of October 2016 was established for the submission of the first drafts for these chapters.
2. Winter On-Line
8A presentation of the interface for Winter On-Line was made by Christine, who said that it is almost ready for a trial run.
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The plates from Winter, Die Typen der figürlichen Terrakotten, will be scanned by Lille in high-resolution format and a given number of files of the scanned plates will be distributed among the 7 members of the team for the creation of records to be uploaded to the Winter database. If no problems emerge after a determined number of records are created, then volunteers will be solicited for this project.
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Initially, there will be two interconnected databases, one that is based solely on Winter, Die Typen, and a second that will be developed by collaborators who create records for types that are not in Winter.
3. Prise de tête
9In addition to the work that was carried out on the two main projects outlined above, Arthur presented the film Prise de tête (by Jean-François Dars et Anne Papillaut, CNRS Lille) with its new English subtitles. This film follows Arthur in the museum of Thasos discussing the coroplastic principles of serial production, as well as the Lille database of molds called CopCor. Jaimee reviewed the subtitles and made a few suggestions for corrections to the English.
4. Excursions
10At the end of the week-long meeting the team made an excursion to the Regional Archaeological Museum of Gela and to the Museum of Ceramics in Caltagirone.
Endnote
1 See “Two Collaborative Projects for Coroplastic Research,” Newsletter of the Association for Coroplastic Studies 11, Winter 2014, 32–33; Muller, A. and J. Uhlenbrock, “Two Collaborative Projects for Coroplastic Research, II. The Work of the Academic Year 2014–2015,” Les Carnets de l’ACoSt [Online], 13 | 2015, http://acost.revues.org/633.
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Title | Fig. 1. The HaCoSt team at the National Archaeological Museum of Gela, November 2015. Standing, Stéphanie Huysecom-Haxhi, Christine Aubry, Jaimee Uhlenbrock, Arthur Muller, Marion Muller-Dufeu; crouching, Antonella Pautasso, Marina Albertocchi. Team member Ambra Pace was not present for this photograph |
Credits | © Salvatore Rizza |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/acost/docannexe/image/986/img-1.jpg |
File | image/jpeg, 276k |
References
Electronic reference
Jaimee Uhlenbrock and Arthur Muller, “Two Collaborative Projects for Coroplastic Research, III. The Work of the Academic Year 2015-2016.”, Les Carnets de l’ACoSt [Online], 15 | 2016, Online since 11 November 2016, connection on 22 April 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/acost/986; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/acost.986
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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
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