Calculating Liquid Capacity to Understand what could have been Consumed from 'Drinking' Vessels

Bibliographic Data

ID12591344
AuthorsWilliam Baddiley (0000-0002-0520-7858, University of Birmingham, corresponding author)
Year2018
Issue50
Publication date2018-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternet Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-5387 • E-ISSN: 1363-5387
PublisherCouncil for British Archaeology (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.11141/ia.50.4
OpenAlexW2804115446
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited10

All Usk ware vessel form types used in the analyses in this article, with calculation areas indicated. Drawings by W. Baddiley, adapted from Greene (1993, 12-15) and reproduced with permission from Greene. There are many examples of vessel types reportedly used for drinking during the Roman period, but there have been few attempts to calculate the volume of liquid that such vessels could have held. For this article scaled reproductions of vessels from archaeological reports are used as the basis for calculating vessel capacity by applying the formula for the volume of a cylinder V equals Pi r squared h to calculate vessel volume and thus liquid capacity. Most of the vessels examined in this article consist of coarse ware and fineware pottery from the legionary fortress at Usk. The drinking silverware from the House of the Menander at Pompeii provides a comparison with the Usk pottery. The calculated capacities potentially allow distinctions between individual and communal drinking to be seen, while large variations in capacity are apparent even within supposedly tightly grouped datasets like the Drag. 27 samian ware from Usk. Comparing the capacities of different vessel types and vessel materials can also demonstrate a certain level of consumer preference. This is especially so at Usk where no vessels with a capacity of between 400ml and 500ml are found, and the majority of the vessels tend to cluster below 300ml. Identifying a specific drink being consumed from these vessels is more problematic, but by combining capacity data with other sources of evidence, such as find spots, vessel forms and materials, a number of possibilities are raised

Environmental health · Environmental Science · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · History · Medicine · Psychology · Transportation Planning and Optimization

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