Beazley the Craftsman (original) (raw)
In E. Hasaki and M. Bentz (eds), Reconstructing Scales of Production in the Ancient Greek World: Producers, Processes, Products, People. Proceedings of the XIX Conference of Classical Archaeology, Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World, Bonn 22–26 May 2018, Heidelberg, 59–80, 2020
Social Network Analysis and Connoisseurship in the Study of Athenian Potters’ Communities.” in Reconstructing Scales of Production in the Ancient Greek World: Producers, Processes, Products, People, edited by Martin Bentz and Eleni Hasaki, 2020
This article presents a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of the collaborations between Athenian potters and painters of the 7th–5th centuries BC as established by Sir John D. Beazley in the first half of the 20th century AD. In his foundational connoisseurship studies, Beazley identified more than 1.000 potters and painters for over 20.000 black-figured and red-figured vases. His attributions, often critiqued for the opacity of his methodology, have remained largely unchallenged and yet are still central to stylistic analysis of these pots. Our project, entitled Social Networks of Athenian Potters, is the first to apply Social Network Analysis to visualize, quantify, and evaluate these associations and interconnections, moving beyond linear lists of painters and potters and encouraging scholars to obtain a synoptic view of the Athenian Kerameikos. The visualizations of the SNA reframe artisans into their roles as facilitators, bridges, and innovators.