CERAFIM
Céramique Africaine Imprimée / African Impressed Ceramics
Creation of a technical index of motifs.
Cerafim is a workgroup that gathers several africanist archaeologists who study prehistoric and protohistoric ceramic. Members come from Archaeology departments in Maghreb (Tunisia and Morocco) and universities in Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland). Cerafim members work mainly in southern Sahara, but also in Sahel, Maghreb, the Nile valley, Djibouti and Cameroon.
We realized that a frame of reference for the description of motifs was needed because communication about decoration was often uneasy. There has been a need of a common background for the description of the motifs and a need of equivalences between different descriptions, not another “universal” terminology.
We developped a technological approach of motifs to build up our index. This kind of description is based on the identification of the tool and the technique used. We chose Caneva’s classification system as a reference. This classification of motifs is based on the identification of technique, the tool and the elements (units of the active part).
In this poster, we present the up-to-date results of our index of motifs concerning pivoting and rouletting techniques.