Roman Amphorae: a digital resource

This website is an online and introductory resource for the study of Roman amphorae, rather than a definitive study of all amphorae for specialists. It encompasses most of the principal types manufactured throughout the Roman empire between the late third century BC and the early seventh century AD. It builds upon two works published in the 1980s (Peacock and Williams, 1986; Keay, 1984) and presents basic typological information for c. 250 forms. There are basically three main sections to the website: Amphora types, fabric types and bibliographic references. These are supported by additional background information on the resource and search tools. The information is organised in such a way as to allow a user to browse in a non-linear fashion, with hyperlinks between related concepts. For example, a user may wish to find an amphora type by name initially, then find amphorae which share a particular characteristic, and finally view which fabrics are associated with these amphorae. Alternatively, a user may be interested in a particular fabric and begin by searching the catalogue of fabric types before viewing particular amphorae of interest and finally associated references. A third option would be to search for a particular reference of interest and follow the links through to see which amphora are referred to by the specified reference. As such, there are a number of starting points and paths through the information resource.