Conference review: 15th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics, 16th - 18th September 2019, Barcelona, Spain

By Carlotta Gardner

Williams Fellow in Ceramic Petrography, The Fitch Laboratory, The British School at Athens

This year's EMAC was held in the beautiful city of Barcelona

EMAC 2019 was organised and hosted by the University of Barcelona and ran from the 16-18th September. The conference as a whole, was an enjoyable experience and provided an excellent opportunity to hear about the latest ventures in the analysis of archaeological ceramics and meet with colleagues for lively discussion and debate. Despite oral papers only having 10 minutes to present their work, the standard of papers was good, and most were able to provide a good overview of the research they were presenting. The poster session was rich with excellent examples of works in progress, and finished projects. A special session in honour of Mike Baxter titled ‘Statistics and databases in ancient ceramic studies’ was a touching addition to the conference.

Highlights of the conference included presentations by Verónica Martinez Ferreras et al. on Roman wine amphora from the Cap Béar 3 shipwreck; Shan Huang and Ian Freestone on Early Celadon in North China; Anastasia Dimoula et al. on cooking pottery on the northern edge of the Mycenaean world; Carmen Ting et al. on the development of glaze technology in Cyprus during the 13th and 17th centuries AD; Daniel Albero Santacreu on Bronze Age pottery production in Formentera, Spain; and Nigel Wood on Song Ceramics. 

Thank you to the organisers of EMAC 2019 for an enjoyable conference!