Ceramic Illustration

Ceramic illustration is a highly stylized type of illustration in archaeology. Instead of showing exactly what a vessel (or vessel fragment) looks like, it is used as a diagram, meant to convey the most information in the least amount of space. On the left side of the drawing is the profile of the pot, which shows the shape of its cross-section. The rest of the left side shows the interior decoration of the vessel. The right side of the drawing shows the exterior decoration of the vessel. This style of illustration was developed to highlight form and decoration, which are key elements in vessel classification.