Katrien Rutten archaeologist-ceramicist | Pottery ancient Near East

Between Sherd and Wheel

Archaeologist | Ceramicist | Ancient Middle East & Egypt

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Clay, Craft, and the Ancient World

Archaeology, ceramics, and material practice between past and present

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Archaeology in Clay and Pottery

Research, ceramic analysis, and pottery practice across the Middle East and Egypt

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ABOUT

I am an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Middle East and Egypt, and a ceramicist. As a certified potter, I move daily between research and craft, between sherd and wheel.

My path into archaeology began with a fascination for time. As a child, I dreamed of time travel, and without a time machine I discovered another way into the past: through archaeological sites, ruins, and objects that were once part of everyday life.

In these silent material remains, I seek connection with people from a distant past, trying to understand how they lived and died, what they ate and drank, what they believed in, and what they feared.

SKILLS

FIELDWORK

I have many years of fieldwork experience. Few things compare to the sense of focus and momentum I find while excavating or recording structures, stratigraphic profiles and grave goods. Especially when everything comes together and I can mentally reconstruct a site as it once might have looked.

CERAMIC ANALYSIS

Pottery is never just pottery to me. Even as fragments, ceramics preserve traces of complex and diverse past societies. I enjoy analysing pottery using a wide range of methods, from standard quantification to more detailed mineralogical and chemical analyses, in order to better understand production, use and exchange.

ILLUSTRATION

Technical illustration of pottery is almost as rewarding to me as excavating and studying ceramics. When done correctly, drawings show how vessels were constructed, finished and sometimes reused. Combined with photography, they provide a comprehensive view of a vessel. I have worked as an illustrator in the Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Syria.

POTTERY FABRICATION

As a potter, I focus on producing ceramics and stoneware, combining practical use with an interest in material and form. I develop my own glazes, mainly for functional ware, while maintaining a strong appreciation for unglazed vessels. Their natural appearance, subtle colours and tactile warmth hold a lasting appeal for me.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

I have participated in archaeological projects in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkmenistan, and Syria. After completing my studies, my research initially focused on ceramics from Syro-Mesopotamia and the Arabian-Persian Gulf region, with particular attention to the Achaemenid, Hellenistic-Parthian and Sassanian periods, local production, and interregional exchange.

This work culminated in my doctoral thesis, based on the extensive excavation assemblage from Ed-Dur in the Emirate of Umm Al-Qaiwain.

In recent years, I have returned to the study of Bronze Age ceramics from Syro-Mesopotamia, the subject that first inspired my academic path.

Ceramics have long held a central place in my research. Clay carries a unique earthiness and immediacy, and is nearly omnipresent on sites in the Middle East and Egypt. To me, sherds are not mere fragments, but traces of craftsmanship, foodways, ritual practices, trade, hospitality, and social status.

Becoming a potter myself was therefore a natural step. Throwing, finishing, and firing clay deepens my understanding of archaeological ceramics in ways no theory can replace.

It is my way of approaching the makers and users of the past, making history not only something to study, but something tangible.

PUBLICATIONS

You can find a selection of my academic publications on Academia.edu, ResearchGate and research.ugent. The former platform also include a synthesis of my most recent, as yet unpublished paper.