Understanding Roman Sound Pottery: Resonating and Acoustic Vessels in Three Case Studies

Summary

This paper examines three archaeological sites in Italy that possibly have sound pottery, or echeia, built into the structure. I purposefully chose these three sites because they range in date, vessel type, are the most ambiguous about whether the vessels are indeed sound pottery and lack of research in order to contribute to the scholarly record. The Theater of Nora (Sardinia), Theater of Nemi (Nemi in mainland Italy), and the Circus of Maxentius (outside the city of Rome) are the three sites examined within this paper. The main research questions of this paper are: How can one model sound using only architectural drawings of a site, as opposed to a more traditional method of sound mapping? What is the reason for the inclusion of sound pottery in these three sites? Are the vessels in these three sites indeed sound pottery? I hope to model the acoustics of the pottery using the drawings of the various sites and importing it to AutoCAD then using I-SIMPA to measure the effects of sound.

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