Martina Revello Lami is currently appointed as lecturer for the BA programme in Material Culture Studies at the Department of Archaeological Sciences.

More information about Martina Revello Lami

Office days

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

Research

Martina Revello Lami is currently appointed as lecturer for the BA programme in Material Culture Studies at the Department of Archaeological Sciences. She holds a MA from the University of Siena and a post-graduate degree in Classical Archaeology from Sapienza - University of Rome (Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici). As a research affiliate of the University of Amsterdam, she is working towards the completion of her PhD within the framework of the Satricum Project where she features as pottery specialist.

Her research focuses mainly on issues of production technology, intra-site consumption and inter-regional distribution networks, assessed through the lens of material culture of Central Italy from the Archaic to the Mid-Republican period. More recently, her interests extended to the multifaceted relationship between archaeology and society, exploring in particular contemporary perspectives on antiquity linking past and present through the materiality of the objects left behind by modern and ancient communities.

Her methodology spans from the study of surface macrotraces to archaeometry in order to assess technological choices in pottery production. The ultimate goal being to integrate typo-morphological and contextual examination with more sophisticated analyses, such as statistical analysis to calculate degree of ceramic variability, petrographic analysis with thin sections supplemented by geoprospection for potting raw materials, to identify possible raw sources, units of ceramic production and processing techniques. More recently, her research is exploring new avenues for integrating petrographic and statistical analysis with cutting-edge 3D scanning technology. The potential of 3D technology within pottery macrotrace analysis is still largely untapped, and further experimentation may open promising research paths in relation to not only manufacturing techniques, but also use-ware and functional analysis.

Martina cooperates to several fieldwork projects in Italy (excavation at the NE slope of the Palatine, Rome) as well as editorial projects (she is vice director and co-founder of Ex Novo Journal of Archaeology). In the Netherlands, aside her commitment within the Satricum Project, she has been also co-author of the pilot project "Pottery goes Public. 3D technology and the study of archaeological ceramics" supported by the Amsterdam Universiteit Fonds.

Teaching activities

Martina is involved in the coordination, design and teaching of the BA program dedicated to Material Culture Studies, with a particular focus on pottery technology.

Building on her experience as lecturer at the University of Amsterdam - ACASA - Capacity Group Archaeology, she specializes also in the teaching of Mediterranean Archaeology and themes related to Politics, Heritage and Landscape at the BA level.

Her teaching commitment at Leiden pushes the Faculty of Archaeology at the forefront of innovation and active learning. In this direction goes the pilot-project “The Future of Experiencing the Past” that Martina coordinates together with Dr. Rachel Schats and Prof. dr. Marie within the framework of the Center for Innovation’s SALT SWAT initiative (Spaces for Active Learning & Teaching, Support with Active Teaching). The project aims at creating a digital reference for the benefit of both instructors and students. By creating 3D models of artifacts held in the Faculty’s collections, this digital archive will assist instructors in teaching about various materials and techniques when availability of artifacts is low, or they are too fragile to be handled. In the near future, the project will enable students to access and analyze the material record by viewing and manipulating models in class and at home.

Curriculum vitae

Material culture studies and more broadly the search for human choices as expressed through the materiality of ceramic objects lie at the core of my research. My formative years spent in Italy at the University of Siena played a fundamental role in shaping such an interest: here I had the privilege to share with prof. D. Manacorda his innovative approach to field archaeology and ceramic studies, placing particular emphasis on issues related to modes of production, economic interaction and exchange in the Roman world.

Since then my research focus has been mainly devoted to trace production dynamics and trading networks of pottery, especially mundane categories of objects such as cooking, storing and household ware vessels. At Sapienza University of Rome, where I earned my post-graduate degree at Scuola di Specializzazione with a thesis on large-scale distribution of amphoras in the Mediterranean, I had the opportunity to start my training in archaeometric techniques applied to archaeological ceramics. Lastly, my appointment as PhD student at ACASA – University of Amsterdam within the framework of the Satricum Project enabled me to delve into the practice of petrographic analysis and the study of technological choices in pottery production.

My current research on Satrican coarse wares, indeed, aims to integrate typo-morphological and contextual examination with more sophisticated analyses: the main analytical techniques applied are statistical analysis to calculate degree of ceramic variability, petrographic analysis with thin sections supplemented by geoprospection for potting raw materials, to identify possible raw sources, units of ceramic production and processing techniques. More recently, thanks to the fruitful collaboration with the 4D Lab based at the University of Amsterdam, I have coupled petrographic and statistical analysis with cutting-edge 3D scanning technology to automate the calculation of vessels capacity and metric standardization as well as to enhance the examination of surface macrotraces for identifying wheel-fashioning techniques. The potential of 3D technology within pottery macrotrace analysis is still largely untapped, and further experimentation may open promising research paths in relation to not only manufacturing techniques, but also use-wear and functional analysis.

As a member of the project “The Future of Experiencing the Past” (SaltSwat initiative, ICTO), she is also working actively towards a better embedding of 3D technology within her teaching activities.

Activities