My Attempt at Archaeology Critique- A Review of Carla Sinopoli

Carla Sinopoli considers the evidence of two classes of goods produced in the craft areas of Vijayanagara, the capital of an empire that lasted from 1340 to 1565. She considers textiles and ceramics, and tests the production of both based on three distinct types of craft production models. These models are a) administered production, b) centralized production and c) non-centralized production.

Sinopoli briefly describes each of the three models. Administered production, she states, occurs when crafts are produced by some administrative structure whether a temple or a centralized state. In administered production, workshops are bound to the administrative structure and should be centralized around a certain area of significance for a given administrative structure. Centralized production occurs when there is both large scale production and segregated workshops BUT without direct involvement of  a given structure. The last system is non-centralized production and this is characterized by small workshops and local consumption of the goods produced.

One interesting concept that Sinopoli to differentiate between administered production and centralized production is that of attractiveness. Put simply, the workshops should compete to make their goods more attractive to potential customers, via “increasing elaboration in material complexity” (vs., I assume, standardized production in the case of administered production). She does not really extrapolate on the ways she might test for attractiveness.

Moving on to textiles, Sinopoli uses what she calls “historical documents”, which range from indigenous texts and inscriptions to foreign accounts of the city (I will not critique her use of these sources). Sinopoli argues that textiles were important “in long-distance trade, in temple worship, in life crisis ceremonies, and in expressions of ritual and political status or prerogatives.” She tells that textile production was dominated by castes or subcastes of weavers, while they were organized in communities. The administrative structures exercised an indirect control in the forms of taxation, and a merchant caste was handling the distribution of the weavers. Thus, she argues, textiles were part of centralized production since the state exercised only indirect control over the weaving communities.

The single most important part of her argument that textiles were, in fact, centrally produced (vs. administered production) is that the state appears to have no involvement in distribution. This was tested epigraphically. However, I have doubts that administrative structures were not involved in production. First, she stipulates that the workshops were clustered around temples. Clustering around an administrative structure is one of the ways in which she can test for administrative production. Secondly, as she states herself, textiles were tremendously important for political status and or religious significance. Comparatively, ancient states did regulate clothing practices specifically to maintain status boundaries, though this may affect distribution more than production. The Vijayanagarese system appears less differentiated than she initially lets on: though distribution and production are handled by two different castes, the government, by granting exemptions and taxing the workshops, clearly had an interest in regulating the production aspect of textile-weaving. The dual-caste system for production/distribution could be linked to caste relationships as much as economic impetus. Finally, Sinopoli mentioned that “attractiveness” was the largest differentiator between centralized and administrative production. Attractiveness never enters the discussion. Perhaps the problem I am having is that the distinction between administrative and centralized is more fuzzy and difficult to test for, and thus making the distinction, problematic for scholars (since the concluding result of the model should vary greatly).

Sinopoli's description of ceramics is more thorough and more convincing both in terms of methodology and logic. Her point that ceramics are not mentioned in texts is relatively moot (they are never mentioned except in specialized texts, and even then, the ceramics really has to be unique). In spite of lack of geographical data (and hence one cannot test for lack of spatial clustering), her point that there is varied types of ceramic still stands. She demonstrates technological variety by using archaeological data (specifically water vessels) and ethnographic data. She justifies her blend of archaeology and ethnography by stating that “continuities in production technique, identifiable from archaeological evidence, and the limited available historic documentary evidence supports assumptions of long-term continuity in technique and organization.” It is worth noting that her use of ethnographic data is done as a way to expand on archaeological data, not as a primary mode of analysis.

By looking at these pots, and comparing them to five random samples of six vessels, she is able to conclude that the pots from Vijayanagara appeared to correspond to an ideal type (variance in neck thickness/lip angle) but that these samples allowed for maximum variation from potter to potter. The site distribution of the shards appears to link types to communities and districts. Thus, she concludes that a ceramic workshop would allow for consumption of goods in one area. Ethnographic data is then used to show the ways in which these workshops functioned. They functioned around the nucleated family, with a master potter and an apprentice at the wheel. Women and children were only involved in the firing of the pottery. From a body of twelve vessels, she is able to conclude that vessels were very varied. This implies non-centralized production.

One major problem with the article as a whole (even if I am convinced that ceramics are non-centralized production) is her choice of sources. She chooses textiles and practical ceramics (and not just any ceramics, water-carrying vessels hence practical ceramics) as a means to investigate production types. Prior to any analysis, knowledge from comparative study would point to textiles being produced either administratively or centrally, and this form of base, daily-used ceramics to being produced locally. In other words, her evidence choice foretold the results. Then her larger conclusion on “spheres of production” need further investigation before the generalizations that textiles were part of a centralized-production network (rather than administrative or even non-centralized) and ceramics were part of a non-centralized network can be sustained.