19 APPROACHING ASPECTS Of CULT PRACTICE ANd ETHNICITY INEARLY IRON AGE EPHESOS USING QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS Of APROTOGEOmETRIC dEPOSIT fROm THE ARTEmISION Michael KERSCHNER Abstract The method of recording and quantifying pottery developed at Ephesos is illustrated by the example of an Early Iron Age deposit from the Artemis sanctuary. A special focus ison the basic conditions that determine the processing of pottery. Several approaches to reconstruct the stratigra- phy of an arbitrary excavation are discussed. The role of the rim fragments and of the brokenness in quantifying a ceramic assemblage are considered. Criteria for dening a diagnostic piece are examined. Finally the quantitativeanalysis of the investigated deposit is applied to questionsof cult practice in the EIA Artemision and to ethnic aspectsof Ephesos in the period of the Ionian migration. Kewords: arbitrar excavation, brokenness, ceramic wares, cult practice, diagnostic, ethnicity, Protogeometric, rimfragments, stratigraphy The method of quantifying pottery fragments that we have been using at Ephesos for more than one decade was origi-nally developed in 1997 by S. Ladstätter (for Hellenisticand Roman pottery), G.A. Plattner (programming) and my-self (for pre-Hellenistic pottery) and has been steadily im- proved since that time. 1 It has two sources: on the one hand theoretical approaches, of which the manual of C. Orton,P. Tyers and A. Vince published in 1993 provided the mostimportant stimulus, 2 on the other hand our own practicalexperience after having processed thousands of pot sherds.During processing and recording pottery, the archaeologistfaces two factors, often opposing each other, that she/he hasto unify: The rst is the theoretical concept, and second the basic conditions (characteristics of the pottery assemblageand the excavation method) and practical requirements.