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Richard Anderson, architect of the Agora excavations, has responded to the recent articles in CSA Newsletters concerning pottery profiles and volume studies. Mr. Anderson noted that he had prepared a program for a Hewlett-Packard 42-S calculator to determine vessel volume. He believes that it is a better and less expensive approach to the problem. "It uses two methods, solids generated by rotated trapezoids for open shapes and stacked frustums of cones for closed shapes. In particular, it can put the two methods together when it might be appropriate (such as for a fat, medieval water pot). In any case, all you need is a sheet of gridded tracing paper and of course, the calculator . . . about $100 worth of hardware."
Mr. Anderson goes on to say that, "It is my belief that people are so overawed by (big) computers that these powerful and useful programmable calculators are largely overlooked. The HP-42S is particularly useful for surveying, allowing many checks to be performed and thus problems to be solved while in the field, even in conjunction with an EDM/datalogger/computer system."
Mr. Anderson has several such programs for the HP-42S; interested persons may contact him directly at the American School of Classical Studies, 54 Souidias Street, Athens GR 106 76, Greece.
A copy of his program for vessel capacity is also available from CSA.
For other Newsletter articles concerning pottery profiles and capacity calculations, consult the Subject index.
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Table of Contents for the February, 1995 issue of the CSA Newsletter (Vol. 7, no. 4)
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