Post-Medieval Wrecks in the Western Mediterranean and Pottery: The Mortella II Wreck (1527) and the Chronology of Montelupo Tin-Glazed Earthenware

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper entiteled Post-medieval wrecks in the Western Mediterranean and pot- 2 tery. The Mortella II wreck (1527) and the chronology of Mon- 3 telupo tin-glazed earthenware, has beed reviewed.

The points and aspects which have highlighted are very interesting and considerable. The results provide important clues about the wreckship maritime trade and information about the goods.

In this regard i would like to give my opinion as accepted manuscript in its current stage.

Yours

Author Response

 Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for your positive comments.

I have tried to further enhance the English text,

with the help of a native language editor

 

Thanks again

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

The article is organized in two parts, the first one dedicated to an analysis of some shipwrecks of the XVI century in the northwestern Mediterranean area, accurately dated thanks to archival studies. The second part is devoted to a preliminary study of the ceramics of the Mortella II wreck. Being preliminary, the study has certain gaps that we fully understand. However, there is a lack of drawings of the ceramics that accompany the photographs of the decorations and that would allow us to better relate the form with the decoration.

In general, the article is of great interest as it provides new chronological data for certain decorations and forms of Montelupo tin-glazed ceramics, a production with a great commercial circulation.

In the first part, the author constantly discusses the importance and contribution of these marine closed contexts with specific dates provided by the written sources to the chronology of the 16th century, especially to the ceramic products. However, this idea is very redundant in the text. Some of these repetitions could be eliminated. In any case, archaeologists know the importance of these contexts.

The author also stresses the importance of archival research in order to date shipwrecks.

Changes and corrections

Please review the wording of the paragraph between line 192 and 197. It is not clear.

line 201. Please use capital letters for DRASSM.

line 201. The LAAM laboratory does not currently exist, it has changed its name to LA3M.

https://la3m.cnrs.fr

Line 320. I understand that other articles in this volume provide location figures for the wreck of the Mortella II. However, we must think that a researcher can consult only your article and therefore it is necessary to incorporate a figure of the location of the wreck in relation to the island of Corsica and its location in the western Mediterranean.

line 409. Please reconsider the definition of this object as "amphora" as this term is identified with a type of ancient transport ceramic. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to use "storage jar". 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you very much for your important and punctual comments.

 

I have modified everything you suggested,

including both for the insertion of a geographical reference map and for the elimination of some conceptual redundancies and corrections of errors.

 

Unfortunately, the drawings of the finds are not yet available, but I have always inserted the precise reference to the classification of the most used shapes for Montelupo majolica (Fornaciari 2016).

 

Thank you very much for your attention

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, I think this is probably a very interesting paper. I really liked the arguments as I understood them and the figures were fabulous. By far, the biggest issue was the poor English which made it difficult to judge the strength of the paper in many places. I strongly recommend having a copy editor familiar with archaeology correct the paper for grammar and syntax and then resubmit. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you very much for your heavy but important remarks

(“English very difficult to understand/incomprehensible”).

 

As you suggested, I drastically worked with a native linguistic reviewer,

 suggested to me by the journal Heritage.

 

Thanks very much for the comments

Reviewer 4 Report

There are many awkward sentences and paragraphs.  I have suggested a number of corrections below to improve the wording, but I am sure that I did not catch everything.  It needs at least another look by a colleague of the author or editor of the intended volume.

 

 

Suggested corrections:

 

In the Abstract:

 

Line 15: replace “has evident heavy repercussions on whole international archaeological research.”

with “has major repercussions on international archaeological research.”

Line 18: replace “The interest of the pottery found is”

                With “Interest in the pottery recovered is”

Line 19: delete “a” before “written documentation”

Line 23: replace “geography in Mediterranean, Europe and extra-European.”

with “dispersal throughout the Mediterranean, Europe, and internationally.”

Line 26: replace “make this first sample already a reference site”

with “makes this first sample a reference suite”

 

Section 1:

 

Line 31:  Change “General Aims” to “Introduction”

Lines 32-37:  This sentence is too long.  It should be separated into two sentences.

Lines 45-52:  Same as above – sentence too long.

Lines 65-66:  replace “ceramics of a wreck of a shipwreck”

                With “ceramics from a shipwreck”

Lines 67-71:  Another long sentence. This could easily be repaired by replacing “found, important”

                With “found. This is important”

 

Section 2:

 

Lines 83: replace “features its caracteristics” with “features has its own characteristics”

Line 105:  delete “match of” as unnecessary words

Line 129:  replace “scenarios of the” with “scenarios for the”

Line 139:  replace “dealth” with “dealing with”

Lines 155-159:  long sentence, should be subdivided.

Lines 160-165:  long sentence, should be subdivided.

Lines 213-223:  Too many one sentence paragraphs. Should be combined in to a single paragraph with multiple sentences.

 

Section 3:

 

Lines 323-332:  Again, too many one sentence paragraphs that should be in a single paragraph.

Lines 408-412:  Another long sentence that could be made into two sentences.

 

Line 433:  replace “fire of the ship” with “fire on the ship”

 

Section 4:

 

Line 640:  replace “bad” with “poor”

Line 642:  replace “to cause” with “causing”

Line 646:  replace “join” with “offers”

Line 670:  replace “referrable to” with “referred to as”

 

Section 5:

 

Lines 707-712: Another lengthy sentence, that should be reworded into two sentences.

Lines 714-720:  Another long sentence,  that can be improved by making two sentences.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you very much for your important and punctual comments.

 

I have modified everything you kindly suggested.

 

I have tried to further enhance the English text,

with the help of a native language editor

 

Thank you very much for your attention

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have done a very good job addressing all of my concerns. The images of the pottery in the figures make me smile every time.

Table 2 needs to be translated into English and it isn't clear why some of the dates are in red font. 

Author Response

Table 2 needs to be translated into English and it isn't clear why some of the dates are in red font. 

All done, please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf