Abstract
The study of ceramic materials constitutes a cornerstone of archaeological research, yet the post-production workflow for pottery documentation remains labor-intensive and creates significant publication bottlenecks. This paper presents PyPottery, an open-source, AI-powered suite designed to semi-automate the complete ceramic documentation pipeline. The suite comprises four integrated modules: PyPotteryScan for automated image extraction and handwriting recognition; PyPotteryInk for automatic inking of pencil drawings; PyPotteryTrace for semantically-aware vectorization; and PyPotteryLayout for automated layout generation. Evaluated on 50 hand-drawn sheets containing 240 pottery drawings from the Terramara di Montale (Italy), the framework achieved substantial time savings confirmed by usability study participants, who reported a median perceived speedup of 40$\times$ over traditional workflows (range: 17.5$\times$--120$\times$). These results highlight the potential of AI-assisted tools in archaeological documentation, while the paper addresses the strategic redistribution of cognitive labor toward augmentation rather than automation.
Keywords
Subject
Publication details
- Journal
- Not available
- Open access
- Green open access
Cite this article
APA 7
Cardarelli, L. (2026). PyPottery: an AI-powered end-to-end suite for pottery processing and publication. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/pypottery-an-ai-powered-end-to-end-suite-for-pottery-processing-and-publication
MLA 9
Cardarelli, Lorenzo. "PyPottery: an AI-powered end-to-end suite for pottery processing and publication." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/pypottery-an-ai-powered-end-to-end-suite-for-pottery-processing-and-publication.
Chicago (author–date)
Cardarelli, Lorenzo. 2026. "PyPottery: an AI-powered end-to-end suite for pottery processing and publication." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/pypottery-an-ai-powered-end-to-end-suite-for-pottery-processing-and-publication.
Harvard
Cardarelli, L. (2026) 'PyPottery: an AI-powered end-to-end suite for pottery processing and publication', Available at: https://omanscience.com/en/articles/pypottery-an-ai-powered-end-to-end-suite-for-pottery-processing-and-publication.
Vancouver
Cardarelli L. PyPottery: an AI-powered end-to-end suite for pottery processing and publication. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/pypottery-an-ai-powered-end-to-end-suite-for-pottery-processing-and-publication
IEEE
L. Cardarelli, "PyPottery: an AI-powered end-to-end suite for pottery processing and publication," https://omanscience.com/en/articles/pypottery-an-ai-powered-end-to-end-suite-for-pottery-processing-and-publication.