I agree that the Munsell colors are hard use, but they do provide a
standard reference (at least in theory).  Some of my students majoring in
art history tell me that the Munsell color system was never designed for
dirt and pottery or field use, but rather for mixing and matching paint.
That would explain a lot...
 
My biggest problem with the Munsell colors is that the color of the paint
chips and the names given to the paint chips do not agree for many people.
Munsell's dark brown and very dark brown are much lighter than a lot of
the "brown" soil I've encountered and yet I'm not prepared to call 75% of
the soil I encounter black.
 
Additional comments among some of Eliot Braun's paragraphs.
 
On Tue, 12 Dec 1995, Eliot Braun wrote:
 
> Hi, I find that Munsell is not a good idea and I'm against its use.  I've
> heard the same thing from a number of English colleagues.  Much data is
> difficult to focus on and long strings of numbers for color coding
> pottery seems, to me, impossible to comprehend.  The only way I can use
> it is to have a very expensive and hard to acquire little booklet in hand
> and keep looking up information.
 
John Floyd adds:
 
But that's how the Munsell color is supposed to work.  Each time a Munsell
color name is given to a sample it is assumed that one has referenced the
color code book.  That way one does not get in the habit of *knowing* that
the soil of a certain site (or pottery type) is 10 YR 2/3 or 7.5 YR 3/4
and recording it as such with out a double check.
 
>         Since the color thing form most earth derived artifacts includes
> things we visualize individually, dependent upon the degree of
> sensitivity or blindness to color, the kind of light an object is viewed
> in, etc. (variabilities ad infinitum), I find that the simplest way to
> give a reader some idea of the color is to use the names of colors and
> very unscientific descriptors.  My latest effort is with glazed wares
> which are, I think, not included in Munsell (another problem).  Does
> anybody object to my describing one glaze as seaweed green?  I think that
> for most people this evokes what is necessary, some sense of the color of
> an object.
 
 
John Floyd adds:
 
In theory, that has all been accounted for.
 
I do have a problem with seaweed green, however.  When I'm writing up
notes and encounter such colors as coco, chocolate, mocha, almond, and
coffee I am at a loss on how to compare them.  This range of color could
come from the same unit and level or even the same clump of dirt.  I've
also encountered sea green, pea green, puke green, and green green!  It's
often not so clear when someone else uses the colorful color term.
 
>         I hope that ? Munsell forgives me.  I think that his opus magnum
> should be left out of archaeology in most cases.
 
 
John Floyd adds:
 
I suspect you may be right.
 
John
 
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