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.
        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.
        Here in the mideast we tend to lump all brown to red earthen
colors in the red category and even have a convention for drawing them.
Most are slips based on clays with high ferrous content.  The addition of
munsell to descriptions would be more exact as far as the color but no
more than a few words.  Further, much pottery is not uniform in color and
so longer and longer strings of numbers are necessary.  There's also the
problem of which come first, etc.
        I hope that ? Munsell forgives me.  I think that his opus magnum
should be left out of archaeology in most cases.
        Eliot Braun Israel Antiquities Authority
 
On Mon, 11 Dec 1995, Francine Cote wrote:
 
> Does anyone know where we can find a copy of the Munsell Color
> Code?  Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thank you.
>