Owls to Athens: Imported Pottery in Early Iron Age Athens (2015)

POTS, WORKSHOPS ANDEARLY IRON AGE SOCIETY FUNCTION AND ROLE OF CERAMICS IN EARLY GREECE

ÉditeurCReA-Patrimoine© Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine (CReA-Patrimoine)

Université libre de Bruxelles50, av. F.D. Roosevelt | CP 175B-1050 [email protected]://crea.ulb.ac.be

ISBN : 9789461360502Impression : Le Livre TimpermanMise en page : Nathalie Bloch (CReA-Patrimoine)

The publication of the conference proceedings is implemented within the framework of the Action “Supporting Postdoctoral Researchers” of the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” (Action’s Beneficiary: General Secretariat for Research and Technology), and is cofinanced by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Greek State.

CoverKantharos from Kerameikos gr. 28 (inv. 268). Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens - Kerameikos Museum.© Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs / Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Études d’archéologie 8

Pots, Workshops and EIA Society, ULB, 16/11/2013.

Études d’archéologie 8

POTS, WORKSHOPS ANDEARLY IRON AGE SOCIETY FUNCTION AND ROLE OF CERAMICS IN EARLY GREECE

Proceedings of the International Symposiumheld at the Université libre de Bruxelles

14-16 November 2013

Edited by

Vicky Vlachou

With the contribution of

Bruno d’Agostino, Alexandra Alexandridou, Anne Coulié, Anastasia Gadolou, Jean-Sébastien Gros, Nota Kourou, Susan Langdon, Maria Costanza Lentini,

Manolis Mikrakis, Lydia Palaiokrassa-Kopitsa, John K. Papadopoulos,Stavros A. Paspalas, Evangelia Simantoni-Bournia, Samuel Verdan,

Evangelos Vivliodetis, Vicky Vlachou, James Whitley, Dyfri Williams

BruxellesCReA-Patrimoine

2015

Contents

Foreword 7Athena Tsingarida

Abbreviations 9

Introduction. Production and Function of Ceramics in Early Greece 11Nota Kourou and Vicky Vlachou

I. Production and Workshops 19

Geometric Pottery for Beginners: Children and Production in Early Greece 21Susan Langdon

L’atelier du Dipylon : style, typologie et chronologie relative 37Anne Coulié

From Pots to Workshops: The Hirschfeld Painter and the Late Geometric IContext of the Attic Pottery Production 49

Vicky Vlachou

Defining a Workshop for the Production of Domestic Pottery: the Case of Xobourgo on Tenos 75Jean-Sébastien Gros

II. Context and Function 81

Early Iron Age Mortuary Contexts in the Cyclades. Pots, Function and Symbolism 83Nota Kourou

Agency, Personhood and the Belly-Handled Amphora: Exchange and Society in the Ninth Century Aegean 107James Whitley

Images, supports et contextes: sur quelques « amphores funéraires » érétriennes 127Samuel Verdan

III. Pottery and Rituals 139

Domestic Ware, Ritual Utensils or Funerary Vases? Functions of the Late Geometric Potteryfrom the “Sacred House” of the Academy in Athens 141

Alexandra Alexandridou

The Sanctuaries of Artemis Mounichia and Zeus Parnessios. Their Relation to the Religiousand Social Life in the Athenian City-State until the End of the 7th Century B.C. 155

Lydia Palaiokrassa-Kopitsa and Evangelos Vivliodetis

More Cups for “Dionysos”: A Selection of Geometric Drinking Vases from the Sanctuary of Hyria on Naxos 181Evangelia Simantoni-Bournia

IV. Mobility and Interaction 199

Owls to Athens: Imported Pottery in Early Iron Age Athens 201John K. Papadopoulos

Imported Complexities among the Painted Fine Wares at Zagora, Andros 217Stavros A. Paspalas

Pottery and Cultural Interaction in EIA Tyrrhenian Settlements 231Bruno d’Agostino

Some Late Geometric and Early Orientalising Tableware from Sicilian Naxos 241Maria Costanza Lentini

V. Iconography and Early Society 251

Ship, Horse, Battle: Some Attic Geometric Fragments from the Sanctuary of Aphaia, Aiginaand Attic Geometric Gold Jewellery 253

Dyfri Williams

Narrative Art and Ritual in the Sanctuary of Poseidon Heliconius in Ancient Helike, Achaea 267Anastasia Gadolou

Pots, Early Iron Age Athenian Society and the Near East: The Evidence of the Rattle Group 277Manolis Mikrakis

About the Contributors 291

7

Foreword

Athena Tsingarida

The Proceedings of the symposium Pots, Workshops and Early Iron Age Society is the eighth volume in the CReA-Patrimoine series and the fourth publication that concerns Ancient Greek pottery. These figures reflect the importance of this field in the research programs developed by the CReA-Patrimoine over the last years. From the very beginning, with the first international research program undertaken at the Centre in 2004, study has focused on the social and economic aspects of pottery in ancient societies, covering a broad spectrum of products (fine, cooking and coarse wares) from wide-spread geographical areas (Egypt, the Near East, Greece, Roman) and over extensive chronological periods (from the Archaic to the Medieval period). The present volume maintains this interest in social and cultural issues: it puts emphasis on questions about craft organisation, trade and distribution networks, relations between producers and purchasers, uses and function of vases throughout the Ancient Mediterranean world. Its chronological span is focused on the Early Iron Age: it thus compliments the earlier publications by the CReA-Patrimoine on Ancient Greek pottery which concentrated on the Archaic and Classical periods1.Greek Early Iron Age pottery became a subject of study in ULB only recently courtesy of the joint program of research developed (between ULB and the University of Oxford, in the person of Prof. Irene Lemos). Entitled “Beyond the polis. Ritual practices and the construction of social identity in Early Greece (12th-6th century B.C.)”2, this attracted several young scholars working on Early Iron Age

1 A. Tsingarida (ed.), Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th- 4th centuries B.C.), Brussels, 2009 [Études d’archéologie 3]; S. Sarti, The Campana Collection at the Royal Museum of Art and History (Brussels), Brussels, 2012 [Études d’archéologie 4]; A. Tsingarida and D. Viviers (eds), Pottery Markets in the Ancient Greek World (8th -1st centuries B.C.), Brussels, 2013 [Études d’archéologie 5]; I. Algrain, L’alabastre attique: origine, forme et usages, Brussels, 2014, [Études d’archéologie 7].2 See http://crea.ulb.ac.be/Polis.html

sites. Among them was Vicky Vlachou: she joined the CReA-Patrimoine on a postdoctoral project (ESF) undertaken in collaboration with the University of Athens. Vicky brought to the Centre her deep knowledge of Early Iron Age pottery and took a very active part in the on-going research topics. The symposium she organized in Brussels grew out of several questions she was facing in her own research on the Marathon region and beyond. She has successfully brought together the leading scholars in the field: the resulting volume will certainly become a standard reference book on the subject, completing the thorough study on Greek Geometric pottery recently published by Anne Coulié3.The symposium and the long-term collaboration with Vicky would not have been possible without the support and the expertise of Nota Kourou, who acted as the co-promoter of the research project carried out in Brussels and Athens. It was a great pleasure to welcome Nota as a Visiting Professor to ULB at the International Chair Eleni Hatzivassiliou in Greek Art and Archaeology. Here, she delivered a series of lectures on Early Iron Age pottery and gave the keynote lecture that opened the symposium (now published in this Proceedings). I am very grateful to her for sharing generously with us her wide knowledge and kind friendship. I would also like to use the opportunity of this preface to express my gratitude to Vicky for organizing the conference and for achieving the editing in such a short time. Many thanks are also due to the CReA-Patrimoine and its Director, Laurent Bavay, for providing unfailing assistance on all initiatives related to ancient Greek pottery. I am also very grateful to Jean Vanden Broeck-Parent, Ph.D. student and Assistant in Classical Archaeology at ULB, and to the students who offered their help on technical matters during the organization of the symposium. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) for its continuous support for the development of Greek Archaeology and pottery studies.

3 Coulié 2013.

9

abbreviations

Bibliographic

AGORA VIII = E.T.H. Brann, Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery: mid 8th to late 7th century B.C., Princeton, 1962 [The Athenian Agora VIII].

Coldstream 1968 = J.N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery. A Survey of Ten Local Styles and their Chronology, London, 1968.

Coldstream 1977 = J.N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece, London, 1977.

Coldstream 2003 = J.N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece, 900-700 B.C., 2nd ed., New York, 2003.

Coldstream 2008 = J.N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery, 2nd ed., Bristol, 2008.

Coulié 2013 = A. Coulié, La céramique grecque aux époques géométrique et orientalisante, (XIe-VIe siècle av. J.-C.), Paris, 2013.

Crielaard et al. 1999 = J.P. Crielaard, V. Stissi and G.J. van Wijngaarden (eds), The Complex Past of Pottery. Production, Circulation and Consumption of Mycenaean and Greek Pottery (Sixteenth to Early Fifth Centuries B.C.), Proceedings of the ARCHON International Conference, Held in Amsterdam, 8-9 November 1996, Amsterdam, 1999.

CVA = Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum [Union Académique Internationale].

IG = M. Fraenkel, Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1895– ).

KERAMEIKOS IV = K. Kübler, Neufunde aus der Nekropole des 11. und 10. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1943 [Kerameikos. Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen IV].

KERAMEIKOS V.1 = K. Kübler, Die Nekropole des 10. bis 8. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1954 [Kerameikos. Ergebnisse des Ausgrabungen V.1].

LEFKANDI I = M.R. Popham, L.H. Sackett and P.G. Themelis (eds), Lefkandi I: The Iron Age: The Settlement, The Cemeteries, London, 1980 [British School at Athens Suppl. 11].

LEFKANDI II.1 = R.W.V. Catling and I.S. Lemos, Lefkandi II. The Protogeometric Building at Toumba, Part 1: The Pottery, Oxford, 1990 [British School at Athens Suppl. 22].

LEFKANDI III = M.R. Popham, with I.S. Lemos, Lefkandi III. The Early Iron Age Cemetery at Toumba.The Excavations of 1981 to 1994, Plates, Oxford, 1996 [British School at Athens Suppl. 29].

LIMC = Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich, Munich and Düsseldorf, 1981-1999, 2009).

ThesCRA = Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2004-2006, 2011-2012).

Chronological

BA Bronze AgeDA Dark AgeEG Early Geometric EIA Early Iron AgeEO Early Orientalising EPC Early ProtocorinthianEPG Early ProtogeometricG GeometricLBA Late Bronze AgeLG Late Geometric LH Late HelladicLO Late Orientalising

LPC Late ProtocorinthianLPG Late ProtogeometricMG Middle GeometricMPC Middle ProtocorinthianMPG Middle ProtogeometricPC ProtocorinthianPG ProtogeometricPGB Protogeometric BSG Sub GeometricSM Sub MycenaeanSPG Sub Protogeometric

11

IntroductionProduction and Function of Ceramics in Early Greece

Nota Kourou and Vicky Vlachou

This volume brings together a number of papers that were presented at the international symposium on Pots, Workshops and Early Iron Age Society held at the Université libre de Bruxelles in November 2013. In the symposium’s eight sessions nineteen papers by scholars from Europe and the United States were presented, of which fifteen are published here. Two more contributors, Stavros Paspalas, who was unable to attend the meeting, and Dyfri Williams, whose queries and comments during the conference stimulated long discussions and responses, were invited to participate in the present volume, broadening our approaches on pottery and early society. The conception and the arrangement of the symposium emerged within a post-doctoral project (ESF) on issues of ancient Greek pottery carried out between the Université libre de Bruxelles, CReA-Patrimoine, and the University of Athens, Department of Archaeology. The project concentrated on pottery production and early society at Marathon in Attica1. In this context, the primary focus of the symposium was to discuss aspects of the production, function and role of ceramics in early Greek societies. Prominence was placed on pottery manufacture and society in Attica and in areas within its close social, cultural and economic proximity and contact, such as Euboea, Aigina, the Corinthian gulf, the Cyclades, as well as Crete and some other areas further overseas, which have recently produced important Greek Geometric pottery, namely Sicilian Naxos and the Tyrrhenian coast.The role of CReA-Patrimoine, a really pottery oriented research centre was decisive in conceiving a project on EIA pottery and society, planning the conference in an inspiring atmosphere and accepting the publication of the proceedings in the series of Études d'archéologie.

1 Vlachou forthcoming.

The study of Greek pottery has been a prolific and productive discipline almost from its very beginnings back in the 19th century and remains dynamic today. Emphasis has been directed largely onto vase painting, mainly Attic black-figure and red-figured vase painting, their styles, workshops and iconography. This can be easily and promptly confirmed by a simple look at the Bulletin Archéologique. Céramique regularly published every two years in the Revue des Études Grecques. Another accurate and unbiased testimony for this can be found in a most up-to-date “state of the discipline” review published in 2009 (Oakley 2009). In this proper and accurate, albeit selective, review of pottery studies during the 15 years preceding the publication, the author considers the current situation of pottery research: by identifying “emerging practices and trends in the field” he tries to formulate “a synthesis of the developments in the field of Greek vase painting”. With only few exceptions, however, the studies considered in this article deal with Archaic and Classical pottery, again mostly Attic black- and red-figured vase painting. A large part of these pottery studies present and discuss workshops, potters or painters and less frequently dating problems or regional styles in general. Iconography and religious or mythological interpretations also remain constants in the field, forming the centre of interest for monographs, exhibitions or conferences. Some new trends – exploring vase fabric and technique2, historiography or trade, markets and economy3 – are on the rise in the last years, but still they mostly handle pottery of the Archaic and Classical periods. Evidently the focal point for the study of Greek pottery still firmly remains Archaic and Classical vase painting.

2 Tsingarida 2014.3 Tsingarida and Viviers 2013.

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The systematic study of Early Greek pottery has a much shorter history4, as it was properly shaped only after Coldstream’s fundamental organization of his “ten local styles” in Greek Geometric Pottery in 1968 and Snodgrass’s treatment of “the regional pottery-styles” of The Dark Ages of Greece in 1970. Later, the dynamics of pottery studies in approaching the society of the early first millennium were most forcefully confirmed in the collective volumes that followed the conferences organised in Amsterdam5 and the University of Missouri, Columbia6. Since that time several studies organizing ceramic styles and workshops from various parts of the Greek world and different stages of the Early Iron Age have appeared. In pottery studies style is an indispensable tool for tracing regional features. Fabric is the other major decisive factor, although it is not always easily identifiable. As a result provenance studies, requiring a high accuracy in clay identification and the techniques used, frequently turn into complicated issues; consequently scientific techniques started gradually, albeit vigorously, to be introduced. Chemical, petrographic and other scientific methods, including the powerful Neutron Activation Analysis, were more and more frequently and systematically applied in provenance studies7. Methodological approaches such as the introduction of quantitative and qualitative measurements to ceramic analysis have lately received considerable attention by excavators and pottery specialists seeking precision in their attempts to tease out social matters from pottery fabrics8. Such developments in the study of Early Iron Age pottery have eventually led to its better understanding and have opened up the prospect of a more telling study of ancient society. The Early Iron Age is a transitional and largely experimental period: its study requires an appropriate combination of more than one method to properly tackle not only ceramic, but also social and other issues. Ongoing fieldwork and scholarly research have turned our attention to the dynamics of material culture and especially pottery in approaching and better understanding social change and evolution. Our Brussels conference contributed in this discussion by

4 Cf. a short history on the reception of the art of the Geometric period, Siebert 2010.5 Crielaard et al. 1999.6 Langdon 1993; 1997.7 Cf. recently Kerschner and Lemos 2014.8 E.g. Horejs et al. 2010; Verdan et al. 2011; and Kotsonas 2014.

tangling issues related to pottery and EIA society. More fresh ideas are always valuable and our symposium tried some new “lines of attack” to answer specific questions. The five sections in this volume present a selection of contributions on issues dealing with aspects of pottery and society in early Greece and some areas of influence in Sicily and Italy. The contributions handle issues of production and workshops, context and function, cult and rituals, mobility and interaction, iconography and early society. They offer a wide range of avenues to the study of pottery, aiming at a better understanding of Early Iron Age society. Overall they represent an attempt to reconcile new material with fresh approaches. Each section focuses on more than one concern in the study of ancient ceramics, presenting and discussing fresh interpretations and in some cases also some new material.

The first section includes four papers that tackle production and workshops by differing approaches and try to answer distinct questions. The organization of pottery production in a region or inside a specific workshop still remains a poorly known and little discussed topic, although recent archaeological research has thrown some new light on practical matters; for instance the location and layout of the working areas is now better known9. Ethnography and ethno-archaeology have proven powerful tools for approaching and understanding craft and production by drawing analogies and highlighting factors that have left little trace in the archaeological record10. As a result the variability of parallel modes of production depending, among other factors, on the size and social links of the community is now markedly evident. But the wide-ranging degrees of involvement of the varied population groups in the whole process of pottery production is still in need of further clarification and research, while the identification of artisans still remains a prolific and fruitful topic.A discussion of the involvement of younger members of the community, and especially of children, in the production process, as presented in this volume by Susan Langdon, reflects a new line of input to the issue of pottery production. This atypical investigation looks afresh at ancient perceptions of childhood and by extension offers new explanations for the artistic, labour and social organization of ancient society.

9 E.g. Esposito and Sanidas 2012; Denti and Villette 2014.10 E.g. Costin 2000; Hasaki 2011.

13

Introduction. Production and Function of Ceramics in Early Greece

Applying theories from other disciplines here, such as the cultural inheritance theory, eventually leads to a better understanding of apprenticeship methods and transmission of manufacturing techniques, as well as of the causes behind stylistic changes or cultural and social transformations. Another approach to the issue of pottery production, presented in this volume by Anne Coulié, is the identification and discussion of artisans working inside a workshop. This inquiry allows, among other things, new perspectives for the approximate calculation of the size of workforce in a workshop to emerge. Following the Beazley method of pottery analysis, stylistic complexities inside the major Athenian workshop of the Dipylon Painter are investigated. Innovations in potting and painting are discussed in the light of new identifications of long-standing and fragmentary material, leading to a significant reconstruction and understanding of one of the most important Athenian painters of the Geometric period and his workshop.A second major, albeit obscure, personality of the same period, the Hirschfeld Painter, and the artistic milieu of Athenian Kerameikos of the LG I period are newly scrutinized in this volume by Vicky Vlachou. Concentrating on recent finds and applying a detailed stylistic and iconographic analysis, complemented by shape discussion, the complexities of tracing this highly disputed stylistic persona inside the LG I period are largely resolved: a pottery workshop with a number of artists is outlined. Teamwork on the same vase proves to be a not uncommon practice at least in major Athenian workshops and provides an excellent case for discussing issues of a specialized pottery production. Stylistic analysis of painting and shape taken together with manufacturing techniques are proven to be reliable factors in identifying craftsmen working together and sharing space, resources and ideas. Consequently the research assists in tracing social transformations.A different approach to pottery production is taken up by Jean-Sébastien Gros, who focuses on defining the notion of workshop from the surviving pottery on a regional scale. Concentrating on a group of plain, mostly handmade or moulded pottery from the site of Xobourgo on Tenos, the difficulties of distinguishing a local production in terms of technique and style are portrayed. Through comparison with other kinds of pottery from the same region, questions regarding local stylistic preferences and space issues of minor workshops surface are discussed.

The second section in this volume brings together four papers that discuss pottery in terms of context and function from various angles. Contextual approaches have already demonstrated the importance of the milieu in viewing archaeological assemblages as records of social behaviours, communal activities and consequently of cultural characteristics and regional identities. Pottery, as the largest corpus of material evidence in almost every context, serves as an important indicator of human activity11.The contribution by Nota Kourou in this volume discusses aspects of Early Iron Age society in the Cyclades based on ceramic and contextual evidence. By focusing on some particular mortuary contexts, their cultural background and their evolution, the regional identities of two distinct islands are delineated. Ceramic contextual evidence, comparative discussion of local and imported pottery and its possible symbolism are used to trace regional divergence and social changes in each region. Another path for discussing vase function on contextual evidence presented in this volume by James Whitley investigates the variability of the social role of a distinctive shape with a characteristic decorative scheme. The belly-handled amphora, which apparently had a particular social significance in Attica and was broadly exported and imitated, comes under scrutiny by employing two new concepts, agency and personhood, adopted from other disciplines. Anthropological modelling has been used with success in prehistory before: it seems to work well for the Geometric period. With the application of these new concepts to the study of vase function a fresh approach is adopted in analyzing and understanding the use of pottery in ancient societies. A different approch to a similar issue is taken by Samuel Verdan in his examination of the function of a particular shape known from burial and ritual contexts at Eretria. The matter of the relationship between a vase’s form and its decoration, as well as its function in the context it was found in, have not received much attention so far: they are discussed in some detail here. This case study focuses on a particular class of Euboean amphorae of the Orientalizing period: iconographic analysis is also integrated to address aspects of the shape’s role in ritual contexts.

11 E.g. Hodder 1996; Hurcombe 2007.

14


In the third section of this volume contextual approaches are extended to ceramic studies dealing with cult and rituals in sanctuaries. Three contributions discussing pottery from sacred places offer a new look at sanctuaries and other sacred places of the Early Iron Age. Material evidence for feasting activities in early Greek sanctuaries and cultic areas soundly demonstrates that the shared consumption of food and drink had been the steady focus of ritual action through the Late Bronze Age down to the Early Iron Age12. Cult and rituals, as prescribed by tradition and religion in a community, are characterized by formalism and symbolism and involve specific classes and forms of ceramic utensils. They are irrevocably related to not only rites or rituals, but to every other use of the hallowed space.To this end a reappraisal of the much debated significant Athenian site known as the Sacred House in the Academy is taken up by Alexandra Alexandridou on ceramic and contextual evidence. To evaluate the role of the Sacred House the pottery found inside the building, but in a context related also to a number of pyres found lower than it, is analyzed. Competing views for the role of the building are discussed against the implicit function of the pottery and the range of activities inferred as performed there. The ceramic material, including fine and domestic wares, is analyzed in detail so as to follow the chronological range of the space’s employment and to revaluate the use of the building.A more daring approach, mostly based on ceramic material, by Lydia Palaiokrassa and Evangelos Vivliodetis brings together for comparison two little known Attic sanctuaries, the sanctuary of Artemis Mounichia and Zeus Parnessios, whose cult is securely identified by inscribed sherds. Both sanctuaries were incompletely excavated in the past, but the surviving pottery is of extraordinary quantity and variety, characterized as unique among the sanctuaries of Attica. By analyzing the pottery from both sanctuaries the character of cult is approached and the deity and the worshippers in each sanctuary are identified. A detailed comparison of the type and origin of pottery of the two sanctuaries indicates that although they started with common features, they subsequently became differentiated under the impact of the emerging polis. Judging by the quality of pottery a distinction is made between the characters of the sanctuaries. Nonetheless the pottery analysis also indicates that both were related with rituals involving animal sacrifice; vases with pierced holes for libations

12 Cf. Dietler and Hayden 2001; Wecowski 2014.

suggesting a fertility cult with a chthonic character.Another way to identify rituals at sanctuaries developed by Evangelia Simantoni-Bournia concentrates on an evaluation of the pottery from the Hyria sanctuary at Naxos. In this site an old open-air shrine was gradually developed in the Geometric period into an important place of congregation and worship with three successive temple buildings. An investigation to identify the deity worshipped is conducted through a discussion of the Geometric and Sub Geometric pottery from the sanctuary. The focus is on the drinking vases from the sanctuary, basically skyphoi, cups, kantharoi, kotylai and kalathoi, mostly painted in current styles, but also black-glazed. In this novel ceramic approach to the sanctuary and by taking into consideration other factors, such as architectural remains, cooking pots and charred animal bones retrieved from the temple and suggesting meals, the deity is suggested as being most probably Dionysos.

In the fourth section of this volume four contributions on ceramic issues deal with aspects of mobility and interaction. The transportation of pottery and the resultant interaction between local and imported ceramics are issues that can provide a variety of readings concerning a society. In exploring trade connections and interaction, the integration of pottery is a fundamental approach, as stylistic analysis can lead to mapping established routes of communication and to identifying socio-cultural entanglements with one another. The past decades have seen the rise of interest in issues of cultural identity and social status or ethnicity13. But in ceramic studies the effect of imported pottery on local wares, alongside the transmission of ideas, are topics that have received few positive contributions. Less investigated issues include the search for factors underlining imports or exports other than maritime trade. The question was taken over in this volume by John Papadopoulos with a study focusing on Athens. By discussing import and export patterns of pottery at four distinct Early Iron Age sites in the Aegean, including Athens, an effective path for drawing conclusions for factors underlining these patterns is laid down. In presenting an articulated framework of pottery distribution the individual characteristics of the discussed sites are identified alongside the distribution system operating and the dynamics that shaped it.

13 E.g. Hall 1997; and 2007; Luce 2007; Rizza 2011.

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Inter-Aegean networks are also looked at in this volume by a paper focusing on pottery from Zagora on Andros, where imported pottery abounds. By analyzing a small number of fine painted vases from the domestic contexts of the settlement, Stavros Paspalas discusses the nexus of connections and interaction between Euboean, Cycladic and Boeotian workshops. Shape, style and iconographic analysis are the main tools of this approach in identifying the dynamics of interaction inside a social and cultural network in which the main influential factor was the compelling Euboean styles circulating everywhere in the Mediterranean at the end of the 8th century. Another new approach to interaction by Bruno d’Agostino investigates interplays between Greeks and natives in the West. By comparing a few graves containing Greek pottery with the rest which do not at the Villanovan cemetery of Pontecagnano, ideas are presented here for the possible function of the Greek pottery in Villanovan graves. After a careful examination and discussion of burial strategies adopted during the first fifty years of contact, the role of the first Greek imports at the site emerges gradually. This line offers an alternative view of their reception, as well as the meaning and function of imported wares in the funerary system of a certain area. It introduces new perspectives in interaction studies.Extrapolating from pottery to society on the basis of new material is always appealing. The evidence from Sicilian Naxos, presented here by Maria Costanza Lentini, provides an overview of the networks operating and linking the Aegean with the Sicilian coast. Ceramic assemblages containing large quantities of Attic, Euboean and Corinthian pottery are associated with the earliest colonial remains. Material culture from Naxos provides an exceptional group of Protoattic vessels, a pottery class associated with the Athenian elite groups and rarely attested from areas beyond the close vicinity to Athens and Attica. The association of this class of pottery with the Athenian aristocrats reopens the question about who the first colonists were, their tastes and the way the local and overseas pottery markets were adjusted to the demand.

The final section of this volume brings together three studies that deal with iconography and early society. Iconographic studies form a vast field in archaeology: frequently dealing with mythological scenes, they result in conflicting views and interesting debates14. But in view of the limited repertoire in the

14 E.g. Buxton 1994; Snodgrass 1998; Greco 2008.

figured pottery of the Early Iron Age, iconographic analysis has been better used to discuss issues of continuity and discontinuity, aspects of everyday life, interconnections and interaction15. The main socio-political events of the period still remain hidden behind the images and have received only little scholarly attention.An iconographic approach based on three Attic sherds from the sanctuary of Aphaia at Aigina, presented by Dyfri Williams in this volume, attempts to recreate the historical background of the island through a thorough analysis of the figurative scenes. By comparing their iconography with similar representations on contemporary Attic jewellery their particular significance is brought out. In keeping with the symbolic role of certain motifs, such as of the ship and horse, regarded as symbols of wealth and status, propositions for wealthy traders ordering their vases in Athens are put forward. The narrative context of the images portrayed is discussed against an Hesiodic fragment that names the Aiginetans as the first Greeks to build ships and offers the necessary setting for the interpretation. Another iconographic analysis of some ceramic products with figured decoration from the sanctuary of Poseidon Heliconius in ancient Helike in Achaea by Anastasia Gadolou offers a spirited approach for the assumed rituals taking place at the site. The aim is to assess the iconographic narratives in the light of the historical and cultural environment of the sanctuary. The scenes are interpreted as representing rituals expressing cultural values of the dedicators. A male dance-scene on an oenochoe is connected with festivals and symbolism related to initiation ceremonies of boys coming of age. A procession of horses on another oenochoe is seen as holding particular significance for the deity and the worshipers because of the animal’s particular symbolism for wealth or status. A detailed analysis of a composite and complicated scene, painted on the roof of a small temple model, is connected with rituals taking place at the sanctuary, such as chariot races, or related mythological scenes with the dedication of an abducted woman as a prize to the deity.The section closes with an innovative approach by Manolis Mikrakis, who focusing on a small Athenian pottery workshop of the late 8th century, the Rattle group, discusses images as having a formative impact on the emerging world of the polis. Detailed iconographic analysis placed against the historical setting of the Near East and late 8th century Athens,

15 Cf. Rystedt and Wells 2006; Langdon 2008.

16


when the introduction of feasting practices with the performance of music can be pinned down, traces new social values and identifies a shift in Athenian aristocratic self-representation.

It has been repeatedly, albeit accurately, said that every book is a product of its time: this volume is no exception. The key theme running through the pluralistic approaches taken by every contributor in this volume is early society, whose re-creation is attempted insofar that the material evidence, and in particular pottery, allows. One of the main objectives has been to demonstrate the importance of pottery for the study of early society: every contributor has progressed in their own way in this direction. Indeed Pots, Workshops and Early Iron Age Society were all themes very much relished in this symposium: we hope that its Proceedings will be equally enjoyed.

We would like to thank all our participants for their enthusiasm, fruitful ideas and stimulating discussions during the symposium, as well as for their congenial co-operation during the publication of this volume. We very much enjoyed the vital input of knowledgeable and responsive colleagues participating in the exchange of ideas throughout. It has been a great pleasure working with Athena Tsingarida for the organisation of the conference: we are grateful to her both for the successful conduct of the conference and its culmination in the edition of the Proceedings. We are grateful to the Rector of the Université libre de Bruxelles, Prof. Didier Viviers and the director of the CReA-Patrimoine, Prof. Laurent Bavay, for their unfailing and positive response to any difficulties that arose throughout. Our thanks are most certainly due to Irene Lemos, who undertook the difficult task of pulling together some of the most important points discussed and debated during our conference in a most precise and comprehensive manner. Many thanks are due to Anja Stoll, Isabelle Algrain, Jean Vanden Broeck-Parant, Marie de Wit, Maria Noussis, Héloise Smets, Alexandre Fourbet and Sharon Greuse for their valuable assistance during the conference. Equally to Dr. Don Evely who edited the English of a number of papers in this volume. Last but not least our thanks are due to Nathalie Bloch, CReA-Patrimoine, for so nicely and efficiently producing this volume in a relatively short time.

Bibliography

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Costin 2000 = C.L. Costin, « The Use of Ethnoarchaeology for the Archaeological Study of Ceramic Production », Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 7 (2000), 377-403.

Crielaard et al. 1999 = J.P. Crielaard, V. Stissi and G.J. van Wijngaarden (eds), The Complex Past of Pottery. Production, Circulation and Consumption of Mycenaean and Greek Pottery (Sixteenth to Early Fifth Centuries B.C.), Proceedings of the ARCHON International Conference, Held in Amsterdam, 8-9 November 1996, Amsterdam, 1999.

Denti and Villette 2014 = M. Denti and M. Villette, « Ceramisti greci dell’Egeo in un atelier indigeno d’occidente: scavi e ricerche sullo spazio artigianale dell’Incoronata nella valle del Basento (VIII-VII secolo a.C.) », Bollettino d’arte 17 (2014), 1-36.

Dietler and Hayden 2001 = M. Dietler and B. Hayden (eds), Feasts. Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power, Washington, D.C., 2001.

Esposito and Sanidas 2012 = A. Esposito and G.M. Sanidas (eds), Quartiers artisanaux en Grèce ancienne: une perspective Méditerranéenne, Lille, 2012.

Giuliani 2003 = L. Giuliani, Bild und Mythos: Geschichte der Bilderzählung in der griechischen Kunst, Munich, 2003.

Greco 2008 = E. Greco (ed.), Alba della città, alba delle immagini. Da una suggestione di Bruno d'Agostino, Athens, 2008 [Tripodes 7].

Hall 1997 = J.M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 1997.

Hall 2007 = J.M. Hall, « Polis, Community and Ethnic Identity », in: H.A. Shapiro (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece, Cambridge, 2007, 40-61.

Hasaki 2011 = E. Hasaki, « Crafting Spaces. Archaeological, Ethnographic and Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Spatial Organization in Pottery Workshops in Greece and Tunisia », in: M. Lawall and J. Lund (eds), Pottery in the Archaeological Record. Greece and Beyond, Acts of the International Colloquium Held at the Danish and

17


Canadian Institutes in Athens, June 20-22, 2008, Aarhus, 2011, 11-28.

Hodder 1988 = I. Hodder, The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings, Cambridge, 1988.

Horejs et al. 2010 = B. Horejs, R. Jung and P. Pavúk (eds), Analysing Pottery. Processing, Classification, Publication, Bratislava, 2010 [Studia Archaeologica et Medievalia 10].

Hurcombe 2007 = L.M. Hurcombe, Achaeological Artefacts as Material Culture, London, 2007.

Kerschner and Lemos 2014 = M. Kerschner and I.S. Lemos (eds), Archaeometric Analyses of Euboean and Euboean Related Pottery. New Results and their Interpretations. Proceedings of the Round Table Conference held at the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Athens, 15 and 16 April 2011, Vienna, 2014 [Ergänzungsheft zu den Jahresheften des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes in Wien 15].

Kotsonas 2014 = A. Kotsonas (ed.), Understanding Standardization and Variation in Mediterranean Ceramics: Mid 2nd to Late 1st Millennium B.C., Leuven-Paris-Walpole, 2014 [Babesch Suppl. 25].

Langdon 1993 = S. Langdon (ed.), From Pasture to Polis. Art in the Age of Homer, Columbia, MO, 1993.

Langdon 1997 = S.H. Langdon (ed.), New Light on a Dark Age. Exploring the Culture of Geometric Greece, Columbia, MO and London, 1997.

Langdon 2008 = S. Langdon, Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100-700 B.C.E, New York and Cambridge, 2008.

Luce 2007 = J.-M. Luce (ed.), Identités ethniques dans le monde Grec Antique, Actes du colloque international de Toulouse organisé par le CRATA 9-11 mars 2006, Toulouse, 2007 [Pallas 73].

Oakley 2009 = J. Oakley, « Greek Vase Painting », American Journal of Archaeology 113 (2009), 599-627.

Rizza 2011 = G. Rizza (ed.), Identità culturale, etnicità, processi di trasformazione a Creta fra Dark Age e Arcaismo: per i cento anni dello scavo di Priniàs 1906–2006, Convegno di studi (Atene 9–12 novembre 2006), Catania, 2011 [SMAG 10].

Rystedt and Wells 2006 = E. Rystedt and B. Wells (eds), Pictorial Pursuits. Figurative Painting on Mycenaean and Geometric Pottery. Papers from Two Seminars at the Swedish Institute at Athens in 1999 and 2001, Stockholm, 2006.

Siebert 2010 = G. Siebert, « La réception de l’art géométrique grec dans l’historiographie (fin du XIXe

- milieu du XXe siècle) », Ktèma 35 (2010), 299-312.

Snodgrass 1998 = A. Snodgrass, Homer and the Artists. Text and Picture in Early Greek Art, Cambridge, 1998.

Tsingarida 2014 = A. Tsingarida (ed.), Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th- 4th centuries B.C.), Brussels, 2009 [Études d'archéologie 3].

Tsingarida and Viviers 2013 = A. Tsingarida and D. Viviers (eds), Pottery Markets in the Ancient Greek World (8th -1st centuries B.C.), Brussels, 2013 [Études d'archéologie 5].

Verdan et al. 2011 = S. Verdan, T. Therurillat and A. Kenzelmann Pfyffer (eds), Early Iron Age Pottery. A Quantitative Approach. Proceedings of the International Round Table organized by the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece, Athens, November 28-30, 2008, Oxford, 2011 [British Archaeological Reports Inter. Ser. 2254].

Vlachou forthcoming = V. Vlachou, Burials and Society in Early Iron Age Marathon (Attica), 10th to early 7th Century B.C., Études d'archéologie 9, Brussels.

Wecowski 2014 = M. Wecowski, The Rise of the Greek Aristocratic Banquet, Oxford, 2014.

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Owls to Athens: Imported Pottery in Early Iron Age Athens

John K. Papadopoulos

Introduction

This is a story of four Aegean sites: Athens, Lefkandi, Knossos, and Torone in the Early Iron Age, and more specifically in the earlier part of the period (Protogeometric, Early and Middle Geometric). In their overall assemblage of locally-made and imported ceramics, these four settlements present four very different patterns. At Knossos imported pottery is plentiful, deriving from all over the Aegean and beyond. From the North Cemetery alone, there are well over 100 imports, of which the Athenian imports are the most prolific. In contrast, Cretan Early Iron Age pottery is rare during this period outside of Crete; there are no Cretan imports to my knowledge in Athens or at Lefkandi, or indeed in Attica or Euboea. At Lefkandi, Athenian Protogeometric imports also predominate; other PG imports are, in comparison, paltry, and the Geometric imports to the cemeteries in Lefkandi tell a similar story. Unlike Cretan pottery, Euboean pottery of the period is far-flung, both in the Aegean, as well as the eastern and central Mediterranean. Farther north, in Chalkidike, the Early Iron Age cemetery at Torone has brought to light no shortage of imports from various parts of the Aegean, as well as a number of imported handmade vessels. Moreover, Torone, or northern sites like it, may have been exporting a small quantity of Early Iron Age pottery, not least handmade wares. In Athens, the situation is similar to Lefkandi in only one respect: Athenian pottery is distributed over a large area and within the Aegean it outnumbers all other imports in the period between Protogeometric and Middle Geometric, being plentiful in Euboea and Crete, throughout the Cyclades and other islands, the north Aegean, and even in the Argolid. In stark contrast, imports to Athens are not only rare, but highly idiosyncratic: one “Submycenaean” skyphos that should be Argive from the Kerameikos, an Early Geometric cooking pot from the Booties Grave in the area of the later Agora, and one or two highly unusual one-off confections that may prove to be locally produced. It is only in the Middle Geometric period that sporadic imports, especially handmade

vessels from Corinth become common, while in the Late Geometric period the number and range of imports steadily increases. The more numerous vessels from the unpublished non-funerary deposits from the Athenian Agora tell a similar story. Not only are there no Cretan imports to Athens, there is nothing that is clearly Euboean, and imports from other regions are few and far between. Thus these four Early Iron Age settlements tell very different stories in terms of the quantities, on the one hand, of imported pottery and, on the other, their own exports. What factors underlie these patterns? And why are imported ceramics so rare in Athens in comparison to Knossos, Lefkandi, and Torone?

Four Sites

Knossos

I begin with Knossos, a vast landscape of Early Iron Age death. Crete is no stranger to imports, not least to some spectacular Orientalia1. From the North Cemetery at Knossos alone, Nicolas Coldstream discusses imports from the following sites (in his order): Attica (99 imports), Corinth (four or five), Argos (one), Thessaly (one), Euboea (seven), the Cyclades (15), east Greece (three), Cyprus (29), and Phoenicia (five)2. Among the imported pottery, Attica – and I would classify the majority, if not all of the Attic imports, as Athenian – is by far the most prolific source of imported pottery. There are more Athenian imports to the North Cemetery at Knossos than all the other imports combined. Moreover, the range of Athenian shapes is impressive: neck-, belly-, and shoulder-handled amphorae, oinochoai, a lekythos-

1 See, among others, G.L. Hoffman, Imports and Immigrants. Near Eastern Contacts with Iron Age Crete, Ann Arbor, 1997.

2 J.N. Coldstream and H.W. Catling (eds), Knossos North Cemetery. Early Greek Tombs, London, 1996, 393-409 [British School at Athens Suppl. 28].

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Fig. 1. Selected Athenian Protogeometric and Geometric imports to the North Cemetery at Knossos (after Coldstream and Catling 1996): a) Tomb J, no. 50 (LPG); b) Tomb 207, no. 7 (LPG);c ) Tomb 75, no. 205 (MG II); d) Tomb J, no. 54 (LPG); e) Tomb J, no. 56 (LPG); f ) Tomb 285, no. 121 (LPG); g) Tomb 219, no. 23 (MG II).

a

c

e

g

b

d

f

Fig. 2. Knossos, North Cemetery, Attic MG II krater, Tomb 285, no. 153 (after Coldstream and Catling 1996).

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oinochoe, a mug, pointed and flat pyxides, kraters, kalathoi, kantharoi, skyphoi, and one-handled cups. A selection of these imports is presented in fig.1-2, and the relative quantities are illustrated in fig. 3. In contrast, Cretan Early Iron Age pottery is rare during this period outside of Crete; there are no Cretan imports to my knowledge in Athens or Lefkandi, and there are no known Cretan imports anywhere on Euboea (Kotsonas, pers. comm.).

The Fortetsa tombs published by J.K. Brock only bolster the pattern seen in the North Cemetery. In Brock’s terminology of 1957, there were two types of imports of Attic type: Protogeometric of Attic type (probably Attic) and Protogeometric and Geometric of Attic type (perhaps Cycladic)3. There were three of the former category (two skyphoi and a lekythos), and many more of the latter (including four amphorae, three oinochoai, seven monochrome skyphoi, one meander skyphos, one cup, three kraters, and one “two-handled” pithos, to which I will return). Of the second “Attic type” category, one of the vessels (not the “pithos’) may be Cretan; the others are all Attic, and almost certainly Athenian, at least those that I have seen. Put together, this would equal 22 or 23 imported Athenian pots. Imports from other regions were, in comparison, fewer: five Cycladic amphorae; one Corinthian Geometric aryballos, four Protocorinthian aryballoi, three Protocorinthan kotylai, and one Protocorinthian concave pyxis; one possible east Greek import, a cocoon-shaped alabastron; and a dozen Cypriot imports (mostly aryballoi/jugs, three of which are of Middle Geometric date, one Middle or Late Geometric, five Late Geometric, two Early Orientalizing, and one Late Orientalizing) (fig. 4). If we focus only on those imports that are Protogeometric and Geometric, then the relative proportion of Athenian imports is only greater. The idiosyncratic “two-handled pithos” (Fortetsa 454), as Brock called it, is itself an Athenian curiosity. The vessel was cut down from an Athenian closed form, almost certainly an amphora of MG date, before firing. The handles were remodelled. The phenomenon is similar to another Athenian vessel (Agora P 6163), a Middle Geometric hydria that was damaged prior to firing and remodelled into a krater of singular shape4. The importance of this

3 J.K. Brock, Fortetsa. Early Greek Tombs Near Knossos, Cambridge, 1957, 189-191 [British School at Athens Suppl. 2].

4 Fully published in J.K. Papadopoulos, « A Bucket, by Any Other Name, and an Athenian Stranger in Early

particular vessel lies in the fact that uncommon one-offs, including shapes that are inventively remodelled after damage, could also be exported and saw service in a funerary context in Crete.

Lefkandi

In Lefkandi I, Vincent Desborough discussed the imported pottery diachronically. In the earlier stages of the PG period there is not much: one EPG Syro-Palestinian dipper juglet, and a MPG hydria that may be Euboean, though not necessarily from Lefkandi5. By LPG there is something of an explosion in imported pottery: three amphorae, a chest, three pyxides, a high-handled trefoil oinochoe, two kalathoi, a kantharos, a spherical vase, all of which are Attic, and almost certainly Athenian produced6. In addition to these dozen or so vessels are two more, a jug and an oinochoe, that are probably Attic7. In comparison to the Attic, the only other LPG imports are a Cypriot bichrome jug and a belly-handled amphora of uncertain manufacture. The

Iron Age Crete », Hesperia 67 (1998), 109-123. 5 LEFKANDI I, 347-348.6 LEFKANDI I, 348-350.7 LEFKANDI I, 350.

3

4

Fig. 3. Pie chart showing relative quantities of imported ceramics to the Knossos North Cemetery. Fig. 4. Pie chart showing relative quantities of imported ceramics to the Fortetsa Cemetery at Knossos.

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Geometric imports to the cemeteries in Lefkandi I tell a similar story. Fourteen Attic imports, including pyxides, trefoil oinochoai, lekythoi-oinochoai, feeding vessels, and a cup8. Apart from the Attic imports of Geometric date, there is only a kantharos and a pedestalled bowl of uncertain origin, and a lentoid flask from the coastal Levant9. The relative quantities of the Protogeometric and Geometric

8 LEFKANDI I, 350-352.9 LEFKANDI I, 353.

imports reported in Lefkandi I are illustrated in fig. 5.The pattern from the more recent excavations in the Toumba cemetery at Lefkandi only confirms the conclusions from the earlier excavations, and adds considerably to the quantity of Athenian imports10.

10 See M.R. Popham, E. Touloupa and L.H. Sackett, « Further Excavation of the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi, 1982 », Annual of the British School at Athens 77 (1982), 213-248; M.R. Popham, P.G. Calligas and L.H. Sackett, « Further Excavations of the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi, 1984 and 1986, a Preliminary Report »,

Fig. 5. Pie chart showing relative quantities of imported ceramics to the cemeteries of Lefkandi as reported in Lefkandi I.Fig. 6. Selected imported vases from the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi. From T.79A (SPG II context), no. 10, Phoenician bichrome; no. 13, Cypriot Black-on-Red; no. 9, uncertain provenance; Attic: Pyre 33,1 (EG II); Sq. XVI, 5-6 = ?Pyre 21 (EG II/MG I); Pyre 14,3 (MG I); T39,4 (LPG); Pyre 23,13 (MG I) (after Lefkandi III, pl. 109).

6

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As only the plates volume of Lefkandi III is currently available, it would be best to await the final publication before enumerating a full list of imports, but a selection of Athenian imports, together with a Phoenician bichrome jug, a Cypriot Black-on-Red jug, and a small bowl of uncertain provenance, are illustrated together (fig. 6-7). As with Knossos, the range of Athenian shapes is impressive, not least the reconstructed pyxis with lid (Sq. XVI,14) and the krater (Pyre 14,16), also reconstructed (fig. 7a-b). Indeed, some of the finest and most idiosyncratic Athenian vessels are found not in Athens, but at Knossos and Lefkandi. The pattern seen in Early Iron Age Lefkandi begins with the spectacular discoveries in the Middle Protogeometric apsidal Toumba Building at Lefkandi. The primary imports among the Middle Protogeometric pottery from the Toumba Building are Attic: no fewer than 17 skyphoi and cups, together with five closed vessels (amphorae, hydriai, oinochoai, etc.); of these, I illustrate only one, a magnificent but fragmentary belly-handled amphora (fig. 8)11. In describing the amphora, Richard Catling writes: “This vase is remarkable for its size and complexity of decoration. It is by far the largest of all known Attic belly amphorae (83 cm high, 63 cm broad)”12. Among the uncertain imports from the Toumba Building, two fragments may well be Argive (cf. the Argive import from Athens discussed below), while a number of suspected imports are listed, some of which may prove to be local or Euboean13.Unlike Cretan pottery, which is rarely, if ever, found outside of Crete during Protogeometric and Geometric, Euboean pottery travelled widely, both in the Aegean, as well as the eastern and central Mediterranean (again, my focus is on ceramics, as other categories of Cretan commodities may well have travelled beyond the island in the Early Iron Age).

Archaeological Reports 35 (1989), 117-129; LEFKANDI III. 11 LEFKANDI II:1, 86-89, pl. 44, 80.12 LEFKANDI II:1, 88. Even the cinerary urn of the Tomb of the Rich Athenian Lady, T15-1, is some 10 cm smaller in height (71.8-72 cm); see AGORA XXXVI. 13 LEFKANDI II:1, 89-90. The suspected Argive imports are pl. 12, 49, nos 166-167; the other suspected imports are simply listed in LEFKANDI II:1, 90.

7a

7b

8

Fig. 7. Selected Athenian imports from the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi: a) Pyxis (MG I), Sq. XVI, 14, ht. 58.0 cm; b) krater (MG I), Pyre 14, 16, ht. 47.5 cm (after Lefkandi III, pl. 110).Fig. 8. Athenian MPG belly-handled amphora from the deposits associated with the Toumba Building at Lefkandi, no. 898, ht. 83 cm (after Lefkandi II:1, pl. 80).

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Torone

The Early Iron Age cemetery at Torone has produced no shortage of imported pottery: 19 wheelmade and painted vessels, as well as eight additional handmade pots that are thought to be imported, but probably from elsewhere in central Macedonia or Chalkidike; there are, in addition, four examples of black-slip pottery, and one example of red-slip14. There are two Athenian wheelmade and painted pots at Torone, a Submycenaean skyphos (T101-8) and a fragmentary, but large PG “kalathos”, for want of a better word, of unique shape (T93-1). The Euboean imports are rather more plentiful: fragments of three amphorae of developed PG date (nos 48, 49, 84); a skyphos (T127-1) of contemporary date, and an amphoriskos (T22-2), together with a pendent semicircle skyphos (T77-3) of SPG date; four additional fragments are from Euboean pots, three of closed vessel forms, one open, that are of uncertain date (T113-9, T117-4, T117-15, and T118-6). Four other vessels I classified as Thessalo-Euboean: a vertical-handled amphoriskos (T47-1), and three small fragments of large kraters (nos 63, 78, and 85). A jug (T72-1) is Cycladic, and fragments of a possible amphora (27), together with a small closed vessel (64) are of uncertain provenance (fig. 9).

Although the Athenian wheelmade and painted pottery at Torone is outnumbered by the Euboean, what is interesting about the two Athenian imports – both of which are confirmed as Attic by scientific analysis – is that they include the earliest import, the Submycenaean skyphos already noted (fig. 10), together with a large Athenian vessel of singular shape (fig. 11)15. In these two aspects, the Toronean imports mirror the patterns seen at both Knossos and Lefkandi. As for the black- and red-slip pottery found at Torone, which is wheelmade, it is completely different to local fabric and, although it bears a general likeness to the black- and red-slip pottery found at Lefkandi, it is different to the Lefkandi slipped pottery both in terms of its fabric and shapes. A fuller discussion of the fabric and shapes, together with illustrations, can be found in the

14 Full details in Papadopoulos 2005, 482-493. 15 For the results of the chemical and petrographical analysis of the Early Iron Age pottery from Torone, see I.K. Whitbread and R.E. Jones, « Appendix E. A Petrographic and Chemical Analysis of the Early Iron Age Pottery at Torone », in: Papadopoulos 2005, 511-539.

Fig. 9. Bar graph showing relative quantities of imported pottery found in the Early Iron Age cemetery at Torone.Fig. 10. Athenian “Submycenaean” skyphos from the pyre fill of Torone Tomb 101, T101-8, ht. (as restored) 14.5 cm (after Papadopoulos 2005, fig. 157h). Fig. 11. Athenian Protogeometric vessel of undetermined form (resembling large kalathos) from Tomb 93, T93-1, PH (main lower body) 11.4 cm; max PD (body) 26.0 cm (after Papadopoulos 2005, fig. 149a-b).

9

10

11

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publication of The Early Iron Age Cemetery at Torone16.The local handmade pottery at Torone is arguably the most distinctive aspect of the local potters’ craft and includes some of the finest products of the local ceramic tradition17. The strong local, north Aegean, character of this pottery has been discussed many times, but however firmly fixed the local handmade ware of Torone is in a Macedonian tradition, there are certain noteworthy differences between it and the wares of other northern sites. This is hardly surprising as Macedonia covers a large and diverse geographical area, and the influences and trends current at a coastal site on the far southern tip of Sithonia – which is more Aegean than Macedonian – would naturally be different from those of mound settlements in central and western Macedonia18.More importantly, north Aegean handmade pottery was finding its way farther south. For example, a handmade jug with cutaway neck from one of the tombs excavated by Stavropoullos on Skyros is clearly north Aegean, and may well represent a Toronean export19. In details of shape and fabric, and especially the distinctive burnishing, the vessel is very similar to Torone handmade jugs, which differ in certain respects from examples of the shape from other parts of Macedonia. A number of handmade jugs encountered in tombs at Lefkandi differ on various points from the jugs of Macedonia and Torone, and a Thessalian origin has been suggested as a possibility, though we await published details in the forthcoming text volume of Lefkandi III20. Lefkandi has, however,

16 Papadopoulos 2005, 482-485.17 It is worth noting that the few examples of potters’ marks encountered among the tomb pottery at Torone were only found on handmade shapes, see J.K. Papadopoulos, « Early Iron Age Potters’ Marks in the Aegean », Hesperia 63 (1994), 437-507.

18 Cf. K.A. Wardle, « Excavations at Assiros, 1975-9. A Settlement Site in Central Macedonia and its Significance for the Prehistory of South-east Europe », Annual of the British School at Athens 75 (1980), 262.

19 See R.M. Dawkins, « A Visit to Skyros », Annual of the British School at Athens 11 (1904-1905), 79, fig. 3b; A.J.B. Wace and M.S. Thompson, Prehistoric Thessaly, Cambridge, 1912, 209, fig. 144b; H.D. Hansen, Early Civilization in Thessaly, Baltimore, 1933, 119, fig. 119; Desborough, 1952, 165-166; V.R.d’A. Desborough, « A Group of Vases from Skyros », in: Στήλη. Τόμος εἰς μνήμην Νικoλὰου Κοντολέοντος, Athens, 1980, 55, n. 7.

20 See M.R. Popham, E. Touloupa and L.H. Sackett, « Further Excavation of the Toumba Cemetery at Lefkandi, 1982 », Annual of the British School at Athens 77 (1982),

produced two wheelmade vessels, both from the Toumba cemetery, which in details of shape and in the manner of decoration are close to Toronean. The first is a belly-handled amphora, T14.1; the second, T24.1, is described as a pedestalled bowl21. Richard Jones verifies both T14.1 and T24.1 as imports to Lefkandi, but he also confirms that neither vessel matches chemically any of the Torone clusters22. I was able to inspect the amphora T14.1 in the storerooms of the Eretria Museum in 1984, and although in terms of shape and certain elements of decoration the vessel is close to Toronean, the clay is not the same, particularly in its lack of the normal quantities of Torone mica. As for T24.1, although the fabric does not match chemically any of the Torone clusters, the general features of the pot – a vessel I call a lekanis – find their closest parallels in the Chalkidike, especially at Aphytis on Pallene. The other category, of course, of north Aegean ceramics making their way over a remarkably broad area are the north Aegean neck-handled amphorae, first tracked by Richard Catling, that were distributed throughout various parts of the Greek world (e.g. Euboea, Phokis, Thessaly, Skyros, Macedonia, Chalkidike, and the Troad), and as far afield as north Syria23. Although this is not the place to review the type, the growing quantities of this category of commodity container, and its relationship to other wine and oil containers, not least the Attic and Euboean SOS amphorae, is further evidence of the

235; LEFKANDI III, pl. 121, especially nos e and f. 21 See LEFKANDI I, 175-176, 350, pl. 175, 260a; 181, 353, pl. 181.

22 R.E. Jones, Greek and Cypriot Pottery. A Review of Scientific Studies, Athens, 1986, 628-631 [Fitch Laboratory Occasional Paper 1].

23 Among others, see R.W.V. Catling, « A Tenth Century Trademark from Lefkandi », in: D. Evely, I.S. Lemos, and S. Sherratt (eds), Minotaur and Centaur. Studies in the Archaeology of Crete and Euboea Presented to Mervyn Popham, Oxford, 1996, 126-132; R.W.V. Catling, « A Typology of the Protogeometric and Subprotogeometric Pottery from Troia and its Aegean Context », Studia Troica 8 (1998), 151-187; for north Syria, see P. Courbin, « Fragments d’amphores protogéométriques grecques à Bassit (Syrie) », Hesperia 62 (1993), 95-113. For recent overviews of the type see, A. Kotsonas in: M. Bessios, Y. Tzifopoulos and A. Kotsonas, Methone Pierias I, Thessaloniki, 2012, especially 150-162; S. Gimatzidis, Die Stadt Sindos. Eine Siedlung von der späten Bronze-bis zur klassischen Zeit am Thermaischen Golf in Makedonien, Rahden, 2010, 252-274.

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significant movement of commodities – ceramic and non-ceramic – from the north Aegean toward the south, east, and west24.Before turning to Athens, it is important to note a few other regions where Athenian pottery during the Protogeometric and Geometric periods is plentiful.

Other Areas

If we limit the discussion to Attic Protogeometric pottery, as opposed to Geometric, several additional areas of the Aegean stand out for the quantity of Athenian Protogeometric pottery brought to light. The first is the Argolid. Although quantities of imported Attic pottery have been recorded at Argos, Tiryns, and Sambariza, the number of vessels found at Asine is extraordinary. In discussing the imported Attic Protogeometric pottery to Asine, Catling writes: “…it emerges that Attic PG pottery was imported in substantial quantities at Asine, perhaps in amounts similar to Lefkandi and Knossos. A wide range of shapes is represented, with a surprising proportion of large pots, both belly- and neck-handled amphorae, kraters, and skyphoid kraters (equivalent to Lefkandiot krater-bowls). It is likely that they were imported in their own right as tableware whose high-quality potting and decoration were apparently as much appreciated then as now. Here, as at Lefkandi and Knossos, Attic imports easily outnumber the other suspected imports of uncertain origin”25.A related pattern is seen at a number of sites in the Corinthia, especially Corinth and Isthmia, with Attic pottery deriving from settlement, sanctuary and funerary contexts, though not in the quantities found at Asine26.Another region is the Cyclades. Here, as at Asine, Athenian imports are sometimes subsumed under local products, particularly for islands like Naxos. Not only is the quantity of Athenian Protogeometric pottery in the Cyclades impressive, it is found on most of the major islands, with published examples

24 The most recent account of the north Aegean amphorae and their relationship to SOS amphorae is Catherine Pratt’s doctoral dissertation: C.E. Pratt, Critical Commodities. Tracing Greek Trade in Oil and Wine from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic Period (PhD Dissertation, UCLA), Los Angeles, 2014.

25 Catling 1998, 370; for Attic imports of the period to Argos, Tiryns and Sambariza, see 377.

26 Catling 1998, 377; see further C. Morgan, The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary, Princeton, 1999 [Isthmia VIII], especially 286-287.

recorded from Keos (Agia Irini and Agios Ioannis Prodromou), Siphnos (Kastro and Agios Andreas), Melos, Delos, Paros (Paroikia and Koukounaries), Naxos, Amorgos, and Thera, among others27. As at Lefkandi, Knossos, and Asine, skyphoi and drinking cups were plentiful, as were various types of oinochoai/jugs and lekythoi, but so, too, were larger vessels, including amphorae and no shortage of kraters. Closer to Athens, the Saronic Gulf island of Aigina has also produced substantial quantities of imported Attic pottery, including skyphoi, cups, oinochoai/jugs, lekythoi, kraters, and amphorae, although, like Lefkandi and Knossos, it has also produced imports from elsewhere28. The material comes primarily from Kolonna, but smaller quantities have also been recorded from the Aphaia Sanctuary29. Other nearby regions, however, such as Boeotia, only saw modest quantities of Attic imports, and this bespeaks an Athenian ceramic export that was primarily maritime.As we have seen, Cretan pottery outside of Crete is rare, if at all found, and we simply do not see the same scale of penetration of Euboean pottery in the Aegean until a developed stage of the Early Iron Age, with the most substantial quantities recorded in the Late Geometric period. An older generation saw this as clear proof for Athens inventing the Protogeometric style. Thus, Vincent Desborough wrote: “I therefore assume it to be proved, within the limits of the evidence available to us, that the Athenians invented and developed the Protogeometric technique”30. But this is not where I would like to go. Rather, I would like to turn to Athens and to summarize, albeit briefly, what the pattern of imported pottery tells us.

Athens

In stark contrast to Knossos, Lefkandi, Torone, and all of the other regions I have discussed, the quantity of imports to Early Iron Age Athens during the period Submycenaean through the end of Middle Geometric is negligible. Indeed, it is only during the course of Middle Geometric II and Late Geometric

27 Catling 1998, 377-378.

28 See, most recently, V. Jarosch-Reinholdt, Die geometrische Keramik von Kap Kolonna, Vienna, 2009 [Ägina-Kolonna: Forschungen und Ergebnisse IV].

29 E.g. A. Furtwängler, Aegina. Das Heiligtum der Aphaia, Munich, 1906, pl. 125, no. 47.

30 Desborough 1952, 126.

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that ceramic imports to Athens begin to be seen in any quantity. This is surprising, especially in light of the fact that Athens has seen a level of archaeological exploration, spanning almost 200 years, not seen either at Lefkandi or at Knossos. Moreover, several massive cemeteries have been fully or partly excavated, not least those of the Kerameikos – both north and south of the Eridanos – the area of the later Agora, which incorporated at least four Early Iron Age cemeteries, and the cemetery under the Presidential Guard, at the corner of Herodou Attikou and Vassilisis Sophias, to name only a few. These were not discrete burial plots, as some scholars would insist, but full-fledged burial grounds, precisely like those we see at Knossos and Lefkandi31.Surprisingly, imported ceramics are paltry: there is a handful only and they come from unexpected quarters, particularly when compared to the other sites discussed in this paper. The earliest is conventionally “Submycenaean”32. It is the skyphos, Kerameikos inv.

31 This is fully discussed in the forthcoming volume, AGORA XXXVI.

32 For the problems surrounding this term, see B. Lis, « The Sequence of Late Bronze/Early Iron Age Pottery from East-Central Greek Settlements », in: S. Deger-Jalkotzy and A.E. Bächle (eds), LH IIIC Chronology and Synchronisms III. LH IIIC Late and the Transition to the Early Iron Age, Vienna, 2009, 203-233; J.K. Papadopoulos, B.N. Damiata and J.M. Marston, « Once More with Feeling: Jeremy Rutter’s Plea for the Abandonment of the Term Submycenaean Revisited », in: W. Gauss, M. Lindblom, R.A.K. Smith, and J.C.

513, from Grave S1 (fig. 12)33. The form of the vessel is standard for Final Mycenaean/Submycenaean, as is the decoration34. Florian Ruppenstein, following Barbro Frizell, identifies the vessel as Argive35. The fabric of the vessel is clearly not Attic, and an Argive – or northern Peloponnesian – provenance seems clear enough. Interestingly, the skyphos may be compared to what is, to date, the earliest post-Bronze Age Greek import to the east, and as far as I

Wright (eds), Our Cups are Full. Pottery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age. Papers Presented to Jeremy B Rutter on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, Oxford, 2011, 187-202.33 KERAMEIKOS I, 11, pl. 23, inv. 513; KERAMEIKOS XVIII, 96.

34 V.R.d’A. Desborough, The Greek Dark Ages, London, 1972, 39, 46, fig. 9; A. Furumark, Mycenaean Pottery. 1: Analysis and Classification, Stockholm and Lund, 1972, Shape 286; P.A. Mountjoy, Mycenaean Decorated Pottery. A Guide to Identification, Göteborg, 1986, 200, fig. 269.

35 The Argive identification was made in B. Frizell, Asine II. Results of the Excavations East of the Acropolis 1970-1974. Fasc. 3: The Late and Final Mycenaean Pottery, Stockholm, 1986, 78, fig. 62; Ruppenstein discusses the vessel in KERAMEIKOS XVIII, 96.

Fig. 12. Argive “Submycenaean” skyphos from the Athenian Kerameikos, Tomb S1, inv. 513, ht. 9.2 cm (photo John Papadopoulos, drawing Anne Hooton).Fig. 13. Rim and upper body fragment, small Argive skyphos or one-handled cup from Philistine Tell es-Safi/Gath (courtesy A. M. Maeir, Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, Bar-Ilan University, Israel).

12

13

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know the only Greek Submycenaean sherd in Syro-Palestine, found at the Philistine settlement at Tell es-Safi/Gath (fig. 13)36. The fragment, which is very small, derives either from a small skyphos or, more likely, a one-handled cup. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) confirmed its Argive origin. Unencumbered by Greek chronologies, Aren Maeir and his colleagues meticulously presented the context of the fragment, and the evidence suggests a date in the second half of the 11th century B.C., and as a consequence the fragment was assigned as Late Submycenaean or Early Protogeometric. What is most interesting is that the earliest post-Bronze Age import to Athens as well as the earliest in the ancient Near East is Argive. On account of the Argive skyphos, I decided to scour, as thoroughly as possible, all the vessels

36 The fragment (no. 530208/1) is fully published in A.M. Maeir, A. Fantalkin and S. Zuckerman, « The Earliest Greek Import in the Iron Age Levant. New Evidence from Tell es-Saffi/Gath, Israel », Ancient East and West 8 (2009), 57-80.

from tombs in the Athenian Kerameikos that may, plausibly, have been imported. I focused attention, for example, on foreign-inspired shapes, such as the pilgrim and ring flasks, as well as curiosities, that is, one-offs, whether wheel- or handmade37. Not one was clearly imported; they all fell well within the range for standard Athenian fabrics. I also took the opportunity to revisit two “old friends,” vessels that I had seen well over 20 years earlier in the good company of Andreas Nitsche. The two are the only pendent semi-circle plates found in Athens (fig. 14)38. They have long been known; Desborough considered

37 The flasks include KERAMEIKOS I, pl. 62, inv. 536; KERAMEIKOS IV, pl. 25, inv. 2033, 2034 (cf. also KERAMEIKOS XVIII, pl. 22, Grab 121/5, which I did not handle); two of the curiosities I was particularly eager to see in the flesh were the wheelmade bowls: KERAMEIKOS I, 35, inv. 580, and KERAMEIKOS IV, pl. 23, inv. 1092 (Grab 38); the handmade vessels include KERAMEIKOS I, pl. 25, inv. 491, 427, 474; KERAMEIKOS IV, pl. 28, inv. 2111.38 KERAMEIKOS I, pl. 52, inv. 590 (T 29); KERAMEIKOS IV, pl. 34, inv. 1265.

0 5 cm

Fig. 14. Athenian pendent semi-circle plates: a) from the fill of Grave Mound T29, inv. 590 (photo John Papadopoulos); b-c) Athenian Kerameikos, sporadic find (Einzelfund), inv. 1265, LPG/EG? (photo John Papadopoulos, drawing Anne Hooton).

a

b

c

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them Attic, though at the time Lefkandi had not yet been explored39. Nitsche was adamant that they were Euboean imports – thus my interest in them – but at the time only one of the two plates could be located by the guards of the Kerameikos Museum and the one we managed to see did not strike me at the time as an import. Both plates, on the basis of my recent inspection (and I stress that this was only a visual inspection), are clearly Athenian. As for their date, little can be said from their context: one was found in the fill of the grave-mound T 29 (inv. 590); the other (inv. 1265) was a sporadic find, an Einzelfund. I wonder where we would date them in comparison to the more common Euboean versions of the form? (I suspect that we would call them Subprotogeometric and be done with it!). I also wonder whether all of the pendent semi-circle plates found in the eastern Mediterranean, in Cyprus and the coastal Levant, are, in fact, Euboean?The pottery from tombs in the area of the later Athenian Agora, which is currently in press40, tells a very similar story. The quantity of bona fide imports is minuscule. Not one of the wheelmade and painted pots presented in Agora XXXVI is imported, although wheelmade imports do occur in Late Geometric41. Ironically, the few suspected imports from the Agora Early Iron Age tombs are coarse, and unprepossessing. One is the solitary wheelmade cooking pot from the tombs, which comes from the celebrated “Booties Grave”(T11-21; P 19248) (fig. 15)42. In describing the vessel, my colleague, Sara Strack, who was responsible for the publication of the handmade pottery from the Agora tombs, writes:

39 Desborough 1952, 118, pl. 12, inv. 590.40 AGORA XXXVI.41 See AGORA VIII, 57-59, pl. 13.

42 The tomb was originally published in R.S. Young, « An Early Geometric Grave near the Athenian Agora », Hesperia 18 (1949), 275-297.

“The shaping technique, lack of burnishing, neatly cut handle, and fabric, set T11-21 apart from other cooking pots found in Early Iron Age Athens. Reber 1991, 29, suggested that T11-21 was an Athenian experiment in the production of wheelmade coarse wares which failed to become established. However, while the macroscopically observed fabric characteristics of T11-21 do not seem to preclude local provenance, the lack of contemporary, or indeed earlier, parallels for this particular combination of technological idiosyncrasies, leaves open the possibility that T11-21 is, in fact, an import”43. The only other possible import is the idiosyncratic semi-fine handmade three handled dish – a shape normally referred to as a kanoun44 – T45-8, which is heavily burnished (fig. 16). The burial from which it derives, Tomb 45, may be assigned to the Middle or Late Protogeometric period. Karl Kübler considered T45-8 as a prototype for the small offering baskets of Late Protogeometric or Early Geometric date, but the possibility that this was an ancient “heirloom” reused in an Early Iron Age grave seems highly remote. More importantly, there are no local parallels of any date and, for this reason, it is very likely an import, but close parallels are rare. There are some vaguely similar vessels from Early Iron Age Thessaly, Macedonia, and Euboea, but nothing identical45. Although the

43 See, for example, wheelmade miniature tripod cooking pots from Knossos, Coldstream and Catling 1996, tomb J.46 (Early to Middle Protogeometric), 29, fig. 65; tomb 100.9 (Protogeometric to Early Geometric), p. 134, fig. 102; AGORA XXXVI.

44 For this shape, see L. Deubner, « Hochzeit und Opferkorb », Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 40 (1925), 210-223; Heurtley and Skeat, 1930-1931, 29, n. 4; J. Schelp, Das Kanoun. Der griechische Opferkorb, Würzburg, 1975 [Beiträge zur Archäologie 8]; additional Late Bronze and Early Iron Age examples are assembled and discussed in AGORA XXXVI.

45 See, among others, Heurtley and Skeat, 1930-1931, 29, pl. VIII, no. 26 from Marmariani; as well as

Fig. 15. Imported wheelmade cooking pot, from the Booties Grave (Tomb 11) in the area of the later Athenian Agora, T11-21, ht (as preserved) 7.0 cm (EG I) (photo Craig Mauzy, courtesy Agora Excavations; drawing Anne Hooton).

0 5 cm

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possibility is high that T45-8 is an import, the vessel may prove to be Attic after all. As for other categories of Early Iron Age pottery from Athens that have been, at some time or other, considered imports, there is, first of all, the Attic Fine Handmade Incised Ware. This is not the place for a comprehensive review of the ware. What is clear, however, is that the manufacturing techniques and overall appearance of the ware set it apart, in a striking manner, from the fine wares more commonly in use in Athens during the Late Protogeometric and Early and Middle Geometric periods. Strack, in her study of the ware from the Agora tombs, distinguished two fabrics that she labelled A and B46. The distinctive nature of this ware was recognized by a number of scholars, initiating a long-standing discourse regarding the origins of the ware47. The ready

related examples from Euboea: LEFKANDI I, pl. 92, S Tomb 2, 1-2, S Tomb 4, 1, pl. 96, S Tomb 16, 5, and esp. pl. 131, P Tomb 19, 19-20, LEFKANDI III, 71, Tomb 71, no. 1, pl. 107, nos 45.28 and 46.6; and Athens, KERAMEIKOS V.1, pl. 15, Grave 3, no. 15. For a three-handled handmade dish from Argos, made from Reber’s pale coarse ware (“Helle grobe Ware’), with a rounded base, see Reber 1991, pl. 26, no. 3. The fabric of T45-8 bears resemblance to a small group of grey or black polished miniature vessels from LPG-SPG I burials at Lefkandi, see, for example, the globular pyxis and ladle from Toumba Grave 1 (T1.2 and T1.3, LEFKANDI I, 169, pl. 167, 268a).46 AGORA XXXVI.

47 E.g. V. Milojčić, « Die dorische Wanderung im Lichte der vorgeschichtlichen Funde », Archäologischer Anzeiger 1948-1949, 12-36; J. Bouzek, « The Beginnings of the Protogeometric Pottery and the “Dorian Ware” », Opuscula Atheniensia 9 (1969), 41-57; J. Bouzek, « The Attic Dark Age Incised Ware », Sbornik Narodniho muzea v Praze 28 (1974), esp. 36-42 (Balkans); KERAMEIKOS IV, 19-20 (parallels in Mycenaean metalwork and northern European pottery); KERAMEIKOS V.1, 45 (imitation of Middle Helladic, particularly Cycladic, handmade wares); E.L. Smithson, « The Protogeometric Cemetery at Nea Ionia,

association of Attic Incised Ware with finds from the central Balkans, drawn by Vladimir Milojčić and Jan Bouzek, or its inception by imitating chance finds of prehistoric pottery, as suggested by Karl Kübler and Evelyn Smithson, are no longer considered valid explanations. Nevertheless, the lack of precursors and parallels both within the Aegean and outside render this ware an intriguing phenomenon. Karl Reber has convincingly argued that this ware is an Athenian invention48.Finally, there are a few semi-fine handmade wares, especially the distinctive round-mouth and trefoil juglets made from a comparatively coarse fabric. While both Argive and Corinthian related plain juglets of Late Protogeometric through Middle Geometric date are often made from a related coarse fabric, Strack is of the opinion that the characteristics of the Athenian juglets rule out a north-east Peloponnesian provenance. The distinctive inclusions of the few examples found in Athens would argue for a local Athenian manufacture. This said, the shaping tradition behind these small vessels appears to be more firmly rooted in the north-east Peloponnese than in Attica, and given their scarcity in Athens, and the typological parallels of the Agora examples with juglets in the Argolid and Corinthia, Strack argues the possibility that these vessels were made by immigrant, or foreign-trained, (female) potters working in Athens49.The majority of the small handmade juglets from the Agora graves date to the Middle Geometric period. It is precisely at this time that there is a steady increase

1949 », Hesperia 30 (1961), 171 with n. 19 (imitation of Early Helladic pottery); in a similar manner, J.F. Daniel, « Two Late Cypriote III Tombs from Kourion », American Journal of Archaeology 41 (1937), 74-75 draws attention to Late Cypriot handmade incised pottery which he believes imitates Early Bronze Age examples.

48 Reber 1991, 168-171.49 See further discussion in AGORA XXXVI.

Fig. 16. Imported (?) handmade three-handled dish, kanoun, from Agora Tomb 45 (T45-8), ht. 2.1-2.3 cm (MPG-LPG) (watercolor by Piet de Jong, courtesy Agora Excavations; drawing Anne Hooton).

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in Corinthian handmade imports, primarily from the non-funerary deposits in the area of the later Athenian Agora, and these imports increase through the course of the Late Geometric period50. Moreover, this leads us to another phenomenon, one seen in the earliest known potter’s kiln in Athens, which dates to the late 8th and 7th centuries B.C. and is found in the heart of the later Agora, the original Kerameikos of Athens51. Most significantly, the Agora kiln produced Attic “Protocorinthian” pottery – that is, a clearly Protocorinthian style of pottery in Athenian fabric – as well as Phaleron cups, but no Protoattic pottery. The picture that emerges at this late date is one in which Athens is importing Corinthian pottery at least as early as Middle Geometric, if not earlier, and that by Late Geometric, it is making Corinthian-style pottery in Athenian clay, and even adapting Corinthian to a Protoattic idiom. Eva Brann believed that Athenian versions of Corinthian kotylai were copied directly from Corinthian imports52. We can now dispel this notion and replace it with another idea, one that continues into later periods, namely, the phenomenon of Corinthianizing. Tom Dunbabin, in publishing an Athenian bowl formerly in the possession of Humfry Payne, noted:“But this vase, though Attic, is not painted in Attic style. The animals are pure Corinthian, the use of filling ornaments is Corinthian. Payne pointed this out to me, and indicated the workshop in which the painter was brought up; it is that of the Sphinx Painter”53.Dunbabin went on to place Payne’s bowl at the head of a Corinthianizing current that reached its flood in the second quarter of the 6th century B.C., and from there saw this trend against the backdrop of Solon’s offer of Athenian citizenship to immigrants who came to practice a trade54. Whatever the vicissitudes of Solonian economics, and whatever the realities of

50 AGORA VIII, 57-59.

51 See J.K. Papadopoulos, Ceramicus Redivivus. The Early Iron Age Potters’ Field in the Area of the Classical Athenian Agora, Princeton, 2003 [Hesperia Suppl. 31], especially 126-143; J.K. Papadopoulos, « The Relocation of Potters and the Dissemination of Style. Athens, Corinth, Ambrakia and the Agrinion Group », in: J.H. Oakley and O. Palagia (eds), Athenian Potters and Painters II, Oxford and Oakville, 2009, 232-240. 52 AGORA VIII, 51.

53 T.J. Dunbabin, « An Attic Bowl », Annual of the British School at Athens 45 (1950), 59-69. 54 Cf. Plutarch, Solon 24.

Solon’s reforms, Dunbabin’s model of the relocation of potters from Corinth to Athens is compelling. Furthermore, this phenomenon now occurs earlier, as the material from this earliest Athenian kiln takes the reality of Corinthian-trained potters to an even earlier time: these are among the earliest “metics”, if we can call them metics. And while I am standing on the shoulders of giants, I would like to quote from John Davidson Beazley:“In the creation of types, or say of standard forms, Athens did not take the lead; a greater part was played by seventh-century Corinth. Lions are descended from Protocorinthian lions; the neat filling-ornament, too, and the thoroughly ornamentalised plants, are derived from Corinthian originals.” [Emphases Beazley’s]55

Owls to Athens

The Athenian trajectory with regard to imported pottery was a unique one, and in the Early Iron Age it was different to Knossos, Lefkandi, Torone, Asine, and other sites. Crete was a sponge, taking in a great deal, but exporting little, at least by way of ceramics. (Again, I stress ceramics, as the island was replete with real commodities of value.) Euboea, more particularly, Lefkandi, was a two-way street, taking in much and exporting a good deal. In contrast, Athens stands alone: its pottery is far-flung, but it has few imports. What is perhaps most telling about the few imports that we do find in Athens – the wheelmade cooking pot from the Booties Grave, the handmade burnished kanoun, both from the Agora, as well as the Argive skyphos from the Kerameikos – is that they are not the standard wares that were commercially exchanged. They were not part of a set, like the later dinner/symposion sets, and they are hardly elite exchange items56. They are small pots

55 J.D. Beazley, The Development of Attic Black-figure, Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1951, 13 [Sather Classical Lectures 24].

56 For later dinner/symposion sets, see A.T. Rabinowitz, Symposium, Community and Cultural Exchange in Archaic Sicily and South Italy (PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan), Ann Arbor, 2004. Elite gift exchanges have featured prominently in the work of a number of scholars; see, among others, J.N. Coldstream, « Gift Exchange in the Eighth Century B.C. », in: R. Hägg (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B.C. Tradition and Innovation. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 1-5 June, 1981, Stockholm, 1983, 201-207.

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that accompany people and, in the case of the Argive skyphos, plausibly a refugee from the Peloponnese in the years following the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial centres57.In such a scenario, Phoenician intermediaries would make little sense. But if we focus on the distribution of orientalia, especially in the 10th and 9th centuries B.C., then Phoenician merchants in the Aegean – well-known to Homer, if not to Aegean Early Iron Age scholars – make a lot of sense. Here, the Phoenician complexities of Knossos, and other sites on Crete, not least Kommos, with its Phoenician stele shrine, are cases in point. Whoever carried pottery in the Aegean, the Athenian pattern that was repeated at Knossos, Lefkandi, Torone, and even at Asine, and on Aigina, had to do with the fact that it was often the special Athenian pots that were found abroad, though smaller vessels, like skyphoi, cups, oinochoai, and lekythoi were also exported. What stands out in terms of the distribution of Athenian pottery was the quantity, and quality, of the idiosyncratic Athenian shapes. Moreover, the distribution of Athenian pottery to Crete, Euboea, the Cyclades, north Aegean, and the Argolid, together with sites in the eastern and central Mediterranean, involves maritime trade. This was not an incidental pattern of a few pots making their way overseas. There is a corollary to the story. If we look at the vessel forms of Levantine, Phoenician, and Cypriot wares imported to Greece, the vast majority are “special” because they are “different.” Some were surely commodity containers, but in their form and decoration they were exotic. In a similar vein, although Toronean wheelmade and painted pottery is rarely found outside the Chalkidike, handmade burnished pottery from the north Aegean is found, in increasing quantities, in central and southern Greece and these handmade exports were sought after outside their home regions because of their distinctive characteristics. What underlies this pattern is demand, presumably for quality products,

57 We see this in another, somewhat later, pot imported to Athens (Agora P 14819), originally thought to be Protogeometric, but clearly Late Geometric, and almost certainly from the island of Syros. Unlike the skyphos from the Kerameikos, this pot was large, and was remodelled as a burial urn for an infant enchytrismos; the vessel was thought to accompany a Cycladic woman, perhaps a bride, who migrated to Athens; see J.K. Papadopoulos and E.L. Smithson, « The Cultural Biography of a Cycladic Geometric Amphora. Islanders in Athens and the Prehistory of Metics », Hesperia 71 (2002), 149-199.

and simple economics.Newcastle-upon-Tyne was England’s first coal exporting centre and well-known for coal mining since the Middle Ages. Consequently, “carrying coal to Newcastle” was an archetypally pointless activity. In 1606, Thomas Heywood, in If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie: or, the Troubles of Queene Elizabeth, wrote: “as common as coals from Newcastle.” The explicit link with pointlessness came soon afterward, in Thomas Fuller’s The History of Worthies of England of 1661: “To carry coals to Newcastle, that is to do what was done before; or to busy one’s self in a needless imployment [sic].” In a similar vein was the much more ancient proverb: “γλαῦκ’ Ἀθήναζε, γλαῦκ’ εἰς Ἀθήνας”58 – to bring owls to Athens – was, like carrying coals to Newcastle, to undertake a pointless venture, one that is redundant, unnecessary, superfluous, or highly uneconomical. Whoever carried Early Iron Age pottery was doing it to make a profit. So, bringing pottery to Athens – unlike bringing it to Knossos or Lefkandi or Torone – made no economic sense.

So, I want to end with good old market demand. I do not believe that pottery was a major item of value, like metals, ivory, glass, certain stones, human slaves, livestock, textiles, among other things. But it was a fungible commodity, often traded for its own sake, sometimes as the container for another commodity. Athenian Early Iron Age pottery was highly prized outside of Athens; Euboean pottery, not least spectacular vessels like the Cesnola krater found on Cyprus59, was also prized outside of Euboea, though to a lesser extent than Athenian products. Cretan pottery, especially Knossian pottery, may well have been sought after within Crete, but this was not the case outside of the island. As an export item, Athenian pottery, like Euboean, had value. As for what constitutes value – a question that has fascinated scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond – it is defined by the cultural context in which it is situated60. Why Athenian Early Iron Age pottery, like the later Athenian black- and red-figure, was valued

58 Aristophanes, Birds, 301; Antiphanes (Comicus), 175.2.

59 Coldstream 1968; J.N. Coldstream, « The Cesnola Painter. A Change of Address », Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London 18 (1971), 1-15.

60 See J.K. Papadopoulos and G. Urton (eds), The Construction of Value in the Ancient World, Los Angeles, 2012.

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by people in many different parts of the Aegean and the Mediterranean, we may never know, but I would like to think that it may have something to do with the physical qualities of the product, which led to its demand.

Abbreviations

AGORA XXXVI = J.K. Papadopoulos and E.L. Smithson, The Early Iron Age, Part 1: Four Cemeteries, Princeton, forthcoming [The Athenian Agora XXXVI].

KERAMEIKOS I = W. Kraiker and K. Kübler, Die Nekropolen des 12. bis 10. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1939 [Kerameikos. Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen I].

KERAMEIKOS XVIII = F. Ruppenstein, Die submykenische Nekropole, Neufunde und Neubewertung, Munich, 2007 [Kerameikos. Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen XVIII].

Bibliography

Catling 1998 = R.W.V. Catling, « Imports of Attic Protogeometric Pottery and Their Identification by Non-analytical Means », Annual of the British School at Athens 93 (1998), 365-378.

Desborough 1952 = V.R. d’A. Desborough, Protogeometric Pottery, Oxford, 1952.

Heurtley and Skeat 1930-1931 = W.A. Heurtley and T.C. Skeat, « The Tholos Tombs of Marmariane », Annual of the British School at Athens 31 (1930-1931), 1-55.

Papadopoulos 2005 = J.K. Papadopoulos, The Early Iron Age Cemetery at Torone, Los Angeles, 2005 [Monumenta Archaeologica 24].

Reber 1991 = K. Reber, Untersuchungen zur handgemachten Keramik Griechenlands in der submykenischen, protogeometrischen und der geometrischen Zeit, Jonsered, 1991 [Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Pocket-book 105].

About the Contributors

Bruno d'Agostino Università di Napoli "L'Orientale" [email protected]

Alexandra AlexandridouChargée de Recherches F.R.S-F.N.R.SUniversité libre de Bruxelles (ULB)Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine(CReA-Patrimoine), CP 17550 av. F.D. RooseveltB-1050 Bruxelles, [email protected]

Anne CouliéDépartement des AGERPalais du Louvre75058 Paris cedex [email protected]

Anastasia GadolouDepartment of Archaeological Sites and Monuments of the Directorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities Hellenic Ministry of Culture,20-22, Bouboulinas Street, 106 82, Athens, [email protected] / [email protected]

Jean-Sébastien GrosBritish School at Athens52, Souedias Street10676, Athens, [email protected]

Nota KourouDepartment of ArchaeologyUniversity of AthensUniversity Campus, 15784 Zografou, Athens, [email protected]

Susan LangdonDepartment of Art History and Archaeology365 McReynolds HallUniversity of MissouriColumbia, MO [email protected]

Maria Costanza LentiniParco archeologico di NaxosLungomare Schisò98030 Giardini, Naxos, [email protected]

Manolis MikrakisSchool of ArchitectureNational Technical University of Athens42, 28th October (Patission) StreetGR-10682 Athens, [email protected]

Lydia Palaiokrassa-KopitsaDepartment of ArchaeologyUniversity of AthensUniversity Campus, 15784 Zografou, Athens, [email protected]

John K. PapadopoulosDepartment of ClassicsCotsen Institute of ArchaeologyUniversity of California, Los [email protected]

Stavros A. PaspalasAustralian Archaeological Institute at Athens17, Zacharitsa Street, Koukaki117 41, Athens, [email protected]

Evagelia Simantoni-BourniaDepartment of ArchaeologyUniversity of AthensUniversity Campus, 15784 Zografou, Athens, [email protected]

Samuel VerdanÉcole suisse d’archéologie en GrèceUniversité de LausanneCH-1015 [email protected]

Evangelos VivliodetisDepartment of Archaeological Sites, Monuments, Research and Museums of Ephorate of Antiquities of Phokis (Delphi), Delphi Archaeological MuseumPO Box 90, 33100 [email protected]

Vicky VlachouUniversité libre de Bruxelles (ULB)Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine(CReA-Patrimoine), CP 17550 av. F.D. RooseveltB-1050 Bruxelles, [email protected]

James WhitleySchool of History, Archaeology and ReligionCardiff UniversityJohn Percival Building, Colum DriveCardiff CF10 3EUWales, United [email protected]

Dyfri WilliamsUniversité libre de Bruxelles (ULB)Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine(CReA-Patrimoine), CP 17550 av. F.D. RooseveltB-1050 Bruxelles, [email protected]

Owls to Athens: Imported Pottery in Early Iron Age Athens (2015)

Documents