Exports of attic protogeometric pottery and their identification by non-analytical means

The Annual of the British School at Athens

Volumn 93, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 365-378

  Catling, R W V ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85009638337     PISSN: 00682454     EISSN: 20452403     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S006824540000349X     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. Kerameikos I, 51-2, 110. Kübler had little to add in publishing the later Geometric and Archaic pottery: Kerameikos VI:2, 143-4.
2. PGP 119; Hesp. 30 (1961), 156. The same neglect also applies to the study of Attic Geometric pottery. Note the very brief remarks in R. S. Young, Late Geometric Graves and a Seventh Century Well in the Agora (Hesp. Suppl. 2 1939), 195 and E. T. H. Brann, The Athenian Agora VIII. Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery (Princeton, 1962), 29.
3. Kraiker, who published the pottery from Aigina, was well equipped to recognize Attic pottery from his experience gained in the Kerameikos. As already noted, he is one of few to have observed some of its cardinal features.
4. Lefkandi : Lefkandi I, 348-50; BSA 77 (1982), 233-4; Lefkandi III, pls 122-4; KNC 393-402.
5. R. E. Jones, Greek and Cypriot Pottery: A Review of Scientific Studies (Athens, 1986), 628-31; D. J. Liddy, ‘A Chemical Study of Decorated Iron Age Pottery from the Knossos North Cemetery’ in KNC 465-514. The belly amphora (Toumba T.14, 1) which Desborough was unwilling to classify as Attic (Lefkandi I, 350) is shown by chemical analysis to fall within the Attic cluster. Autopsy shows it to contain the dark red grits diagnostic of Attic fabric.
6. Naxos: V. Lambrinoudakis in Les Cyclades. Materiaux pour une étude de géographie historique (Paris, 1983) 166 N. Kourou in Ancient Greek and Related Pottery: Proceedings of the International Vase Symposium in Amsterdam, 12-15 April 1984 (Allard Pierson Series, 5: Amsterdam, 1984) 108, 111 and in F. Blondé and J. Y. Perrault (eds.), Les Ateliers de potiers dans le monde grec aux époques géométrique, archaïque et classique (BCH Suppl., 23: Paris, 1992), 131-3. For Asine see the following section.
7. Courbin gives an excellent account of the fabric of Argive EIA wares: CGA 181-7, 283-8, 454-61.
8. BSA 85 (1990), 37 Lefkandi II: 1, 86-7.
9. The standards employed here are those used in describing the fabric of Lefkandian PG pottery: Lefkandi II: 1, 9. Stricter standards could certainly be adopted, particularly in measuring the hardness of the fired clay.
10. Kraiker (Kerameikos I, 51) noted these inclusions and identified them as grog, though this has yet to be substantiated. They have also been noted by Coldstream in his brief remarks on the fabric of Attic PG and G imports in the North Cemetery at Knossos: KNC 471.
11. Kraiker (Kerameikos I, 51-2) noted their continued presence in Attic Geometric and Archaic pottery, excepting only the Middle Geometric phase.
12. ‘Neutron-Activation Study of Figurines, Pottery, and Workshop Materials from the Athenian Agora, Greece’, JFA 10 (1983), 55-69. The authors of this article pay no attention to the visual characteristics of the materials they analyse.
13. Asine II, 4:2, 61 suggests that nos. 258-9 might be imports; p. 36 on common ancestry, pp. 120-3 on Attic influences.
14. It should be emphasized that my disagreement with Wells's interpretation is made possible by her exemplary publication of the pottery, which remains one of the few to deal with an EIA settlement assemblage.
15. The same criteria had previously been used to good effect in quantifying the Attic imports in the fill of the PG building at Toumba, Lefkandi (Lefkandi II:1, 89, 159 table 15) and in establishing the Attic origin of three pots in the museum of the British School at Athens, previously attributed to Corinth by Desborough on stylistic grounds (BSA 85 (1990), 38 nos. 5-7, 43-4).
16. The fabric of the Asine PG fine-wares seems typically to consist of well-levigated light brown clay, sometimes with a reddish tinge, containing small to large white rounded inclusions. The paint varies in colour from black to brown to red, often crackled and with a streaky appearance. Sometimes the paint is fugitive. Many pieces have a metallic sheen. Courbin (CGA 459) describes two types of fabric among the Geometric pottery from Asine, neither corresponding very closely to ours.
17. Not seen by me. Published in Asine II, 4:1, 18, figs 23 and 33 d the fabric appears from the description to be Attic.
18. Asine II, 4:2, 137-48.
19. The fabric of the Asine PG fine-wares seems typically to consist of well-levigated light brown clay, sometimes with a reddish tinge, containing small to large white rounded inclusions. 137-45.
20. The fabric of the Asine PG fine-wares seems typically to consist of well-levigated light brown clay, sometimes with a reddish tinge, containing small to large white rounded inclusions. 137. No control groups were used for comparative purposes, further undermining the value of the results.
21. No control groups were used for comparative purposes, further undermining the value of the results. 61.
22. Imports of Attic pottery at Knossos and Lefkandi from the 10th to the 8th cent, are the subject of a study by J. N. Coldstream in Minotaur and Centaur, 133-45.
23. See my comments No control groups were used for comparative purposes, further undermining the value of the results. 129-30; also Studia Troica, 8 (1998), forthcoming, concerning the PG amphoras circulating in central Greece and the northern Aegean, apparently used for the transport of bulk commodities.
24. It should be noted that chemical analysis indicates an Attic origin for one of the Sub-Mycenaean pots from Torone in Chalkidike : OJA 15 (1996), 154-7 no. 5, fig. 6.
25. The one exception may be a LPG jug or large lekythos in the Goulandris museum, possibly of Attic manufacture. There seems to be some doubt over its provenance: either Crete (Goulandris Collection, 191 no. 42) or Skyros (Ancient Greek Art, 57, no. 57). Its fabric is considered to be Euboian and a likely import to Skyros from Lefkandi by I. Lemos in Minotaur and Centaur, 124 no. 5.
26. The evidence for this role is summarized by M. R. Popham in G. R. Tsetskhladze and F. De Angelis (eds.), The Archaeology of Greek Colonization. Essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Monograph 40. Oxford, 1994), 11-34. While some of his assertions are open to criticism (cf. J. K. Papadopoulos in OJA 15 (1996), 151-81, esp. 152-9), the concentration of luxury goods from the eastern Mediterranean at Lefkandi is rightly emphasized.
27. Coldstream (n. 23), p. 142, considers this possibility in the context of Attic MG exports to the eastern Mediterranean.
28. See S. P. Morris, The Black and White Style. Athens and Aigina in the Orientalizing Period (Yale Classical Monographs, 6: New Haven and London, 1984) 20-3.
29. For the nature and extent of Aiginetan commerce see Morris (n. 29) 92-103 and T. J. Figueira, Aegina. Society and Politics (Salem, NH, 1981) 230-86.
30. Corinthian contacts may have extended as far as Ithaka in the 10th cent. An imported PG lekythos (most likely Attic or north-east Peloponnesian) shows that the region was not completely isolated from the Aegean: PGP 277, pl. 37, 84.
31. Kraiker, Aigina 25 no. 24, pl. 1.
32. See Figueira (n. 30) 185 8. An early date for this association of cities has often been proposed; see R. M. Cook in PCPhS, n.s. 8 (1962), 21 GGP 343; A. M. Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh, 1971), 402.
33. Newly published finds suggest that the quantity of Euboian PG imports may previously have been underestimated: KNC II, 403; BSA 92 (1997), 235.
34. Except on Skyros, where it is the predominant ware: OJA 5 (1986), 323-37.
35. Lefkandi II:1, 88 no. 898.