Panel 5.7 – Regional exchange of ceramics– case studies and methodology


Organisation:

  • Verena Gassner (Universität Wien)

Panel abstract

Pottery vessels and other ceramic objects constitute important sources for issues of trade and exchange in antique societies as they are available in great quantities and as their provenance often can be determined by archaeological or archaeometric methods. Most studies on exchange of ceramics concentrate however on aspects of long-distance trade as differences between wares and/or types produced in different, far distant regions can be recognized more easily. This fact together with the psychological fact of the greater attractiveness of these items might have lead to an exaggerated perception of goods of oversea trade in the archaeological record.

In contrast aspects of regional exchange between neighbouring cities have not found the same attention in the field of Mediterranean archaeology though they might give important insights into the problem of regional connectivity and also have had greater importance than normally assumed, as can be attested by the analysis of the finds from Velia. Certainly one of the reasons of this deficit can be found in the difficulty to distinguish ceramics produced within one region clearly and unambiguously as they often share the same repertory of shapes or decoration styles. Thus fabric analyses play an important role for the identification of provenance.

The proposed panel comprises case studies from different areas and different periods of the Mediterranean, focussing on the methodological approach and the possibilities to identify regional exchange.

Paper abstracts

1. Segolene Maudet (Ecole Française de Rome)

The regional scale: a new perspective of economic anthropology on ceramic exchanges in Campania (8th-6th centuries BC)
During the second half of the 20th century, the excavation of over 1500 graves of the Greek colony of Pithekoussai revealed a striking presence of imported ceramics among grave-goods. Recent studies of local productions, from Cuma, Pontecagnano and Capua, have yielded evidence that propose a new perspective on the archaic Campanian economy. This became the focus of my PhD, devoted to “Exchanges in archaic Campania (8th-6th century BC) : an essay of economic history based on ceramics”: the importance of regional exchanges versus the long-distance importation of ceramic goods.
First I will present the state of the local art production in archaic Campania. The second part of my intervention will present some results of my PhD. I used a qualitative approach inspired from the anthropology of consumption to contextualize the finds of “exogen” ceramics in graves from Pontecagnano, Pithekoussai, Cuma, Capua. I further included a few examples from Calatia and the Sarno Valley. This study was completed by a database and a GIS, to give a more global vision of the phenomenon. This paper will also provide some insights about the economic mechanism that could have been behind those exchanges and their actors, with a dynamic geographical approach. I will then be able to propose some conclusions about the exchange of regional ceramics, their different reception and consumption in each site at each period.

"The regional Scale: a new Perspective on Ceramic Exchanges in Campania (8th–6th centuries BC)" (Fulltext)

 

2. Nora Voss (University of Vienna)

Trade in the Dekapolis region
During three survey campaigns around 50.000 ceramic sherds were gathered in the vicinity of the ancient cities of Abila, Umm el-Jimal and Gadara in northern Jordan. Produced over the course of roughly a thousand years, between the Hellenistic age and Umayyad times, the shards originate from a variety of vessel types used in different areas of daily life, ranging from simple storage jars to expensive fine wares.
Due to the characteristics that only finds from a survey can offer – variety of form and chronological diversity – the ceramic material discussed in this paper offers a broad base for an in-depth analysis of the local production and use of ceramic vessels. Furthermore, it provides a key to a more detailed understanding of trade routes and commercial exchange both amongst the cities situated within the ancient Dekapolis region, and between those cities and neighbouring regions. Considering the poor state of conservation as well as their provenance from a modern surface, the investigation’s first goal is to analyse the materials used in their production in order to locate their origin. This information, in combination with the investigation’s focus on three cities belonging to a region that is well-defined geographically, promises a detailed view of the trade routes and economic behaviour of the region’s inhabitants. Also, it offers a valuable tool for identifying the broader dynamics of regional and interregional contact and exchange in the ancient Levant region.

"Trade in the Decapolis-Region (Jordan)" (Fulltext)

 

3. Paola Vivacqua and Maria Teresa Iannelli (Superintendence for Archaelogy, Reggio Calabria and Vibo Valentia province)

Ports and trades in central-Tyrrhenian Bruttium between II BC and II AD: the case of Vibo Valentia
The Roman conquest of Bruttium in II BC determined the political and infrastructural reorganization of the Greek poleis with the exploitation of the territory based on the system of villas, the building of the Annia-Popilia road and the renovation of the main ports: Crotone on the Ionian coast and Reggio Calabria and Vibo Valentia on the Tyrrhenian coast. In particular, the port of Vibo Valentia is a strategic, military and economic point in central-Tyrrhenian Bruttium. Archaeological research has highlighted the port facilities in the area between Bivona and Trainiti. A bulwark, consisting of two fauces protecting the port access and a long dock have been identified. The amphorae recovered in the port area, city and territory reveal wide-ranging commercial traffic mainly with the Iberian Peninsula and the Aegean Islands between the II BC and II AD. Foodstuffs were distributed in a capillary manner through land, river or sea docks, such as Portus Herculis quoted in the classical sources. Local productions of thin-walled, coarse ware and amphorae are well attested. The archaeological and archaeometric studies of the local containers highlighted a new container, the kados, used for carriage of pitch, produced in the Bruttium. The analysis of the production and distribution in the Mediterranean area of the amphorae reveals the economic and productive vitality of Bruttium, and suggests new trades involving the center-Tyrrhenian Bruttium that will require in-depth analysis.

"Ports and trades in central-Tyrrhenian Bruttium between II BC and II AD: the case of Vibo Valentia (Calabria/Italy)" (Fulltext)

 

4. Barbara Borgers / Gijs Tol / Tymon de Haas

Cooking vessels as indicator for regional trade in the Pontine region, central Italy
Cooking vessels hold significant potential for understanding aspects of production, trade and exchange. Owing to their use in everyday life for the preparation of food, cooking vessels occur in vast amounts on archaeological sites. Their composition tends to be coarse with large inclusions, which provides important indications on how and where they were made.
Recent work on Roman cooking vessels, combining petrographic and chemical analysis, has provided reliable information about their provenance, and indicated that they could travel considerable distances. The application of scientific techniques, then, provides data that is vital for understanding the wider economic phenomena that underlie these vessels’ manufacture and distribution.
This paper presents the work on cooking pots from the Pontine region, Southern Latium, which covers a temporally broad picture (the 6th and the 1st centuries BC). Using petrographic analysis, this work examined compositional and diachronic variation in this ceramic evidence, with the aim to trace their networks of production and distribution within the region of study. The results indicated that cooking pots were produced and distributed locally between the 6th and the 4th centuries BC, whereas regional and interregional products circulated within the region between the 4th and the 1st centuries BC – a proposal that matches well with the fundamental changes in social and political life that occurred in the wider region through this time-span.

"Roman cooking vessels as indicator for regional trade in the Pontine region, Central Italy" (Fulltext)

 

5. Antonella Mandruzzato (Università degli Studi di Palermo)

Roman Pottery from Lilybaeum. Some remarks on imported products and transmarine contacts
The excavation carried out in the so-called ‘zona mura’ within the ‘Lilybaeum Archaeological Project’ (Archaeological Park of Marsala) led by a team of Palermo and Hamburg University in 2007/2008, brought to light thousands of pottery sherds and several architectural remains dated in Roman times. Interpreted as fortification walls, the architectural structure is linked to three insulae situated in the southern part of the surveyed area.
The paper under discussion will present the preliminary results of the ongoing pottery study by working out the role of Roman Lilybaeum in regional and interregional trade. One prominent research objective is the analysis of the dynamic pattern of relations between different production-centres of ceramics deriving from the ‘zona mura’. The pottery – fine table ware and cooking ware – mostly is identified as African and Pantellerian ware, but there are samples of regional and unknown provenance as well. The results confirm the prevalence of North African pottery imports at Lilybaeum in Roman times, but also the presence, at least in some periods, of regional exchange and west Mediterranean trade in Roman age.

"Roman Pottery from Lilybaeum. Some remarks on imported products and transmarine contacts" (Fulltext)

 

6. Petya Ilieva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)

Between Therme and Troy: the ceramic exchange in the regional network of the Northern Aegean
In the second half of the 8th and the early 7th century BC a dynamic exchange network developed in the multi-ethnic Northern Aegean basin, best illustrated by changes in the ceramic repertories of a number of local sites. It encompassed the coastal zone between the Thermaic Gulf to the west and the city of Troy to the east, incorporating the islands of Thasos, Samothrace, Tenedos and Lemnos. This regionally developed exchange was not restricted to distribution of various locally manufactured ceramic groups in neighbouring sites. It included transmission and adoption of technological know-how too, most likely facilitated by the work of itinerant potters. The distribution pattern of a regional group of standardised Subgeometric, fine painted tableware, known as G 2-3 Ware, mirrors this process. The argument is supported by micro-XRF analysis of 120 samples from various sites. The results indicate multiple centres of manufacture rather than centralised one followed by commercial exchange and suggest an on-site small scale production. The process had significant impact on the native Thracians living on the islands of Samothrace, Thasos and the opposite coastal areas. It not only led to the adoption of new ceramic technology, wheel-made vs the native hand-made, but to introduction of new shapes whose usage was perhaps linked to the introduction of new social practices as well.

"Between Therme and Troy: the ceramic exchange in the regional network of the northern Aegean in the late 8th and early 7th c. BC" (Fulltext)

 

7. Torben Keßler

Reading connectivity on decorative grounds. A GIS-based approach to investigate interregional relations in Early Iron Age Greece
The most reliable data regarding characteristics of ancient pottery that is provided by the publications of archaeological excavations is its decoration. Far too often, especially in older reports, the shape features can’t be read from the photograph, or the colour of the clay is subjectively assigned. This fact is taken as a basic reason to approach the question of interconnectivity between sites or regions starting from the different decorative elements that have been used to embellish ceramics.
The timespan in focus is the 12th to 8th century BC, the areas under scrutiny are the Corinthia and the Argolid. Some major transformations take place during this period which starts with a century of a certain stability, continuing through a long phase of darkness into the beginning of the emergence of the Greek polis states. The two regions are only the launching pad for a study that is being conducted concerning the whole area of the Corinthian gulf during the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age. By mapping the different decorative elements in concordance to certain ceramic shapes it is tried to deduce spacial units whose interpretation is a matter of debate. Are they more than economic contact zones? Apart from this qualitative question, an answer to which is hard to find, it is hoped, at least, to declare periods of higher/lower connectivity between regions that might point to a more vivid picture of the Dark Ages than has been drawn so far.

"Reading connectivity on decorative grounds. A statistics-based approach to investigate interregional relations in early Iron Age Greece" (Fulltext)

 

8. Maria Trapichler (University of Vienna)

Black - Glaze Pottery: Regional Productions and Trade between Paestum and Velia from the 5th to the late 3rd c. BC
As the research of the last decades showed, a greater part of the black - glaze pottery found in Velia dating from the 5th BC onwards turned out to be imported from the neighbouring city of Paestum and another - still unidentified - production centre in the region, while the local Velinian production of black glaze ware never outreached a low degree of 10-15%.
In Velinian contexts of the 2nd half of the 5th c. BC the development of a new class of black glaze ware was observed, characterised by a specific typology deriving from attic prototypes. This class eventually dominates in Velinian contexts of the 4th c. BC, but is but rarely attested in Paestan contexts. By fabric analysis the production sites of this new class of black glaze pottery were identified to a minor degree in Velia, to a considerable part in Paestum and especially in another production centre, which by archaeometric analysis of fabrics and clays could up to now localised somewhere in the neighbourhood of these two cities.
In the 3rd cent. BC. in Velinian contexts a new class of black glaze pottery of obviously only regional distribution appears, again produced in several sites, located to a minor degree within the bay of Naples and again above all in Paestan workshops.
The paper will discuss the archaeological and archaeometric methods for the identification of these various production centres of black-glaze pottery and the role of Paestum as exporting production site in the region of Western Lucania.

"Black - Glaze Pottery: Regional Productions and Trade between Paestum and Velia from the 5th to the late 3rd c. BC" (Fulltext)