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Excavations at Sparta: the Roman stoa, 1988–91 Preliminary report, Part 1: (c) Medieval pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

G. D. R. Sanders
G. D. R. Sanders*
Affiliation:
British School at Athens
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Abstract

Contexts recently excavated by the BSA in the Roman stoa at Sparta contain pottery dating from the 12th to early 14th centuries. The bulk of the material dates to the first half of the 13th cent., and demonstrates that certain styles of pottery decoration, once considered to be mainly 12th-cent. in date, continue in currency much longer. These contexts show that Champlevé (Morgan's ‘Incised ware’) decorated with animal motives in the tondo are companion pieces of Glaze Painted (Morgan's ‘Green and Brown Painted group V’) and late Slip Painted wares. The descriptively (but confusingly) named ‘Protogeometric’ style of plainware decoration is also one that remains in currency. Cooking-vessels are almost exclusively handmade, in a very coarse fabric evocative of so-called ‘Slavic’ pottery of the 7th cent., with which it may well be confused. Table amphoras (stamnia) and small pithoi are often decorated with a distinctive incised decoration, making handles and body sherds of this usually nondescript and conservative shape particularly identifiable and diagnostic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 88 , November 1993 , pp. 251 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1993

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Jan Verstraete for his valuable assistance and both Hector and Elizabeth Catling for their hospitality during the period when this material was studied, in June 1992. Without them it would not have been possible to examine, select, mend, catalogue, and photograph so many contexts, only a small portion of which appear in this preliminary report. I am also grateful to Mr C. K. Williams II for his generous permission to examine and refer to unpublished Corinth contexts which have been instrumental in dating the Sparta pottery, and for lengthy discussions during which we have debated the significance and phasing of the 12th to 14th centuries at Corinth. The fact that it is possible to date any medieval pottery in southern Greece is largely due to his careful excavation of the upper levels in his excavations over the years, his preliminary reports, and his encouragement of those who take an interest in Corinth as a major medieval site. Dr Nancy Boukides has helped this process by facilitating access to context material, especially through the arduous task of describing old contexts from old excavations. Thanks are also due to Jan Motyka Sanders for loaning her editing skills, Elektra (3) for her last-minute additions to the finished drawings, Isabel for her patience and sympathy, and Pamela Armstrong for her solid counsel.

Works frequently cited are abbreviated as follows:

Armstrong = P. Armstrong, ‘Lakonian amphorae’, in Déroche and Spieser (below), 267–76

Dawkins and Droop = R. M. Dawkins and J. P. Droop, ‘Byzantine pottery from Sparta’, BSA 17 (1910–1911), 23–8

Déroche and Spieser = P. Déroche and J.-M. Spieser (eds), Recherches sur la céramique byzantine (BCH supp. 18; 1989)

Günsenin = N. Günsenin, ‘Recherches sur les amphores byzantines dans les musées turcs’, in Déroche and Spieser (above), 267–76

MacKay = T. S. MacKay, ‘More byzantine and Frankish pottery from Corinth’, Hesp. 6 (1967), 249–320

Morgan = C. H. Morgan, Corinth, xi: The Byzantine Pottery (1942)

Sanders, HS = G. D. R. Sanders and J. M. Sanders, ‘The medieval pottery and small finds’, in W. D. Taylour and R. Jancko (eds), Excavations at Hagios Stephanos in 1973, 1974, and 1977 (BSA supp. vol.; forthcoming)

Sanders, ‘Three churches’ = G. D. R. Sanders, ‘Three Peloponnesian churches and their importance for the chronology of late 13th- and early 14th-century pottery in the eastern Mediterranean’, in Déroche and Spieser (above), pp. 189–99

Sanders, Hesperia = G. D. R. Sanders, ‘An assemblage of Frankish pottery at Corinth’, Hesp. 56 (1987), 159–95

Williams = C. K. Williams, ‘Corinth 1977, Forum south-west’, Hesp. 47 (1978), 1–393

References

2 Rice, D. T., Byzantine Glazed Pottery (Oxford, 1930), ix.Google Scholar

3 Dawkins and Droop, 23–8. This material was published over eighty years ago and presented by decorational style the glazed and occasional unglazed pieces of the 12th and 13th cent. without reference to context. It was nonetheless an important early milestone in the history of byzantine archaeology. Much of the material discussed is on display in Mistra Museum.

4 Sanders, HS.

5 Armstrong, 267–76.

6 Efforts to create even a rudimentary form of systematic fabric description for byzantine pottery are rare, a notable exception being Armstrong, P., ‘Some byzantine and later settlements in eastern Phokis’, BSA 84 (1989), 1–47.Google Scholar

7 I am particularly grateful to Dr S. J. Vaughan for her advice on fabric description during our numerous conversations on the subject, and for lending me charts and standards collected for the appendices of her unpublished doctoral thesis, A Fabric Analysis of Late Cypriot Base Ring Ware (University College London, n.d.). I have also benefited greatly from the counsel of Dr I. K. Whitbread, Dr P. Day, and Mr J. Mitchell on the subject. The descriptions are based on standards used by ceramic petrologists in general, a bibliography of which can be found in Bullock, P. et al. , Handbook for Soil Thin Section Description (Wolverhampton, 1985), 20–38.Google Scholar For practical attempts at standardization see Robinson, A. M., ‘Three approaches to the problem of fabric descriptions’, Medieval Ceramics, 3 (1979), 3–35 Google Scholar; Peacock, D. P. S., ‘Ceramics in Roman and medieval archaeology’, in Peacock, D. P. S. (ed.), Pottery and Early Commerce (London, 1977), 21–33.Google Scholar

8 Munsell Soil Colour Charts (Baltimore, 1975); CEC Shade Guide (n.d.). The CEC charts are in many respects superior, because thay are intended ‘for the practical identification of the colours and shades of fired clay materials used in the in the pottery industry’, whereas the Munsell charts are intended for soil colours. The CEC charts are inexpensive and are available from the Fédération Européenne des Fabricants de Carreaux Céramiques (Société Anonyme Fiduciaire Suisse), St Jakobs-Strasse 25, Basle, Switzerland. The range of colours is particularly useful, more so than Munsell, for some areas.

9 Moh's and Wentworth scales can be found in most basic geology textbooks.

10 Hodgson, J. M. (ed.), Soil Survey Field Handbook (Soil Survey Technical Monographs, 5; 1974)Google Scholar; shape of particles as defined by Pettijohn, F. J., Sedimentary Rocks (1975), table 3.9.Google Scholar

11 Sanders, HS no. 10.

12 The type also occurs at Agios Stephanos (see Sanders, HS no. 53) and at Corinth (see Morgan, no. 944 and C-63–546a). Morgan, 113–14, dates the Corinth pieces by context no later than the 14th cent. Examples built into the vaults of an addition to Montalcino town hall are dated to the first half of the 14th cent., perhaps as early as 1300; see Blake, H., ‘The archaic Maiolica of north-central Italy: Montalcino, Assisi and Tolentino’, Faenza, 66 (1980), 92–3, figs. 2–5.Google Scholar

13 Sanders, , Hesperia, nos. 4–7, 12–18 Google Scholar; Sanders, ‘Three churches’, 189–94; Williams, C. K. and Zervos, O. H., ‘Corinth, 1990: south-east corner of temenos E’, Hesp. 60 (1991), 1–58 Google Scholar, nos. 24–8; MacKay, nos. 11–16.

14 For Zeuxippus ware see Megaw, A. H. S., ‘Zeuxippus ware’, BSA 63 (1968), 67–88 Google Scholar; id., ‘Zeuxippus ware again’, in Déroche and Spieser, 259–66. For derivatives, in addition to articles cited above, see Pringle, D., ‘Thirteenth-century pottery from the monastery of St Mary of Carmel’, Levant, 16 (1984), 91–111, nos. 58–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Megaw, A. H. S. and Jones, R. E., ‘Byzantine and allied pottery: a contribution by chemical analysis to problems of origin and distribution’, BSA 78 (1983), 240–2.Google Scholar For N. Italian varieties of Late Sgraffito see Gelichi, S., ‘La ceramica ingubbiata medioevale nell' Italia nordorientale’, in La ceramica medioevale nel Mediterraneo occidentale (Firenze, 1986), 353–407.Google Scholar Glossy ware, characterized by MacKay, 252–4, was found in late 13th-cent. contexts with Brindisi ware (Grid Iron Proto-Maiolica), but Megaw (‘Zeuxippus ware’, 83) classed these Glossy ware finds as Zeuxippus Class I b, suggesting that they were ‘not necessarily of that date’, i.e. that they were survivors in the late Corinthian contexts. He cites parallels built into the walls of the late 12th-cent. church of Merbeke in the Argolid. Sanders, ‘Three churches’, 189–94, observes that nearly all the pottery, mainly Brindisi ware, built into the Merbeke church can be assigned to the last decades of the 13th cent, and may well date the church itself to the years when William of Merbeke was bishop of Corinth (1277–86).

15 Armstrong, P., ‘Zeuxippus derivative bowls from Sparta’, in Sanders, J. M. (ed.), Φιλολάκων: Lakonian Studies in Honour of Hector Catling (Oxford, 1992), 1–9 Google Scholar, presents twenty-nine fragments from the early BSA excavations at Sparta. Other similar pieces in the museum may well come from the same source, but are unfortunately not marked.

16 Sanders, , Hesperia, 163–6Google Scholar; MacKay, 264, nos. 29–30, pl. 63; Morgan, 61–2, nos. 282–4, 286–92, fig. 44 a–d.

17 Sanders, ‘Three churches’, 195–6.

18 Morgan, nos. 80–3; Williams, pl. 6.

19 Early Green and Brown Painted ware uses glaze which tends to bleed into the thick, lustrous overglaze (Morgan 72–5); mainstream 12th-cent. styles use a matt brown pigment (manganese?) which does not bleed (ibid. 75–80).

20 Williams, C. K. and Zervos, O. H., ‘Corinth, 1987: temple E and east of theatre’, Hesp. 57 (1988), 103, no. 10, pl. 34Google Scholar; Morgan, 81, pl. 24 c, no. 545.

21 Morgan, 81–2, nos. 508–21.

22 Williams, 34, pl. 6. Five of the six vessels found in the pit are illustrated. For the identification of Latin Imitative coinage, see Hendy, M. F., Coinage and Money in the Byzantine Empire, 1081–1261 (Glückstadt, 1969).Google Scholar

23 Williams, C. K., ‘Corinth 1976: Forum south-west’, Hesp. 46 (1977). 67 n. 32Google Scholar; fig. 7; pl. 32, nos. 43–4.

24 A number of as yet unpublished contexts with early to mid-13th-cent. coins at Corinth, excavated since 1976, confirm this chronology.

25 Morgan, pls 49–51, Incised Sgraffito.

26 Morgan, pl. 52.

27 Morgan, 166.

28 Megaw, A. H. S., ‘An early thirteenth-century Aegean glazed ware’, in Robertson, G. and Henderson, G. (eds), Studies in Memory of David Talbot Rice (Edinburgh, 1975), 34–45 Google Scholar, esp. p. 39 and pl. 17. 3 for the Cherson plate; Armstrong, P., ‘A group of byzantine bowls from Skopelos’, OJA 10 (1991), 335–47.Google Scholar

29 Morgan, 101, figs. 79–80, nos. 775–9.

30 MacKay, 261–2.

31 See Megaw (n. 28), 42–3, for the suggestion that the ‘originals’ were widely imitated, e.g. in Athens.

32 e.g. Morgan, fig. 68 l, no. 680.

33 For other examples from Sparta, see Dawkins and Droop, 27, Class V, nos. 52–60, pl. 17; Morgan, 90–5, nos. 640–702, pls. 27–8, figs. 68–70, for the Corinth pieces. Lazzarini, L. and Canal, E., ‘Ritrovamenti di ceramica bizantina in laguna e la nascita del graffito veneziano’, Faenza, 49 (1983), 19–58 Google Scholar, table 2, and Candiani, G. et al. , ‘Un bacino graffito a Padova’, Archeologia Veneta, 3 (1980), 159–62, fig. 1Google Scholar, present Measles ware from near Venice and at Padua respectively.

34 There are no exact parallels, but the closest is a Free Style Incised Sgraffito bowl: Morgan, fig. 128 g, no. 1594. For a bowl with similar decoration in a group from Thebes, dating to the third to fourth quarter of the 12th cent., see A. Delt. 41 (1986), Chr. 28–9, pl. 52 c.

35 Sanders, HS, fabric 2, nos. 36, 69–70.

36 Armstrong, figs. 1–2, illustrates examples from the Sparta survey. For the Magoula stamnia, I am grateful to Olga Vassi for showing me drawings and photographs (see now pp. 287–93 below). Pikoulas, G. A., Η νότια Μεγαλοπολιτική χώρα (Athens, 1988)Google Scholar, figs. 61, 98, 116, shows stamnia from sites SE of Megalopolis.

37 Although there is no ‘Protogeometric’ presented by M. Piérart and Thalmann, J.-P., ‘Céramique romaine et médiévale’, Etudes argiennes (BCH supp. 6; 1980), 459–93Google Scholar, Ms A. Oikonomou, formerly of the 5th Byzantine Ephoreia (Sparta), states that the ware is common enough there for her to consider it to be locally manufactured. Coleman, J. E., Excavations at Pylos in Elis (Hesp. supp. 21; 1986), 147–9, pl. 53Google Scholar, illustrates a spouted jug and suggests that MacKay's date range is conservative and that the style continued into the 13th cent. Dawkins and Droop, 28, refer to pieces then in Tegea Museum as parallels for their Sparta finds. Sanders, HS no. 101 is one of four fragments probably from the same vessel, and MacKay, 285–7, nos. 85–91, pl. 68, illustrates a number of examples from Corinth.

38 Rosser, J., ‘The pottery’, in MacDonald, W. A., Coulson, W. D. E., and Rosser, J. (eds), Excavations at Nichoria in South-west Greece, iii: Dark Age and Byzantine Occupation (Minneapolis, 1983), 378–97Google Scholar; Coldstream, J. N. and Huxley, G. L. (eds), Kythera: Excavations and Studies (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Pallas, D. I., ‘Ο ἍγιΟς ὈνΟύφριΟς Μεθώνης’, Arch. Eph. 1968 [1969], 119–76.Google Scholar

39 Piérart and Thalmann (n. 37), esp. no. D 5; MacKay, no. 116.

40 See J. Rosser (n. 38), nos. p 1680 to 1689, for Spongy ware fragments.

41 Piérart and Thalmann (n. 30), no. B 42, fig. 9, and cf. p. 470.

42 Etzeoglou, E., ‘La céramique de Karyoupolis’, in Déroche and Spieser, 151–6.Google Scholar

43 See Sanders, ‘Three churches’, fig. 5, and Sanders, HS nos. 17 and 73, for two almost complete examples from Agios Stephanos; see n. 26 for reference to the Mistra pieces.

44 For the idea that these were limited to the 14th cent. see Sanders, ‘Three churches’, 198–9 and n. 28. Earlier examples of the type clearly exist. Williams and Zervos (n. 20), no. 19 is an example probably dating from the third quarter of the 13th cent. They have also been found in Athens (see Shear, T. L., jun., ‘The Athenian Agora: excavations of 1980–1982’, Hesp. 53 (1984), 1–57 Google Scholar, pl. 16 d, no. P 31266) and off the Yugoslav coast (see Brusić, Z., ‘Byzantine amphorae (9th to 12th cent.) from eastern Adriatic underwater sites’, Archaeologia Iugoslavica, 17 (1976), 37–49 Google Scholar, pls. 5. 3, 6. 4, 10. 6, 11. 3. No sooner had ‘Three churches’ appeared in print than Mr C. K. Williams at the Corinth excavations produced a 12th-cent. antecedent from a back-filled robbing trench. This piece remains to be published.

45 Günsenin, 271–4, figs. 8–10; Hayes, J. W., Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul, ii: The Pottery (Princeton, 1992), 76, fig. 26. 10.Google Scholar

46 Günsenin, 271–4; see fig. 1 for their distribution in Asia Minor.

47 Corinth: C-37–2007. Athens: p 10735. Kea: Cherry, J. F. et al. , Landscape Archaeology as Long Term History (Los Angeles, 1992), 354, fig. 18. 2, 5Google Scholar. Their suggestions that they may have been produced in Attica or Boeotia, and that they were used as beehives, are both implausible. I saw a barnacle-encrusted rim and handle on the site at Agia Irini. Melos: I have been shown a complete fractional from the bay in Melos Museum. Other examples on Melos were reasonably common on sites investigated by R. W. V. Catling and myself during the Melos survey in 1989. For the other Greek sites on which they appear see Hayes (n. 45), 76.

48 Megaw, A. H. S., ‘Supplementary excavations on a castle site at Paphos, Cyprus (1970–1971)’, DOP 26 (1972), 322–43, fig. 27.Google Scholar

49 Günsenin, fig. 1; Hayes (n. 45), 76.