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Exports of Attic Protogeometric pottery and their identification by non-analytical means1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

R. W. V. Catling
R. W. V. Catling
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Abstract

This paper draws attention to the potential for recognizing exported Attic Protogeometric pottery by macroscopic characteristics of its fabric, whose salient features are described. The utility of these criteria are tested on a group of pottery from Asine in the Argolis whose Attic origin was not recognized in the original publication. A brief survey of the distribution of exported Attic Protogeometric pottery shows it to occur mainly in the southern Aegean, with notable concentrations at Lefkandi, Aigina, Asine and Knossos. A list of exports is appended to this survey.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 93 , November 1998 , pp. 365 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1998

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References

2 Kerameikos I, 51–2, 110. Kübler had little to add in publishing the later Geometric and Archaic pottery: Kerameikos VI:2, 143–4.

3 PGP 119; Hesp. 30 (1961), 156Google Scholar. The same neglect also applies to the study of Attic Geometric pottery. Note the very brief remarks in Young, R. S., Late Geometric Graves and a Seventh Century Well in the Agora (Hesp. Suppl. 2 1939), 195Google Scholar and Brann, E. T. H., The Athenian Agora VIII. Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery (Princeton, 1962), 29Google Scholar.

4 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.

5 Lefkandi, : Lefkandi I, 348–50Google Scholar; BSA 77 (1982), 233–4Google Scholar; Lefkandi III, pls 122–4; KNC 393–402.

6 Jones, R. E., Greek and Cypriot Pottery: A Review of Scientific Studies (Athens, 1986), 628–31Google Scholar; 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, 350Google Scholar) is shown by chemical analysis to fall within the Attic cluster. Autopsy shows it to contain the dark red grits diagnostic of Attic fabric.

7 Naxos: Lambrinoudakis, V. in Les Cyclades. Materiaux pour une étude de géographie historique (Paris, 1983) 166Google Scholar; Kourou, N. 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, 111Google Scholar and in Blondé, F. and Perrault, J. Y. (eds.), Les Ateliers de potiers dans le monde grec aux époques géométrique, archaïque et classique (BCH Suppl., 23: Paris, 1992), 131–3Google Scholar. For Asine see the following section.

8 Courbin gives an excellent account of the fabric of Argive EIA wares: CGA 181–7, 283–8, 454–61.

9 BSA 85 (1990), 37Google Scholar; Lefkandi II: 1, 86–7.

10 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.

11 Kraiker, (Kerameikos I, 51Google Scholar) 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.

12 Kraiker, (Kerameikos I, 51–2Google Scholar) noted their continued presence in Attic Geometric and Archaic pottery, excepting only the Middle Geometric phase.

13 ‘Neutron-Activation Study of Figurines, Pottery, and Workshop Materials from the Athenian Agora, Greece’, JFA 10 (1983), 55–69Google Scholar. The authors of this article pay no attention to the visual characteristics of the materials they analyse.

14 Asine II, 4:2, 61 suggests that nos. 258–9 might be imports; p. 36 on common ancestry, pp. 120–3 on Attic influences.

15 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.

16 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, 159Google Scholar 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), 38Google Scholar nos. 5–7, 43–4).

17 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.

18 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.

19 Asine II, 4:2, 137–48.

20 Ibid. 137–45.

21 Ibid. 137. No control groups were used for comparative purposes, further undermining the value of the results.

22 Ibid. 61.

23 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.

24 See my comments Ibid. 129–30; also Studia Troica, 8 (1998Google Scholar), forthcoming, concerning the PG amphoras circulating in central Greece and the northern Aegean, apparently used for the transport of bulk commodities.

25 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), 154–7Google Scholar no. 5, fig. 6.

26 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.

27 The evidence for this role is summarized by Popham, M. R. in Tsetskhladze, G. R. and De Angelis, F. (eds.), The Archaeology of Greek Colonization. Essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Monograph 40. Oxford, 1994), 11–34Google Scholar. While some of his assertions are open to criticism (cf. Papadopoulos, J. K. in OJA 15 (1996), 151–81, esp. 152–9Google Scholar), the concentration of luxury goods from the eastern Mediterranean at Lefkandi is rightly emphasized.

28 Coldstream (n. 23), p. 142, considers this possibility in the context of Attic MG exports to the eastern Mediterranean.

29 See Morris, S. P., The Black and White Style. Athens and Aigina in the Orientalizing Period (Yale Classical Monographs, 6: New Haven and London, 1984) 20–3Google Scholar.

30 For the nature and extent of Aiginetan commerce see Morris (n. 29) 92–103 and Figueira, T. J., Aegina. Society and Politics (Salem, NH, 1981) 230–86Google Scholar.

31 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.

32 Kraiker, Aigina 25 no. 24, pl. 1.

33 See Figueira (n. 30) 185 8. An early date for this association of cities has often been proposed; see Cook, R. M. in PCPhS, n.s. 8 (1962), 21Google Scholar; GGP 343; Snodgrass, A. M., The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh, 1971), 402Google Scholar.

34 Newly published finds suggest that the quantity of Euboian PG imports may previously have been underestimated: KNC II, 403; BSA 92 (1997), 235Google Scholar.

35 Except on Skyros, where it is the predominant ware: OJA 5 (1986), 323–37Google Scholar.

36 Lefkandi II:1, 88 no. 898.