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Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery from a site in Boeotia: a case study example of Post-Classical archaeology in Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Joanita Vroom
Joanita Vroom
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Durham
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Abstract

The study of Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery in Greece has been much neglected until quite recently. Only in the last decade or so has interest in the historical and cultural information presented by the remains and artefacts of these periods grown. In the Cambridge-Durham Boeotia Project, based on intensive field survey, much attention has been paid to deserted village sites of the Post-Roman era. In this article a selection of the Medieval and Post-Medieval surface pottery samples at one Boeotian site will be described and discussed. The ceramic data from the field survey are combined with and interpreted in the light of information obtained from Ottoman tax registers and other written sources. Also an attempt is made to explore the possibilities of formulating conjectures about the change in pottery function during the period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.

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Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 93 , November 1998 , pp. 513 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1998

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References

1 The Boeotia Project is a joint venture of the universities of Durham and Cambridge. Since 1978 survey work has been carried out in Southwestern and Northern Boeotia under the direction of Dr J. L. Bintliff and Professor A. Snodgrass. First and foremost, I should like to thank them (and especially John Bintliff) for inviting me to study and publish the medieval and post-medieval pottery sampled during the survey. I am also indebted to the Ephor of Boeotia, Dr V. Aravantinos, and to the staff of the Thebes Museum for their help in facilitating my work and generously offering me hospitality. Dr C. K. Williams II, Dr G. D. R. Sanders, Dr J. Jordan, and the staff of both the Agora and the Corinth collection deserve thanks for their help and co-operation in showing me material from the American excavations in Corinth and Athens. Furthermore, I should like to thank Dr J. W. Hayes, Dr P. Lock, and Dr H. C. M. Kiel for their expertise and valuable suggestions. My research is supported financially by the Leverhulme Foundation. The drawings are my own, with the help of some students of Durham University (D. Chamberlain, S. Fuller, E. Sigalos, and A. Vionis), and were inked by Y. Beadnell. All are gratefully thanked. Works frequently cited are abbreviated as follows:

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2 A study of the 7 m high medieval tower in the Valley of the Muses has been undertaken by Dr P. Lock. The tower, measuring 8.70 × 5.3 m, was considered by him to be medieval, ‘though unique features in its architecture point to a possible Turkish structure’. See Lock, P., ‘The Frankish towers of Central Greece’, BSA 81 (1986), 118, no. 13Google Scholar Palaiopirgos; id., ‘The Medieval towers of Greece: a problem in chronology and function’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 4.1 (1989), 134. These ‘unique’ features, e.g. a built fireplace, are according to J. L. Bintliff more likely to reflect the fact that the VM4 tower is the highest and most exposed of the medieval towers studied in Boeotia than a chronological distinction.

3 The designation ‘medieval’ is, like most chronological terms, problematic in itself. The term is, however, certainly to be preferred to the term ‘Byzantine’, if only to put this chronology relating to the Greek world more clearly in a wider European context. In this paper I use the conventional chronological terms ‘Early Byzantine’ and ‘Middle Byzantine’ only as descriptions of a cultural nature relating to the period c.7th 12th cents. In respect of the term ‘Frankish’ I have in mind the period of Frankish and Catalan domination in Central Greece (c.AD 1204–1500), thus avoiding the somewhat dubious term ‘Late Byzantine’ (a term not free of unhistorical connotations). Cf. Lock, P. and Sanders's, G. D. R. preface in The Archaeology of Medieval Greece (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar. A discussion of the terms ‘Frank’ and ‘Frankish’ and of the related problems in using this kind of terminology is given by Lock, P.. The Franks in the Aegean, 1204–1500 (London, 1995), 89 and 271Google Scholar. ‘Post-medieval’ is used here as a general designation for the period of Ottoman rule and the Early Modern era in Greece (i.e. 16th–19th cents.). In this catalogue ‘Turkish’, following the practice of J. W. Hayes, refers to Ottoman pottery from c. late 15th to early 17th cents, (when VM4 was deserted).

4 The pottery was collected in 1982 and 1984. After examination, recording, and preliminary dating, the sherds were added to the Boeotian corpus of material (now kept at the Thespies Museum). Provisional dating was provided by J. W. Hayes, indicated here as JWH.

5 Cf. Th. Stillwell MacKay. ‘A group of Renaissance pottery from Heraklion, Crete: notes and questions’, in Lock and Sanders (n. 3), 127, who rightly states that ‘little is known about the pottery used in Greece from the mid-14th through the 16th century’.

6 Gillings, M. and Sbonias, K., ‘Regional survey and GIS: the Boeotia Project’, in Barker, G. (ed.). Methodological Issues in Mediterranean Landscape Archaeology: Geographical Information Systems (Oxford, in press)Google Scholar; J. L. Bintliff and A. Snodgrass (eds), The Gazetteer of Archaeological Sites in the Valley of the Muses (forthcoming).

7 According to J. W. Hayes, of the 1,000 or so fragments of medieval pottery sampled at VM4, not one piece suggests Early or Middle Byzantine occupation, but several point to the 13th cent. The current model proposed by J. L. Bintliff is that the Byzantine villagers on the ancient site of Askra were forced by an incoming Frankish feudal lord, after 1204 AD, to move their village location to the hillsiope below his new towerresidence built on a steep crag overlooking their former home.

8 The registers from the Ottoman imperial archives have been studied and translated by Dr H. C. M. Kiel.

9 The Ottoman village population maps have been published by Bintliff, J. L., ‘The archaeological survey of the Valley of the Muses’, in Hurst, A. and Schachter, A. (eds), La Montagne des Muses (Geneva, 1996), 193–210, figs. 10–14Google Scholar, and also by id., ‘The two transitions: current research on the origins of the traditional village in Central Greece’, in J. L. Bintliff and H. Hamerow (eds), Europe between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (BAR. Int. Sen 617; Oxford, 1995), 111–30, figs. 9–13. A shorter version of the latter has now appeared in the Proceedings of the last Boeotian conference in Livadhia under the same title: Christopoulou, A. (ed.), Επετηρίς της εταιρείας Βοιωτικών μελετών: Β διεθνές συνέδριο Βοιωτικών μελετών (Athens, 1995), 605–14Google Scholar.

10 See Kiel, M., ‘The rise and decline of Turkish Boeotia, 15th-19th century (Remarks on the settlement pattern, demography and agricultural production according to unpublished Ottoman-Turkish census and taxation records)’, in Bintliff, J. L. (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece (BAR. Int. Sen 666; Oxford, 1997), 327–8 and table 3Google Scholar.

11 Kiel, M. assumes in ‘Population growth and food production in 16th century Athens and Attica according to the Ottoman tahrir defters’, in Bacqué-Grammont, J.-L. and van Donzel, E., Comité international d'études pré-ottomanes et ottomanes (Istanbul, Paris, and Leiden, 1987), 118Google Scholar, that the Albanians hardly engaged in wine, olive, or textile production.

12 Wheler, G., A Journey into Greece (London, 1682), 476Google Scholar. While passing through the area in 1676 Spon and Wheler noted at Panagia: ‘an old Ruined Tower with the remains of a Town about it, seated upon a high point of A Rock, part of some Hill, called now only “Panagia” …’

13 Abbreviations used for measurements: H. height; D. diameter; Th. thickness; p. preserved; est. estimated.

14 Wentworth scale of sediments and Moh's scale of minerals can be found in a number of geological textbooks. Here the following categories are used: Hardness: ‘soft’ = fingernail scratches easily; ‘moderately soft’ = fingernail scratches; ‘fairly hard’ = penknife scratches; ‘hard’ = penknife just scratches; ‘very hard’ = penknife will not scratch. The term ‘inclusions’ indicate temper naturally found in the clay and temper deliberately added to the clay. Frequency: ‘few’ = density below 2%; ‘some’ = density between 2% and 5%; ‘many’ = density between 5% and 10%; ‘very many’ = density above 10%. Size (distinguishable with naked eye): ‘line’ = less than 1 mm; ‘medium’ = 1 mm–2 mm; ‘’coarse’ = 2 mm–5 mm; ‘very coarse’ = above 5 mm.

15 Pantone Color Formula Guide 747 X× R (Moonachie, NJ, 1989).

16 Academic and Specialist Publications: Preparing your Illustrations for Publication (London, n.d.), n.

17 Earthenware (Italian: terracotta) are vessels made of baked earth or clay, being low-fired (about 900–1000°C) and porous.

18 According to Megaw, A. H. S. in the introduction of ‘Byzantine pottery’, in Charleston, R. J. (ed.), World Ceramics (London, 1968)Google Scholar, the use of a lead oxide, sprinkled in powder form on the surface of the clay, is one of the simplest ways of obtaining a shine on pottery, the lead requiring only a low temperature (about 800°C) to form a thin layer of glass. Unfortunately, this soft-fired lead glaze can also be dangerous to the user, since some of the lead can easily be dissolved by organic acids in wine, fruit juices, vinegar, or milk. Fire-conditions at about 1050°C, though, reduce the risk of lead poisoning. See also for the dangers of lead poisoning, Caiger-Smith, A., Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World (London, 1973), 221–2Google Scholar.

19 The term ‘sgraffito’ was used for the first time in a treatise on pottery techniques in 16th-cent. Italy by Cipriano Piccolpasso of Castel Durante, I tre libri dell'arte del vasaio, written around 1557. The manuscript, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, is translated and with an introduction by Lightbown, R. and Caiger-Smith, A., The Three Books of the Potter's Art (London, 1980)Google Scholar.

20 A lead glaze may be easily coloured by the addition of other metal oxides, usually copper to produce a green colour and iron for a yellow-brown tone.

21 The use of tripod stilts (or earthenware supports) is to separate glazed vessels from sticking together in the kiln, when fired. The technique may have been introduced from the Middle East, but was becoming common from the end of the 13th-cent. onwards. A thicker vitreous glaze seems to accompany the use of these stilts.

22 This class of incised ware was first identified by A. H. S. Megaw at Saranda Kolones on Cyprus and defined as ‘Aegean Ware’. See Megaw, , ‘An early thirteenth-century Aegean glazed ware’, in Robertson, G. and Henderson, G. (eds), Studies in Memory of David Talbot Rice (Edinburgh, 1975), 34–45Google Scholar. Other designations of this ware have also been proposed: apart from ‘Champlevé Ware’ (which I will prefer here), one can encounter the terms ‘Incised Ware’ and ‘Coarse Incised Ware’.

23 See Fehérvári, G., ‘The lands of Islam’, in Charleston, R. J. (ed.), World Ceramics (London, 1968), 227 and fig. 219Google Scholar.

24 See for this Champlevé Ware/Aegean Ware in general, Morgan, 162–6; Stevenson, R. B. K., ‘The pottery 1936–7’, in The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors: First Report (Oxford, 1947), 54Google Scholar, pl. 20.8; Jakobson, A. L., Keramika i keramicheskoe proizvodstvo srednevekovozoi Tavriki (Leningrad, 1959)Google Scholar, figs. 80–2; Bakirtzis, C. and Papanikola-Bakirtzis, D., ‘De la céramique byzantine en glacure à Thessalonique’, Byzantino-bulgarica, 7 (1981), 426Google Scholar, figs. 8–10; Armstrong, P., ‘Some Byzantine and later settlements in Eastern Phokis’, BSA 84 (1989), 45–6Google Scholar, and id., ‘A group of Byzantine bowls from Skopelos’, OJA 10 (1991), 335–47; Hayes, 48; Sanders, G. D. R., ‘Excavations at Sparta: the Roman stoa, 1988–91. Preliminary report, part 1, c: Medieval pottery’, BSA 88 (1993), 260–1Google Scholar and Spieser, J.-M., Die byzantinische Keramik aus der Stadtgrabung von Pergamon (Berlin and New York, 1996), 52, nos. 575–7Google Scholar.

25 Cf. Yenişehirlioglu, ‘La céramique glaçurée de Gülpinar’, in Déroche and Spieser, 303–15, fig. 10 and fig. 3 (D 30) and Spieser 1991, ‘La céramique byzantine médiévale’, in Kravari, V., Lefort, J., and Morrisson, C. (eds), Hommes et richesses dans l'Empire byzantine, ii: VIIIe–XVe siècle (Paris, 1991)Google Scholar, pl. XIIa.

26 ‘Zeuxippus Ware’ is a type of red-bodied 13th-cent. sgraffito ware of high quality found in various sites from the Black Sea to Cyprus. It was first identified during excavations of the Baths of Zeuxippus in Constantinople in 1927, where it was described as ‘Shiny Olive Incised Ware’ by D. Talbot Rice in Report of the British Academy Archaeological Expedition to Constantinople (1928), 34. The term Zeuxippus Ware was proposed by Megaw 1968, who classified four variations within this fine, thinly potted ware. This class is distinguished from other medieval ware principally by the quality of the firing and the glaze. The characteristic shape is a deep bowl with either a low or a high ring foot. The possibility of ‘local derivatives’ was suggested by Megaw in 1971 as the theory of Zeuxippus Ware as a ‘single ware’ began to fall down, followed by Pringle during excavations at a site near Haifa, Israel. See A. H. S. Megaw, ‘Excavations at Saranda Kolones, Paphos’, RDAC (1971); 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), 240–2Google Scholar and Pringle, D., ‘Thirteenth-century pottery from the Monastery of St. Mary of Carmel’, Levant, 16 (1984), 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The best overview of finds of these wares in the Mediterranean area is given by François, V., La céramique byzantine à Thasos: Études Thasiennes xvi (Athens, 1995), 377–9Google Scholar, pl. 23.

27 Sanders (n. 24), 257.

28 A recent Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) also gave some examples of a Cypriote origin. Cf. Boas, A. J., ‘The import of Western ceramics to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Israel Exploration Journal, 44 (1994), 102–22Google Scholar.

29 Armstrong describes this fragment as a mid-13th-cent. Zeuxippus Derivative, but this dating seems doubtful. See comments on no. 1.5 in this catalogue.

30 Italian varieties of Late Sgraffito, made in the Veneto, get imported to Greece in the late 13th cent. Small bowls with flat bases (cf. no. 1.6) suggest a graffita arcaica padana origin. This last suggestion was supported by Professor S. Gelichi (pers. comm., April 1996).

31 Cf. A. Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou, ‘Céramique d'offrande trouvée dans des tombes byzantines tardives de l'hippodrome de Thessalonique’, in Déroche and Spieser, fig. 37, no. 131 for this last suggestion.

32 Also other fragments of industrial production and many ile-wasters were found, just as some sherds of a finer, reduced fabric which could be wasters.

33 Wet-smoothing during the final stage of pottery production often left a thin self-slip or ‘wash’ on the outside, which differs from the thick white slip on the inside. This latter slip (also called engobe) is used by potters to disguise the body of the vessel or as surface decoration. See also Hayes, 31, for the use of the term ‘wash’. On some fragments in this catalogue the wash on the outside may have been lightly polished, because these sherds have a glossy appearance.

34 C. K. Williams II, pers. comm., August 1996.

35 Cf. in general for the shape Saccardo, F., ‘Contesti medievali nella laguna e prime produzioni graffite veneziane’, in Gelichi, S. (ed.), La ceramica nel mondo bizantino tra XIe XV secolo e i suoi rapporti con l'Italia (Florence, 1993)Google Scholar, fig. 3. no. 4.

36 C. K. Williams II, pers. comm., August 1996. See also Bertacchi, L., Ceramiche dal XIV al XIX secolo dagli scavi archeologici di Aquilea (Aquilea, 1977), 49Google Scholar, no. 102 for three similar-looking examples from the Veneto, dated in the 16th cent.

37 Lead glazes need to be fired in an oxidizing atmosphere between 840 and 1190°C otherwise they become black. Xyngopoulos, 288 n. 7, also explains that the hues of the brown and black colours are dependent upon those of the glaze and of the colour of the clay. Yellow glaze when fired, without an underlying slip, directly over the clay forms a brown or russet colour by chemical change. Green glaze becomes black.

38 In general Morgan, 95–103.

39 Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou, 14–15, fig. 20.

40 See in general Kyriazopoulos, V.,Ελληνικά παραδοσιακά κεραμεικά (Athens, 1984)Google Scholar and Korre-Zographou, K., Τα Τα κεραμεικά του Ελληνιλού χώρου (Athens, 1995)Google Scholar.

41 Cf. Morgan, pls 31–2.

42 C. K. Williams II, pers. comm., August 1996.

43 See Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou, fig. 20 and K.E. Tsouri, ‘Γιαννιώτικη κεραμεική του τέλους του 18ου αιώνα’, Epeirotika Chronika, 24 (1982), pls 77b, 80b and 81a, though I have not seen the fabric and glaze of these wares from Arta and Ioannina yet.

44 Cf. in general Stephan, H.-G., Die bemalte Irdenware der Renaissance in Mitteleuropa: Ausstrahlungen und Verbindungen der Produktionszentren im gesamteuropäischen Rahmen (Munich, 1987)Google Scholar and, in particular, some 17th-cent. slip-painted dishes from south-west Slovakia in fig. 58.

45 This was a potter's tool in the form of a hollow cow's horn with a strong reed in the open end, which served as a fountain pen, releasing the slip in suitable doses for drawing the design. Cf. Stephan (n. 44), fig. 1, for a 17th-cent. example from Werra. According to François (n. 25), 17–18, this technique was already used in medieval Thasos (Thracia) and Romania.

46 Megaw 1968, 105–6.

47 The term ‘Brown and Green Sgraffito Ware’ was first defined by A. H. S. Megaw in his 1937–9 article about finds from Nicosia. Subsequently most archaeologists working with medieval pottery found in the Aegean used the term for this type of polychrome sgraffito ware. See, for recent publications, François (n. 25), 83, class VI; Papanikola-Bakirtzis, D.,Μεσαιωνική Κυπριακή κεραμεική στο μουσείο του Ιδρύματος Πιερίδη (Larnaca, 1989)Google Scholar and id., Μεσαιωνική εφυαλωμένη κεραμεική της Κύπρου: Τα εργαστηήρια Πάφου και Λαπίθου (Thessalonilu, 1996). The latter also uses the term ‘Coloured Sgraffito Ware’ in Papanikola-Bakirtzis, D., Maguire, E. Dauterman, and Maguire, H., Ceramic Art from Byzantine Serres (Urbana and Chicago, 1992)Google Scholar.

48 e.g. Papanikola-Bakirtzis 1989 (n. 47), 33.

49 Cf. Zbona-Trkman, B., Grajska Zapuscina. Katalog ob razstavi keramike in stekla 14–17. stol (Nova Goriza, 1991)Google Scholar for Slovenian counterparts.

50 Papanikola-Bakirtzis 1989 (n. 47), 41.

51 For Thessaly: Gourgiotis, G. K., ‘Οψιμη βυζατινή κεραμεική: ρυθμός sgraffiti’, Archaiologia, 12 (1984), 68–71Google Scholar and id., ‘Βυζαντινά πινάκια διακοσμητικά εσωτερικού χώρου’, Archaiologia, 33 (1989), 56–7Google Scholar. For 16th-cent. Thessaloniki: Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou (n. 31), group 10, figs. 54–7.

52 See for Bulgaria, Kuzev, A., ‘Brennöfen für Glasurkeramik aus dem 17. Jahrhundert in Varna’, Bulletin du Musée National de Varna, 12 (1976), 131–6 (in Bulgarian with German summary)Google Scholar; id., ‘Keramikbrennöfen aus dem 17.–18. J. in zwei Dörfern’, Bulletin du Musée National de Varna, 19 (1983), 29–33 (in Bulgarian with German summary)Google Scholar; and for Epirus, Korre-Zographou (n. 40), figs. 152, 167–70, 180 and 202.

53 Cf. François, V., ‘La céramique à glaçure a Malia: Productions médiévales italiennes et productions ottomanes’, BCH 118 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fig. 2. In this publication Francois wrongly connects Sgraffito material from Crete with ceramics fromBologna, but, according to S. Gelichi, Bologna had at that time no pottery exports at all (pers. comm., April 1996).

54 Cf. Armstrong 1989 (n. 24), pl. 8, nos. 39–55 and especially no. 52 (Post-Byzantine brown and green sgraffitoespecially no. 52 (Post-Byzantine brown and green sgraffito ware). See also Makropoulou, 18, no. 51, fig. 27 (16th c.) and Charitonidou, A., ‘Μορφές μεταβυζαντινής κεραμεικής: Αθηναϊκά εργαστήρια’, Archaiologia, 4 (1982), 60–4Google Scholar, figs. 1–7 (who dates these vessels even as late as 1650–1750).

55 See in particular Gourgiotis' articles (n. 51) for this kind of incised aniconic decoration, dated I5th–16th cents.

56 C. K. Williams II, pers. comm., August 1996. The sgraffito decoration of this fragment is similar to Waagé, F.O., ‘The Roman and Byzantine Pottery’, Hesp. 2 (1933), 318–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fig. 14, no. B (Turkish sgraffito from Athenian Agora), influenced by 17th-cent. designs from Argenta in the Po Valley? Cf. for the last suggestion Gelichi, S. (ed.), La produzione ceramica in Argenta nel XVII secolo (Florence, 1992)Google Scholar, fig. 5.

57 The word ‘sgraffiato’ was introduced by the Victorian scholar Robinson, J. C. in his Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance and More Modern Periods, on Loan at the South Kensington Museum (London, 1863)Google Scholar and is afterwards also used by Rackham, B. in his Catalogue of Italian Maiolica (London, 1977), 423–52Google Scholar. In modern Italian books sgraffito decoration on pottery is generally described as a stecco.

58 See for the use of this last term Liverani, G., ‘Renaissance pottery: Italy’, in Charleston, R. J. (ed.), World Ceramics (London, 1968), 116Google Scholar.

59 The opaque glazes of maiolica contain similar amounts of lead and tin oxides, crushed sand and potassium (the main component of the wine lees used by maiolica potters). Cf. Caiger-Smith (n. 18), 219–20 for some of these old glaze recipes. The lead-tin glaze mixture will be described in this catalogue as a ‘ground’.

60 B.Rackham, Italian Maiolica (London, 1963), 26.

61 See for the first invention of a tin glaze for pottery, Fehérvári (n. 23), 75.

62 Cf. Rackham (n. 57), 2 and Wilson, 28.

63 Lustre is a type of decoration using metallic oxides as silver or copper to produce lustrous surface effects. These oxides were applied to a fired, glazed vessel and refired at a lower temperature in a reducing atmosphere. The technique was used on Mesopotamian and Egyptian pottery, as well asin Islamic Spain and Renaissance Italy. Cf. Caiger-Smith, A., Lustre Pottery: Technique, Tradition and Innovation in Islam and the Western World (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

64 For the suggestion of Venice, see Caiger-Smith (n. 18), 99 and Hayes, 265 n. 3.

65 Turkish wares have actually been found in Genoa, Italy. Cf. Pringle, D., ‘La ceramica dell'area sud del Convento di S. Silvestro a Genova’, Archeologia medievale, 4 (1977), 150–4Google Scholar.

66 Cf. for Arta: Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou, A., ‘Μεταβυζαντινά αγγεία από το Κάστρο των Pωγών’, Epeirotika Chronika 28 (1986)Google Scholar, fig. 22e; for Cyprus: Megaw 1937–9, 162–3, C1–10, fig. 18 and 225, C51, fig. 25 and for Crete: Stillwell MacKay (n. 5), 129, nos. 5–6.

67 Cf. Zbona-Trkman (n. 49), 15, no. 30, dated 16th cent.

68 Three fragments of this ware were also found during excavations at Thebes. Cf. Armstrong. 319, nos. 201–3 and 324, nos. 268, 271–2.

69 Spon, J. and Wheler, G., Voyage d'ltalie de Dalmatie de Grèce et du Levant, fait aux années 1675 et 1676 (Lyon, 1678), 331Google Scholar.

70 These colours were themselves vitnfiable pastes. See Tite, M.S., ‘Iznik pottery: an investigation of the methods of production’, Archaeometry, 31, 115–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a technical study of the slip, glaze and colourants used in the production of Iznik ware.

71 A quartz-frit body is a mixture of white clay, quartz particles and interstitial glass. The creation of this new kind of ceramic body (known as ‘fritware’) in 12th-cent. Persia was Islam's answer to Chinese porcelain imports. Fritware is described in a Persian manuscript on pottery manufacture written by Abu ‘I-Qasim in 1301. See Allan, J.W., ‘Abu 'l-Qasim's treatise on ceramics’, Iran, 11, 111–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 A. Lane proposed this classification in his Later Islamic Pottery (London, 1957)Google Scholar, but the definitive discussion of Iznik ceramics is now given by Atasoy, N. and Raby, J., Iznik, : The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey (London, 1989)Google Scholar and by Aslanapa, O., The Iznik Tile Kiln Excavations: The Second Round: 1981–1988 (Ankara, 1989)Google Scholar.

73 See C. K. Williams II and O. H. Zervos, ‘Frankish Corinth: 1991’, Hesp. 61 (1992), 172, fig. 14, pl. 44. Besides Corinth, other Iznik fragments or vessels have been found in Greece: at Khania on Crete (Hahn 1989, fig. 5), at Thessaloniki (E. Kourkoutidou, Chr. Tsioumi, and Th. Pazaras, ‘Θεσσαλονίκη’, A. Delt. 31 (1976=1984), pl. 211c–f), on Cyprus (Megaw 1937–39, fig. 9, B2) and at Mount Athos (Carswell, J., ‘Pottery and tiles on Mount Athos’, Ars Orientalis, 6 (1966), 77–90)Google Scholar.

74 I shall elaborate on this last suggestion in a forthcoming article.

75 The bottoms of cooking pots, though, were never glazed because the fire would make the glaze crack and come off the earthenware.

76 The 14th-cent. historian Nicephorus Gregoras (ii. 788.15–18) stresses the hierarchy of materials when he exclaims that the poverty of the imperial court required the replacement of gold and silver vessels by those made of tin and ‘ceramic and clay’ (as quoted by A. Kazhdan in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 2146).

77 See Martin, A. Smart, ‘The role of pewter as a missing artefact: consumer attitudes toward tablewares in late 18th century Virginia’, Historical Archaeology, 23 (1989), 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, vessels made of cheaper materials such as wood and leather were far more widespread than their survival today would indicate.

78 Cf. Papanikola-Bakirtzis 1989 (n. 47), 41 for Cypriot parallels.

79 See Lock (n. 3), 275. The references to the dirty or unclean cooking methods of the ‘Latins’ (Franks) are summarized in canons of the Fourth Latin Council of 1215. See Mansi, J. D. (ed.), Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Venice, 1978Google Scholar; repr. Leipzig, 1903), vol. xxii, cols. 990–1 rel. to Frankish Greece. There is also a reference in Pachymeres ii, 31 (CSMBI, 161) to the cooking-fumes of the Λατίνοι. I should like to thank Peter Lock very much for these references.

80 Cf. in general for the Byzantine diet, Jeanselme, E. and L. (Economos, ‘Aliments et recettes culinaires des Byzantins’, Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress of the History of Medicine (Antwerp, 1923), 155–68Google Scholar.

81 Weber, Th., ‘Essen und Trinken im Konstantinopel des 10. Jahrhunderts, nach den Berichten Liutprands von Cremona’, in Koder, J. and Weber, Th., Liutprand von Cremona in Konstantinopel (Wien, 1980), 71–99Google Scholar. See also M. Dembinska, ‘Diet: a comparison of food consumption between some Eastern and Western monasteries in the 4th–12th centuries’, Byzantion, 55 (1985), 431–62 for the differences in nourishment between East and West. One of her conclusions is that the weight and value in calories of the daily ration per capita in 9th-cent. monasteries of Western Europe was one third or more higher than in nth-i2th cent. Byzantium.

82 This observation was recorded during the visit of the Byzantine Emperor and his retinue to Giovanni's house nearby Florence in 1438. See Jardine, L., Wordly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (London, 1996), 52–3Google Scholar.

83 Mennell, S., All Manners of Food (Oxford, 1985), 40–7Google Scholar. See also Braudel, F., Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th century, i: The Structures of Everyday Life (London, 1981), 190–3Google Scholar, who argues that from 1350 to 1550 it was not only at the courts that meat abounded both in quantity and variety.

84 Cf. The Last Supper fresco in the crypt of the monastery of Hosios Loukas (c. 11th cent.).

85 See Oikonomides, N., ‘The Contents of the Byzantine house from the eleventh to the fifteenth century’, DOP 44 (1990), 212Google Scholar.

86 Cf. The Marriage at Cana fresco in the church of Ag. Nikolaos Orfanos in Thessaloniki (14th cent.).

87 Cf. Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process, i: The History f Manners (New York, 1978)Google Scholar.

88 Because of the ‘move up-market’ of these more varied and colourful wares in new shapes (to compete with pewter and brass) this period has been termed the ‘Post-Medieval ceramic revolution’. See Johnson, M., The Archaeology of Capitalism (Oxford, 1996), 200Google Scholar.

89 According to D. Gaimster, ‘The archaeology of Post-Medieval society, c.1450–1750: material culture studies in Britain since the War’, in Vyner, B. (ed.), Building On the Past (London, 1994), 291Google Scholar, the larger amount of high-quality tinglazed wares reflected the increasingly cosmopolitan character of so many urban mercantile households. VM4 with a 16th-cent. population of over 1000 people, may be considered as a ‘proto-urban’ community of some wealth (it founded two monasteries and a series of water-mills during this century in the Valley).

90 Goldthwaite, R. A., ‘The economic and social world of Italian Renaissance maiolica’, Renaissance Quarterly, 47 (1989), 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, explains the success of the maiolica industry in Renaissance Italy by a number of features: the improvement of technology, the dynamic of change in decoration and shapes, the emergence of numerous centres producing wares with their own particular qualities, and, last but not least, the rise of a consumer market with a demand for new eating and dining habits.

91 Gaimster (n. 89), 296.

92 In late medieval Europe pewter tableware was widely used, but Italy had no natural deposits of tin. Vannoccio Biringuccio noted, for example, in his Pirotechma (1540): ‘I have heard from people who know that the most abundant and best tin found in Europe is what is mined in England; I have heard that it is also found in parts of Flanders, and in Bohemia and the Duchy of Bavaria, but the bizarre place names are too difficult for me’ (as cited by Wilson, 24). According to Ruddock, A., Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270–1600 (Southampton, 1951), 84 and 90Google Scholar, the Venetian and Catalan ships were the largest exporters of tin from England to the Mediterranean.

93 In Origo's, I., The Merchant of Prato (Boston, 1986), 89Google Scholar, there is a reference of eating ‘little swallows’ from a maiolica plate. Some 16th- and 17th-cent. sources admit that maiolica made food more appetizing than pewterware or silver. See Goldthwaite (n. 90), 20–1. Mallet, J. V. G. assumes in ‘Gonzaga patronage of maiolica’, Apollo, 114 (1981), 162–3Google Scholar, that even the spectacular painted istoriato (‘story-painted’) maiolica was made for the dining room, though most of the pieces ‘show little sign of rubbing and scratching on their soft glaze’.

94 See,e.g., Hugo Blake's essay about ‘Archaeology and maiolica’ in Wilson, 16. According to Goldtwaite, R. A., The Building of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore and London, 1980), 402Google Scholar, even Florentines of middling rank filled their homes with maiolica: ‘With prices low enough to bring it within reach of much of the population, large quantities of maiolica turn up in the inventories even of modest artisans, and it was sold in shops throughout the remote territories of the Florentine state.’

95 Cf. for an excellent treatment of these sources N. Atasoy, ‘Iznik ceramics in Ottoman documents’ in Atasoy and Raby (n. 72), 23–32. According to Atasoy and Raby, 14–5, the Sultan's Chinese porcelains were better protected against earthquakes and fires than the less prestigious İznik ceramics. Thanks to this, the Topkapi Palace has the world's biggest collection of porcelain after China and Dresden: 10,600 pieces have survived to the present day. Unfortunely, not a trace of İznik pottery remains in this collection.

96 Some discarded raspberry seeds were even found adhering to an İznik plate excavated at Waltham Abbey near London. According to Huggins, P. J., ‘Excavations at Sewardstone Street, Waltham Abbey, Essex 1966’, in Post-Medieval Archaeology, 3, 93Google Scholar, ‘a dessert, containing raspberries’ must have been served on the plate. Also knife marks on this specimen (70, pl. 1) show that it had been used.

97 Ottoman miniature paintings give some idea of how these vessels must have been used during these sumptuous banquets. See Atasoy and Raby (n.72), figs. 7–22.

98 Morgan claimed at Corinth that the neckring shape was already there in plain glazed ware from the 13th cent, and lasts till the Turkish era.

99 The Flemish scholar and diplomat Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq (1522–1592) noted that this trachana was served in many 16th-cent. Ottoman caravanserais. And the German Hans Derschwam (1494–1568), who travelled in the party of the Habsburg ambassador, describes in his diary the eating habits of the Ottomans: ‘All der Turkhen speyse ist nur czorba, das ist suppendt speyse’ (‘all the food of the Turks is just czorba (çorba), that is soup dish).’ See H. Dernschwam, Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/55), F. Babinger (Munich, 1923), 123. For more information on trachanas (or tarhana in modern Turkish) and the ‘simple’ kitchen of the Ottomans, see S. Hill and Bryer, A., ‘Byzantine porridge: tracta, trachanas and tarhana’, in Wilkins, J., Harvey, D. and Dobson, M. (eds), Food in Antiquity (Exeter, 1995), 48–9Google Scholar and Dalby, A., Siren Feasts. A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece (London, 1996), 199–205Google Scholar.

100 See Kiel (n. 10), 118.

101 For the intricate etiquette of eating soup with a spoon, see Ursinus, M., ‘Die Ess- und Trinkgewohnheiten der Osmanen’, in Türkische Kunst und Kultur aus osmanischer Zeit (Recklingshausen, 1985), 155–8Google Scholar. Also on banqueting scenes of Ottoman miniatures one can see individual spoons for each guest, while there is a large serving bowl at the centre of the table. Cf. Atasoy and Raby (n. 72), figs. 17a and b.

102 Cf. Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou; Papanikola-Bakirtzis (n. 47), 41; and Korre-Zographou (n. 40).

103 As was the case in post-medieval Britain, cf. Gaimster (n. 89), 296.

104 Hayes, 271.

105 According to C. Dyer in his keynote lecture ‘Material culture: production and consumption’ for the Papers of the Medieval Europe Brugge 1997 Conference, vii: Material Culture in Medieval Europe (Zellik, 1997), 511Google Scholar, ‘not every social group and region prospered after the Black Death, but in part of this period [..] food prices were stable and declining, giving capacity for expenditure on clothing, housing and consumer goods.’

106 See Kiel (n. 10), tables 7–8.