Drinking to Apollo: Archaic Cups from the Island of St. Kirik, Apollonia Pontica (original) (raw)
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Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt. Studies on East Greek pottery and exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean, 2006
Shallow grinding bowls made of buff clay were dedicated in considerable numbers in the Archaic sanctuary of Apollo at Naukratis. They belong to a type of mortarium that was widespread across Eastern Mediterranean households but that was also used in the preparation of foods in sanctuaries. The type is known from many sites in the Nile Delta and is also particularly common in Palestine, Cyprus and Ionia; clay analysis suggests that Cyprus was the main production centre and that the type was widely traded. Nevertheless, local imitations of Egyptian clay are also attested. The Cypro-Phoenician type inspired the production of mortaria on the Greek mainland, notably Corinth, which in turn soon became a dominant player in the market in mortaria across the Mediterranean; Corinthian mortaria of the Classical period are also attested at Naukratis.* When Flinders Petrie excavated the temenos of Apollo at Naukratis in 1885, a group of 'coarse thick drab bowls' caught his attention; one of them he included among the drawings of pottery in Naukratis I, along with several other fragments of coarse bowls. The majority of them carry votive inscriptions to Apollo and form a quite coherent group. 1 Together with some related pieces, these bowls, now in the British Museum, are the focus of the present study. Even if at first glance they hardly seem promising material to study (and indeed they have escaped the attention of most scholars since Petrie), Petrie's diligence in recording and preserving them was not wasted. We shall see that they provide new and unexpected insights not just into the cult of Apollo at Naukratis but also into the network of exchange and influence across the ancient Mediterranean.
Oversized Athenian Drinking Vessels in Context: Their Role in Etruscan Ritual Performances
American Journal of Archaeology, 2020
This article discusses a distinctive class of Athenian figure-decorated vases consisting of a few black-figure and red-figure cups and some phialai that are dated to the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. All are large, and some are huge, with diameters varying between about 35 and 56 cm. After tracking the shift in the distribution of these vessels from the late sixth century on, from Greek contexts to a concentration in southern Etruria, the article examines several case studies based on reconstructed material assemblages from Etruscan sanctuaries and graves in order to better understand the part played by the purchasers in the local reception and use of these monumental Athenian vases. I attempt to go beyond earlier explanations that see these objects as exchange gifts reflecting the prestige of the aristocratic owners and to demonstrate how this distinctive class of pottery responded to a variety of indigenous needs, practices, and interpretations. 1 introduction Athenian pottery imports in the Italian peninsula, especially southern Etruria, have been the subject of scholarship since the early 19th century, when excavations undertaken in the necropoleis of Vulci yielded thousands of these vessels. 2 While initially focused on the analysis of shapes, iconographical subjects, and painters' styles, scholars gradually began to concentrate on the actions of traders and the effects of this foreign market on Athenian potters, though, until recently, from a Hellenocentric point of view. 3 Since the late 1990s, studies have shown a new interest in purchasers, networks, and markets for figure-decorated pottery with keen attention to the choices of Italic consumers. 4 These studies have discussed how indigenous populations used Greek vases, 5 often relating material culture to the construction of 1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Oxford graduate seminars on Greek Pots Abroad in 2008 and at the Pottery Research Group meeting in 2012 (Institute of Classical Studies, University College London). I greatly benefited from discussions with A. Johnston, E. Langridge-Noti, M. Stansbury-O'Donnell, and T. Carpenter and, on Etruscan matters, with B. van der Meer and C. Riva. Many thanks are also due to M. Mendonça and S. Sarti. Also extremely helpful were the reviews of S. Bundrick and two anonymous reviewers for the AJA, and the comments of AJA Editor-in-Chief Jane B. Carter. Remaining errors are mine. I am very grateful to C. Johnston and B. Simpson, AJA editorial staff, for help in practical and editing matters. For assistance in obtaining photographs and copyright permits, I acknowledge R.
Eggs in a Drinking Cup: Unexpected Uses of a Greek Shape in Central Apulian Funerary Contexts
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Pass the Wine: Drinking Cups at Early Bronze iii Tarsus
Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology
The prehistoric mound of Tarsus-Gözlükule provides stratified remains for the north- eastern Mediterranean, and especially for the Bronze Age. The ceramic repertoire of the site, excavated in the early 20th-century, has been widely used as a chronological hinge supporting many dating equations running east–west as well as north–south. Two-handled drinking cups can be singled out as a hallmark of the last quarter of the third millennium, or the eba iii period in Anatolian terminology. The interdisciplin- ary project initiated by Boğaziçi University in cooperation with Bryn Mawr College has begun to reinvestigate the bulk of the Goldman period study collection with the aim of integrating unpublished material into current academic discourse and re-evaluating published artifacts in the light of new insights in the field. This paper presents a new frequency chart of two-handled drinking cups from the eba iii level of the Tarsian settlement and discusses aspects regarding their distribution and use.