2020. Aeginetan Pottery in the Aegean World: Mapping Distributions Around an Island Hub (original) (raw)
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Aeginetan Pottery in the Aegean World: Mapping Distributions Around an Island Hub
From Past to Present: Studies in Memory of Manfred O. Korfmann, 2020
This paper stems from the authors’ interests in the spatial distribution and significance of various classes of Aegean Bronze Age pottery, in particular the importance of these materials for understanding patterns of settlement, production, and consumption. A first look is presented here on the distribution of Aeginetan pottery and its development from the late Early Bronze Age to the early Late Bronze Age (EH III to LH IIB/IIIA1) – in absolute terms, ca. 2150 BCE to 1370 BCE. J. B. Rutter’s 1993 summary of the Prepalatial Bronze Age in Greece highlighted the importance of Aegina in pre-Mycenaean times, particularly Kolonna and its pottery industries. The distribution map that appeared in that article has inspired a great deal of research related to Kolonna and its influence in the wider Aegean world. After 25 years the time seems right for an update, especially in light of a growing dataset and the GIS and database technologies now available to archaeologists.
In V. Kassianidou and M. Dikomitou-Eliadou (eds.). The NARNIA Project: Integrating Approaches to Ancient Material Studies. Nicosia, University of Cyprus Press.
This project explores ceramic technology and exchange during the transitional LH IIIB-LH IIIC early period in the area of the Saronic Gulf through a multi-technique analysis. Pottery from twelve archaeological sites within the study region has been analysed by combined thin section petrography and chemical analyses, in order to identify and characterise the ceramic fabrics being produced and exchanged in this period. This paper presents a selected case study from the wider research project, in order to highlight how the production origins of three unknown ceramic fabrics were identified through petrographic analysis of complete assemblages in a regional pottery study from a bottom-up perspective. The results presented in this paper indirectly identify the production of fine tablewares, in addition to coarse cooking pottery and large vessels, including tubs and pithoi, in the northern half of the island of Aegina during the Late Mycenaean period. Tracing the vessels manufactured in these ceramic fabrics from their place of deposition back to the island of Aegina raises several new questions about the island's political centre of Kolonna, a site which presents very little information about the activities that occurred here during this time. Moreover, the patterns reflected through this bottom up approach suggest that studies of pottery, be it production technology or provenance, are better used in the investigations of everyday events rather than for reconstructing generalities about political economies in the Mycenaean world.
Pottery Technologies in the Aegean and Anatolia During the 3rd Millennium BC
Pottery Technologies and Sociocultural Connections between the Aegean and Anatolia during the 3rd Millenium BC, 2018
After several decades of archaeometric investigations on Early Bronze Age pottery, now is the time to bring these manifold results and experts together for a holistic approach of a broader region through socio-cultural interpretations. The archaeometric approach to pottery in the (Greek) Aegean is based on a long tradition and nowadays forms a well-established scientific field in Bronze Age archaeology in that region. Thanks to various research groups and their longterm engagement in developing the methodological and theoretical background – such as the Fitch Laboratory of the British School and the Demokritos lab in Athens, the University of Bonn, and Sheffield University – pottery experts in the Aegean are now able to use various scientific methods based on a well-established scientific framework and comparable data. This state-ofthe-art interdisciplinary approach for Aegean ceramics not only produces a large amount of new and complex data, which are mainly used by specialists in this field, but also leads to a multifaceted picture hardly manageable by non-experts for their socio-cultural follow-up interpretations. Our main aim is focused on combining the archaeometric experts and their scientific questions and data to gain a broader archaeological-cultural contextualisation within one particular time horizon.
Pottery Technologies in the Aegean and Anatolia During the 3rd Millennium BC: An Introduction
Eva Alram-Stern – Barbara Horejs (Eds.) Pottery Technologies and Sociocultural Connections Between the Aegean and Anatolia During the 3rd Millennium BC, 2018
After several decades of archaeometric investigations on Early Bronze Age pottery, now is the time to bring these manifold results and experts together for a holistic approach of a broader region through socio-cultural interpretations. The archaeometric approach to pottery in the (Greek) Aegean is based on a long tradition and nowadays forms a well-established scientific field in Bronze Age archaeology in that region. Thanks to various research groups and their longterm engagement in developing the methodological and theoretical background – such as the Fitch Laboratory of the British School and the Demokritos lab in Athens, the University of Bonn, and Sheffield University – pottery experts in the Aegean are now able to use various scientific methods based on a well-established scientific framework and comparable data. This state-ofthe-art interdisciplinary approach for Aegean ceramics not only produces a large amount of new and complex data, which are mainly used by specialists in this field, but also leads to a multifaceted picture hardly manageable by non-experts for their socio-cultural follow-up interpretations. Our main aim is focused on combining the archaeometric experts and their scientific questions and data to gain a broader archaeological-cultural contextualisation within one particular time horizon.
in Horejs, B.–E. Alram-Stern (eds), Pottery Technologies and Sociocultural Connections between the Aegean and Anatolia during the 3rd Milllennium BC, Conference Vienna, 21-23.10.2015. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 119-142., 2018
The key position of Samos between the central Aegean and western Anatolia as well as the appraisal of the settlement at Heraion, as being the largest Early Bronze Age (EB) early urban site in the insular eastern Aegean, has led several scholars in the past to suggest that Samos may have constituted the cultural mediator in the transmission of ideas, technological innovations and goods (e.g. new serving and drinking pottery sets) between these regions in the EB II late–III. The period called the ‘Anatolian Trade Network’ in Anatolian terms and ‘Lefkandi I-Kastri Group’ in Helladic-Cycladic terms as well as the related pottery assemblage assigned to this period has recently been revised regarding its chronological, geographical and cultural homogenous character on the basis of newly-emergent data from various Anatolian and Aegean sites. Taking these into account, this paper provides an introduction to the EB strata excavated at Heraion from 1953–2013 focusing on the political, social and economic meaning of architecture from the EB I–III phases. This provides the background for a contextual, chronological and technological re-evaluation of the pottery produced between c. 2650 and 2000 BC, namely within the phases Heraion I–V. The chronological review of the ceramic developments at Heraion and the reconsideration of shapes traditionally considered to be ‘localʼ (eastern Aegean/western Anatolian) and ‘foreign’ (Cycladic/Cycladicising) provide a secure basis for a synchronisation with pottery developments in western Anatolia and the central Aegean in the EB II early–III periods.