(2012) ‘A matter of quantity? Some notes on the Late Bronze Age exchange modes in the Eastern Mediterranean’. In: Talanta XLIV. Recent Research and Perspectives on the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean (Special Research Issue), edited by A. Papadopoulos, 79-91. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Empty Vessels or Laden Signifiers? Imported Greek pottery in Levantine Social Practice
Pearls of the Past. Studies in Honour of Frances Pinnock. Alter Orient und Altes Testament AOAT (Ugarit-Verlag), 2017
The contextual study of Greek pottery is quite important in understanding the religious life of the inhabitants of the Levantine coast or specifically "central Phoe-nicia", 1 particularly through the use of Attic pottery in ritual ceremonies and as offerings in tombs. The study of the exchanges between Greece and the Phoenician coast, during the Achaemenid Empire, does not only implicate the study of the circulation of the objects, but also the study of the reception, the intercultural phenomenon and the definitions of the cultural contexts. With that in mind we have to focus on the receptors, or the inhabitant of the Levantine coasts, this can only be achieved by following a contextual approach while dealing with the Greek pottery or any other type of cultural material. 2 The objects are looked at in their precise archeological context. Even if we do not have a lot of coherent data, taking into consideration the urban aspect of the Phoenician cities can be of great use in clarifying the exchanges contexts. The archaeological excavations in the Levant indicate an urban development during the Persian Period resulting in the improvement of the living conditions and the enrichment of part of the population. 3 The archaeological evidence , from Iron Age cities, illustrates emerging urban societies and what could be considered as a wealthy elite that managed to flourish in a period characterized by intense Mediterranean commerce in a rather stable political atmosphere. During this same period, we notice that Greek and East Greek pottery were imported in mass quantities all over the Levantine coast. While studying this extensive material we noticed that only specific typologies 4 and iconographies made their way to this part of the Mediterranean. This phenomenon cannot be arbitral but rather an indicator of sophisticated and urbanized societies that borrowed specific forms and stories from foreign cultures and adapted them into their own so-1
Annabel Bokern and Clare Rowan (eds), Embodying Value? The Transformation of Objects in and from the Ancient World, 131-44. Archaeopress: Oxford., 2014
Roman-period table ceramics such as bowls and dishes display a basic uniformity across large spans of time and space, and this sameness has led archaeologists to ways of thinking about the material as reflecting political, economic and cultural integration -a global consumer market in which people bought into a set of material-cultural values. But while certain shapes, fabrics, colours and decorations seem to make up a language that was understood across geographical and political boundaries, within the pottery medium countless dialects related to practices and identities specific to regions, settlements, and at the scale of neighbourhoods and households. Recognising these contingent meanings opens up possibilities for seeing manufactured objects not as a gauge of systemic economic conditions or cultural groupings but as 'significant possessions' which had value and agency in the past. This article focuses on the consumption of pottery in central Anatolia, using a case study from Pessinus to consider how mass-produced objects, which were available to most social classes, gained value through their deployment in specific physical situations.
2018
This paper addresses the cultural translation of some exotica – selected valuable objects that were brought from the south Aegean or even more distant areas to Troy, Beşik-Tepe and Greek Macedonia mainly during the Late Bronze Age. The discussion will focus on jewellery and seals made of carnelian, steatite and bone. Such foreign goods, often labelled as imports, are usually objects with complicated histories. These histories began with acquisition, then went through various forms of ownership and display, and finally ended with release, all while simultaneously undergoing a process of domestication and 'de-exotification'. Release, especially an intentional release such as in the case of burial goods, treasures and cult deposits, is discussed comprehensively since these are the best-documented cases of interaction between things and people in the area of the north Aegean. Also discussed is the phenomenon of copying as a complicated procedure of appropriation, as well as the case of rejection of ornaments and symbolism.
Session EAA Budapest: "As Far as Vases Go: Studies on Ancient Greek Pottery Trade and Its Contexts"
Guiomar Pulido-González, Pedro Miguel-Naranjo, Andrew Farinholt Ward, Adolfo J. Dominguez-Monedero, Alejandro Garés-Molero, Antoine Attout, Giada Giudice, Alejandra Macián Fuster, Itziar Gutiérrez-Soto, David Vendrell Cabanillas, Maria Chidiroglou, Kleopatra Kathariou, Liz Neill, Agustín A Diez Castillo, Francisco Javier Sanchez Conde, Chiara Maria Mauro, Mª Isabel Moreno Padilla
Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, 2022
This session aims at analyzing and shedding light on the role of trade, distribution and (re)contextualization for research on Greek pottery (Early Iron Age - Hellenistic period). The first Greek wares to be ever studied came from Italian soil, and, since then, these ceramic productions have been documented in as distant regions as present-day Galicia, the British Isles or the Crimean Peninsula. Scholarship has shown that this dispersion of materials seems to unveil large-scale trade dynamics, which would be effective thanks to the role played by numerous agents: well-based ceramic industries, dynamic markets, and consistent maritime and terrestrial commercial networks. As a result of these overseas enterprises, Greek pots became part of the material culture of different autonomous societies, which sometimes implied changes in the significance, functionality and value of these objects. Hence, this session calls for communications that contribute to the study of ancient Greek pottery outside its production area by addressing one or various of the previously mentioned aspects. Special attention will be paid to those proposals which either 1) focus on commercial contexts (i.e. ports and shipwrecks); 2) analyze the presence and distribution of Greek imports in a given area; 3) define trade routes of specific series or productions; 4) explore the resignification of Greek pots among non-Hellenic peoples and contexts (i.e. Etruscans, Iberians or Scythians). The session is sponsored by El Sec Shipwreck Re-excavation Project (Universitat de València).
Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie, 350, 2020
The highlighting of these elements in the present paper shows that the analogy asserted by A. Vulpe between the decoration style of certain disc-butted axes and the ornamentation displayed by a wide range of pottery vessels from Lăpuş and other sites of the Suciu de Sus culture is still very much valid. The revival of the specific ornaments took place in the context of the perpetuation of certain identity expressions through the use and display of bronze objects such as the disc-butted axes. The tension between the old and the new elements is reflected by the intensity with which certain social and religious traditions are expressed, mainly in the field of funerary (e.g. biritual cemeteries and lavish burials) and depositional practice, through the increase of the number of deposited objects, noticeable also in the case of the traditional so-called “one-type hoards” and Apa type deposits, in addition to the newly adopted hoards inspired by the Kurd type.
3 262 GIORGOS VAVOURANAKIS 325 CROSS-CRAFT AND CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONS 14. Cross-craft and cross-cultural interactions during the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age ann BrysBaerT abstract In the context of the Late Bronze Age Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, cross-craft and cross-cultural interactions are discussed in order to understand the concept of 'cross-craft interaction' (CCI). CCI is connected with the chaîne opératoire to demonstrate that it consists of three aspects: production processes, circulation/distribution patterns and consumption of the final product. Only if we consider CCI and thus technologies this way, can we fully comprehend the social relationships and identities that are shaped and negotiated through people's interactions. The case study of painted plaster presents four types of interactions and when contextualised, it becomes clear that CCI contributes to technological changes, innovations and transfer of a craft. Moreover, the appearance of specific technologies, i.e. al fresco, were short-lived and context-specific (elites), from a sociopolitical and ideological perspective, and much was done to keep it there. With the end of the Mycenaean palaces and elite's structure collapse, however, painted plaster disappeared with it.