Pottery production and exchange at the Heraion, Samos during the late third millennium BC: First steps in the study of technology and provenance

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Highlights

  • Pilot fabric study of the EB II–III pottery from Heraion on Samos.

  • It makes a first characterisation of the production technology.

  • The majority of the petrographic fabric groups are compatible with the geology of Samos.

  • A few samples seem to stand out from potentially Samian products.

Abstract

This paper discusses the preliminary results of a pilot fabric study carried out on pottery from the Early Bronze Age II late-III (ca. 2500–2000 BC) levels at the Heraion settlement on the island of Samos, Greece. This is a time not only of marked social change, but also of an increasing body of evidence, which indicates the widespread movement of pottery within the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor. The site of Heraion is important in a reconsideration of this period, as a centre with a local tradition of ceramic production, as well as being a key player in exchange networks within the eastern Aegean. In a first appraisal of the ceramic assemblage, a total of forty-four coarse, medium and fine ware samples were selected for microscopic analysis, representing a range of local pottery and suspected imports. Petrographic analysis complemented macroscopic observations and stylistic evaluations, and allowed characterisation of the samples with respect to textural and petrological properties, forming a firm basis for future analyses of pottery recovered from the site.

Introduction

Petrographic analysis of Early Bronze Age (EB) pottery from the Aegean has proven to be a valuable tool for determining production technologies (Day et al., 2006, Mentesana et al., 2016), provenance (Whitelaw et al., 1997, Hilditch, 2007, Hilditch, 2013), and social-cultural relations between neighbouring sites and regions (Day et al., 1999, Day et al., 2009, Nodarou, 2011, Wilson et al., 2008). Starting in Crete, this work has extended to the Cyclades, but analytical work on EB pottery deriving from extensively excavated sites in the insular eastern Aegean and western Anatolian littoral (e.g. Liman Tepe and Bakla Tepe) has only rarely been given attention (e.g. Day et al., 2009).

This paper presents the preliminary results and a brief overview of a small-scale analytical programme that includes the pilot petrographic examination of EB II late-III pottery from domestic contexts at Heraion on Samos. The site under examination offers great potential for providing new insights into the composition, technological examination and perhaps provenance of various ceramic types and wares, in the light of well-stratified pottery assemblages (Milojčić, 1961, 38–52, pls. 13–49). The EB II late-III, which roughly covers the second half of the 3rd millennium BC (Kouka, 2002, Table 1), constitutes a critical time for the Aegean and Anatolia characterised by large-scale socioeconomic and political changes (Kouka, 2002, 300–302; Şahoğlu, 2005, Efe, 2007, Kouka, 2013) and accompanied by intensive mobility of pottery and intercultural connectivity. These transformations, obvious in the uniformity of the material culture, are reflected among others in the ceramic technological tradition (Rutter, 1979) and are associated with the participation of major local centres, such as Troy, Liman Tepe, Bakla Tepe, Poliochni and Heraion in trading networks which have been suggested to relate primarily with the spread of bronze technology (e.g. Kouka, 2002, 299–302; Şahoğlu, 2005).

Given the absence of previous analytical research on pottery from the prehistoric Heraion, this study represents the first effort to elucidate the nature of raw materials used in the production of EB Samian pottery and to investigate, where possible, technological practice. The results presented below are offered as a reference basis for future analytical work, most immediately on material from the recent excavations at Heraion (2009–2013) and from nearby Tigani (Felsch, 1988, Kouka, 2014). Previous analytical work on Samos has included some early chemical work on Geometric to Roman pottery X-ray fluorescence (Dupont, 1977) and an informative petrographic analysis of Samian Amphorae by Whitbread (1995, 122–133), contextualised within an account of the island's geology.

Section snippets

Archaeological background

The EB settlement of Heraion is located on the south-central coast of Samos, 7 km west of the Neolithic–Chalcolithic site of Kastro-Tigani (Felsch, 1988), in the only extensive plain of the island between the two main branches of the Imvrassos River (Milojčić, 1961, 3) (Fig. 1). It constitutes the largest proto-urban island settlement in the eastern Aegean, covering 35,000 m2 (Kouka, 2002, 285–286, 294, pls. 45–55; Kouka, 2013, 575–576). Heraion, which is separated from the coast of western

Materials and methods

A total of forty-four coarse, medium-coarse, and fine ware samples of eating, drinking and serving, storage, and cooking vessels were analysed by thin section petrography (Whitbread, 1989), from shapes such as deep and shallow bowls with simple (Fig. 3a) or slightly S-shaped rim (Milojčić, 1961, pls. 22:9, 35:10, 36:20, 37:49, 38:32–53, 42:1–6 and 13, 44:1, 5–6), plates (Milojčić, 1961, pls. 29, 46:4–7), tripod bowls (Fig. 4a) (Milojčić, 1961, pl. 48:29), hybrid depas-tankards (Fig. 4c) (

Petrographic analysis

A considerable degree of compositional, textural, and technological variability was noted between the samples examined. A summarised description of the fabrics appears in Table 1, Table 2. The mineralogical variability corresponds to the complex geological background of the study area, which is situated in the southern part of the alluvial plain formed by the Imvrassos River (e.g. Theodoropoulos, 1979, Ring et al., 1999, Ring et al., 2007). The geology is mainly characterised by the presence of

Discussion and conclusions

This preliminary programme of petrographic analysis has contributed successfully to the establishment of fabric groups, their characterisation, the reconstruction of certain technological choices and suggestion of their potential provenance. It has produced clear groupings, though the limited number of analysed samples does not allow confident statements concerning the cultural/technological/social developments taking place during the period of study. Moreover, there are indications of

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express thanks to the German Archaeological Institute at Athens and the 21st Ephorate for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports for permission to study and sample this material. This paper reports on research undertaken in partial fulfilment of the degree of MSc in Archaeological Materials at the Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield. The corresponding author is currently continuing the Heraion study as part

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