ARCHAEOLOGICAL MEETING OF THESSALY AND CENTRAL GREECE, 2006-2008
FROM PREHISTORY TO THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

Paper abstract

LIS Bartek
Assistant at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Mitrou Archaeological Project
Aeginetan Cooking Pottery in Central Greece and its wider perspective

Since the work of Carol Zerner in the early 80’s, exports of cooking pottery produced on the island of Aegina have been recognized at many Bronze Age settlements all over the Aegean, including also Central Greece. In the Early Mycenaean period, it was accompanied by several other classes of pottery produced on Aegina: Aeginetan Painted and Burnished, Plain, Matt Painted and Bichrome pottery. However, it seems that out of these many classes, cooking pottery was the only one to survive into the developed stages of Late Bronze Age. This new stage of cooking pottery production and exports is characterised by a different organization of production with clear standardization and development of new shapes. Remarkably, around the moment immediately preceding great destructions of Mycenaean palaces, exports of Aeginetan cooking pottery reached their peak. Current evidence suggests that the export industry on Aegina might have survived the great disaster yet plausibly not longer than for a few decades. The paper is aimed at providing an overview of the production and exports of Aegean cooking pottery in the Late Bronze Age, with special respect to the area of Central Greece and the results of recent excavations at Mitrou.

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