Lederrey Claude
Swiss Archaeological School / University of Bales
Geometric hand-made fine ware from the west quarter of Eretria
In contrast to the wheel-made fine geometric pottery the hand-made fine ware is left out of account as a rule. At least this kind of ceramics is scarcely discussed in most of the publications.
The hand-made fine ware was made with the same clay as the well known painted geometric fine ware. So the quality of the fired clay is very high. Still, the ceramics was not made on the potter’s wheel and was left undecorated apart from some simple incised or impressed patterns, which are very similar to the coarse ware’s decoration.
Above all, at Eretria all the geometric hand-made fine ware was found in the area of the Temple of Apollon and south of the so called Heroon in the West Quarter. Since there is some more geometric pottery from other geometric eretrian sites to be examined, there is still some more hand-made fine ware to be expected.
In the West Quarter of Eretria this kind of ceramics was found exclusively in a geometric well and a nearby pit. Both of them were filled with late geometric pottery. Among the fine and coarse ware, some few hand-made fine ware sherds were found. These belong mainly to closed shapes: imitations of wheel-made shapes such as jugs with cutaway neck and aryballoi. Most of them are made locally, while some others are probably imports from Northern and Western Greece.
The question of the former contexts of the handmade ware is another important problem. The previous analysis of the ‘well material’ emphasizes two possible contexts: the household- and the sepulcral-context.
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