This volume has the potential to make a difference in vase scholarship and to initiate interdisciplinary research by bringing Classics closer to the Social Sciences. Greek vases have been studied and presented traditionally as objets d'art and as carriers of complex images that can educate scholars about style, narrative and aesthetics. Supplementing such approaches, in this volume an international cast mostly of established experts but also more junior researchers advocate for a close examination of ceramic surfaces to uncover technical and functional information. Materiality is understood primarily as a methodology.
As Langner outlines in the introduction, materiality refers to the directly observable characteristics of a vase, a skilfully made artefact, which have arisen from its production, use, discard and modern collecting. These characteristics relate to people–object interactions and to a multitude of research agendas, such as haptic experiences, contexts and emotional attachments. The contributions, however, do not appear to capture fully an appreciation of materiality as a continuous process of bodily and cognitive engagement, as explored in archaeological theory and, recently, in Classics (M. Gaifman, V. Platt and M. Squire [edd.], ‘The Embodied Object in Classical Antiquity’, Art History 41 [2018], 398–591). Instead, as the subtitle specifies, the focus is on micro-historical perspectives, on new findings about individual vases.
B. Kreuzer's astonishingly systematic study of a red-figured amphora in Brussels reveals an unusual foot and mouth, tool marks at the handle area and a hitherto unknown trademark. The discussion follows the production steps of throwing, decorating and firing. This may remind readers of the chaîne opératoire approach archaeologists use to address ceramic technology. Iconography, for all its merits given the bodies’ free movement in space, emerges as one but not the principal aspect of the amphora's visual impact. Rather, the potter's design choices affect the uniqueness of this vessel. Kreuzer attributes the amphora to a painter in the circle of Euphronios and the Leagros Group, who worked for the Canoe Potter, but acknowledges affinities also with the Pezzino Group. The web of associations makes readers think about information exchange between potters and painters, beyond a great master approach in connoisseurship studies. Kreuzer is to be praised for also considering ancient materiality. Buyers in Etruria inspected vase surfaces, including misfired areas. Apparently, exports to distant markets were not only artworks but also technical specimens.
I. Algrain also focuses on shape. She argues convincingly that Boeotian dynamics in the Archaic period were independent from those of neighbouring Attica. The Attic repertoire boasts few kantharoi. When Athenian painters depicted kantharoi they had Boeotia in mind, where kantharoi proliferated and expressed local identity. The all-black kantharoi in Boeotia copied faithfully the shapes, black glaze and engravings of Etruscan prototypes, but not the firing technology: the clays of two Boeotian kantharoi at Delphi were not blackened to the core. Algrain appears to embrace a post-colonial perspective and claims that Etruscan-inspired kantharoi were embedded in Boeotian culture, even when their use in hospitality and gift exchange resembled that in Etruria. The flow of information from Etruria, what Algrain calls ‘global influences’ (p. 33), makes readers value the relationship between materiality and connectivity, as discussed lately in relation to anthropology (P. Schorch, M. Saxer and M. Elders [edd.], Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond [2020]). Readers may contemplate that Etruscan kantharoi reached Boeotia during long-distance journeys. Sailing along the Boeotian shores was probably preferred to wind-stricken eastern Euboea. With Boeotian artisans imitating Etruscan wares so closely, the question arises whether kantharoi were meant to be perceived as local versions of foreign objects from far away.
A. Coulié and C. Jubier re-examine a fragment in the Louvre, paying commendable attention to dimensions, shape, surface features, iconography and comparanda. They show that the vessel is a kantharos, not a rhyton, and that the grey colour on Dionysos’ coat, a Thracian zeira with exotic connotations, and on the fawn's fur is intentional and unparalleled. N. Buisson's chemical report confirms that the grey is intentional, since no salts from the ground were detected. Four layers of superimposed clays gave the grey: red, white, black glaze and a whitish/yellowish veil. The chapter makes readers realise that vase painters mastered multiple clays of different compositions, as also indicated by scientific analyses of Athenian black glaze (A. Chaviara and E. Aloupi-Siotis, ‘The story of a soil that became a glaze: Chemical and microscopic fingerprints on the Attic vases’, Journal of Archaeological Science 7 [2016], 510–18).
V. Vlachou's meticulous study of two early Iron Age deposits of fragments at Plasi, Marathon, reveals the preponderance of locally produced water carriers. In all likelihood these played a role in ritual acts, and Plasi was a cult place. The promising angle of ceramics’ sensory qualities means that Vlachou describes the shapes, sizes and production techniques of the hydriae. She covers comprehensively the archaeological site and Marathon's watery landscape, and offers observations on the deliberate breakage of water jugs in modern Greece. Readers may envisage objects in context, ancient and modern. The implication is that object ontologies do not outweigh contextual approaches. The agency of humans and things relates also to places (cf. S. Baires and M. Baltus, ‘Matter, Places, and Persons in Cahokian Depositional Acts’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24 [2017], 974–97).
For E.M. Stern epinetra are ergonomically designed implements that enabled women to process wool without exposing legs and dirtying garments. Their incised scales prevented fibres from sliding and provided a ‘working surface’ (p. 67). Stern's thorough analysis may add at least another two epinetra from the Athenian Acropolis. Makers of cylinder lekythoi invented epinetra at a time of innovation in the late sixth century. All these remarkable observations inspire readers to regard potters as designers, who understood the human body and responded to consumer demand. This is an innovative angle in studying Greek vases.
K.M. Lynch and R.A. Bidgood put sympotic shapes in people's hands, whilst pursuing a mathematical approach with hypothesis testing, tabulated measurements and a magnificently explained methodology. They demonstrate the impracticality of vessels filled to maximum capacity. Based on dumped household wares from the Athenian Agora, they suggest that late Archaic kylikes and later cups were filled to approximately 1.5 cm below the rim. Symposia were small gatherings of five, nine or fourteen individuals. Each drinker had to perceive that they received an equal amount of diluted wine. There existed a mutually constitutive relationship between material culture and an ideology of isonomia. This exemplary study exposes the dependencies between different shapes. An amphora filled a wine jug that filled a cup. Contents, readers may deduce, created connections between different actors, fetchers, servers and drinkers. Thus, the authors successfully ‘move from pottery to behaviour’ (p. 82). Because of the salience of perceived, rather than actual, capacities, and the need to keep symposiasts content, a future study could explore human psychology, a field generally overlooked in vase research.
N. Eschbach's painstaking examination of prize Panathenaics proves that these long lived and widely exported vessels may not have held oil. There is meagre evidence of staining and of coating on the inside. Lids did not seal the mouth but were accessories. Structural weaknesses at the junctions with the handles, necks and feet, as well as cracks and holes question further whether these emblematic Athenian vases served as containers. Eschbach manifests the value of working with fragments and fragmenting the whole. Both approaches are invaluable in assessing potters’ work and ceramics’ function.
Also investigating function, A. Villing addresses a gap in vase scholarship, namely, the scant attention paid to ancient wear marks that resulted from use. Villing's exhaustive coverage of abrasion and attrition traces on ceramics within and beyond Graeco-Roman specimens is most instructive for Classical archaeologists, especially for testing hypotheses. The case studies offer an additional wealth of information. Museum curators and others may look for chipped surfaces at the handles, rims, interiors and the underfoot of different shapes and fabrics. Researchers would want to proceed with caution in distinguishing between modern and ancient marks and in applying ethnographic analogies. The scratches on the Euphorbos plate, for example, are reminiscent of knife cuts on modern dinner plates. Although Villing's search for behavioural patterns resonates with the theories of the New Archaeology, she steers away from universal laws: the Attic pots in the Brygos tomb were used before deposition, but those in the Blacas tomb were kept in a pristine condition.
A. Schöne-Denkinger presents four case studies of early acquisitions in Berlin: an oenochoe, a rhyton and two bell kraters, all of which had been extensively remodelled. The oenochoe and the rhyton are collages of repainted scenes, as known from drawings in nineteenth-century catalogues, and of reworked fragments from different vases. The kraters’ compositions were purposely altered to respond to neoclassical aesthetics. All vases were embellished in recent times to fetch higher market prices. This contribution opens up materiality studies to museum practitioners, such as the conservators who examined the vases under UV light and with X-rays. Additionally, the chapter exposes the salience of modern object biographies, which can complement ancient ones, and links vase scholarship with reception studies, an area that is gathering momentum (A. Petsalis-Diomidis and E. Hall [edd.], ‘The Classical vase transformed: Consumption, reproduction, and class in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 63 [2020]).
For all their strengths, a thorough theoretical engagement with materiality seems to be lacking in the contributions. There is no differentiation, for example, between materials and materiality (T. Ingold, ‘Materials against materiality’, Archaeological Dialogues 14 [2007], 1–16), although there are mentions of the interplay between metal and clay in Algrain's (p. 31) and Eschbach's chapters (p. 87). With its rich and varied content, nonetheless, this volume will be invaluable to researchers who wish to be introduced to subject areas, such as wear and tear, to CVA authors, museum professionals and art historians more generally. The volume prompts thinking about the active use of material culture. Greek vases are surfaces on which multiple producers, traders and viewer-users left their marks. Classical art history emerges as a field that is far from saturated. There are still new discoveries to make, even when it comes to over-studied artefacts, such as prize Panathenaics. More importantly, the volume indicates that there is scope to align the study of Greek vases with that of other ceramics and consumer goods within the fields of archaeology and anthropology.
The volume is beautifully edited, with images mostly in black and white. A few typos: for CVA Thebes, there is text in French, rather than English (p. 35 n. 21); the pie chart in fig. 1b is said to be in colour, while it is not (p. 78); on p. 103, we read ‘that may have cause the damage’.
