Those of us who grew up with the study of figured Greek vases in a largely art-historical context have been observing a culture-shift in approaches to them for some years now: this volume reflects an increasing capacity to think about figure-decorated pottery on the basis of evidence from newly-published excavation contexts and via the re-examination of older ones. The papers in the collection were all originally delivered at the AIA 2015 conference, five of them as part of a colloquium sponsored by the Pottery in Context Research Network, which focuses on figured pottery via shape, decoration and material contexts in the Mediterranean area between the eleventh and fourth centuries b.c.
This is in itself an indicator of a move away from a study area long dominated by large numbers of figured vessels, often with a discovery-history that eventually led to collections, museum displays and maker-based typologies, not least Beazley's. Few of the natural assumptions generated by that framework, including concepts of workshop practice and markets, have failed to arouse debate, but the end-user has perhaps been given rather more formulaic attention in a context in which the vessel often ended up in a place far from its production site and was frequently treated as a solo item in a very disparate group of objects with little obvious interconnection. Now, as the editors point out in their introduction, figured pottery often has ‘a detailed physical context and an associated assemblage that can provide evidence for the selection of objects in a setting’ (p. x). And this can generate a much more secure sense of its place in such an assemblage, which may involve local and imported material, and plain and figured pots.
The papers collected here variously reflect the opportunities this allows: four of them consider the place of an Attic figured vase in an excavated tomb some distance from the site of production, a fifth looks at Attic pottery in civic contexts in a foreign city. A sixth paper thinks about the recurrence of a specific black-figure scene in the light of possible consumer interests, and the seventh studies the religious and ritual implications of a scene in a much-discussed Laconian cup. All of this leads to a strong sense of the presence of a consumer, or perhaps multiple consumers, who might be any number of passing viewers in contexts of production or use, the original buyer or the eventual recipient at the final destination, who may also have made the choice that landed the pot in its find-spot. The sense of a consumer in a position to make a perceptive choice or to engage with the maker is not entirely new, as the editors suggest (p. xi), and there are classes of pottery, or specific shapes, which have long been recognised as destined for a particular market, not least Etruria, where there are discernible local versions of the imported forms. Some others have a long-recognised and more local market for items which can be tied to local purposes or specific places.
S. Bundrick examines a hydria from the Group of Polygnotus found in Tomb 703 of the Valle Trebbia Necropolis at Spina (pp. 1–21); here the trigger is the image of a young woman sitting on a klismos at work on a handloom, observed by two other women. The frequent interpretation of women making small textile items as prostitutes is thrown into question by the correspondence of this scene with others in the Polygnotan repertoire showing ‘respectable’ women; a reading of the product as a mitra or a girdle for bridal wear, and thus part of the imagery of domestic textile production generally, suggests a meaningful use of the vase as the ash urn for the burial of such a woman, whether Etruscan or Greek.
V. Sarapinidi considers a black-figure column krater by the Painter of Louvre F6 with a departure scene (pp. 83–103); this was found in a cemetery at Sindos, near Thessaloniki, in a grave that contained the remains of a boy less than ten years old. He had been buried with the weapons of a warrior; the krater, as a sympotic object, suggests, as the weapons do, a high social status, and comparison with other graves in this cemetery and elsewhere in the region supports that view. The departure scene on the vessel may therefore have a specialist reference for this burial, though the discussion moves to an interesting suggestion that the sympotic shape may be more significant than the decoration, with evidence that some Attic producers were trading specifically to this market.
B. Peruzzi looks at a red-figure skyphos by the Penelope Painter found in a tomb at Rutigliano-Purgatorio, near Bari, with a specific angle on the appeal of this vase for the Peucetian consumer (pp. 65–81). The essay aims to demonstrate, with some success, that the vases chosen by this population were ones that could readily be matched to local funerary practice: the assemblage that included this cup also involved drinking and food-preparation equipment. The skyphos itself depicts women making libations on either side, who may represent Demeter and Kore, and it contained the remains of some eggs. This prompts an interesting exploration of the use of vessels with one supposed function in a context that used a similar shape, and therefore perhaps this one, for a rather different purpose – the shape, related to a lidded pyxis, matters more than the iconography of the scenes.
V. Vlachou's discussion of a giant Geometric pitcher from Marathon (pp. 125–51), however, centres on the very specific choice and dense packing of scenes over its surface. The particular grouping of animals, mythical creatures and dancing human figures is without parallels; the class of vessels to which this example belongs has been found only in Athens and Attica, and they are arguably closely related to female funerary practice. They may be special commissions, related to status and gender, and the Marathon pitcher may well reflect the painter's integration of stock motifs with individually conceived images for this particular piece.
T. Trahey (pp. 105–24) re-imagines the trade networks between Athens and Vulci, both physical and cultural, via a case study expanding from two Attic black-figure amphorae showing a woman riding a bull to a data-set involving 86 such pieces, using the web-based Palladio and RAW platforms to visualise an economic network of complicated local and external interactions. The imagery begins to acquire more sense as a brand and a recognition factor, with a link to specific traders.
K. Lynch reflects on fragments of Attic black-figure cups found at Gordion, many from the defences used by the Lydians to repel the Persians (pp. 41–63). It is evident from vases attributable to specific workshops, including those of Lydos, and to Kleitias and Ergotimos, that there was a trade route served by quality Athenian workshops. Lydian usage of cups from Athens is traced to their capital, Sardis, and suggests that the shape may have appealed because of a native tradition of stemmed dishes, even though their presence does not imply sympotic usage in the Greek sense.
And Laconian cups? A. Jiang (pp. 23–40) provides a sophisticated re-reading of a scene that has usually been interpreted as Dionysiac. Here it becomes a fusion of three elements of the Spartan Karneia: the race, the music competition and the dance. A clever interpretation of the composition and juxtaposition of the figures and decorative elements allows the image to be read as a synthetic view of the festival.
The papers collected in this volume give us an encouraging sense of a widening approach to material contexts for figured vases. They also broaden more conventional iconographic interpretation, which can only open up further pathways to our sense of the significance of these objects in the context of fabrication and of use. They gain by publication as a group, and the reader will benefit from their association of ideas and methodologies.
