This stimulating volume of the CVA treats an important and interesting issue, namely if and how Greek pottery and pottery traditions functioned as a medium in the transfer and exchange of culture in the Classical Mediterranean world. The authors discuss questions such as: can pottery and especially the pictures on them be seen as transmitters of cultural ideas, mentality, myths and ways of living the ‘Greek life’? The main part of the discussion concerns vase paintings. How were pictures understood and interpreted by viewers from a non-Greek context; how were they accepted, adapted and re-interpreted when seen by people in other cultural contexts? Was the pottery imported to various areas because of its practical functions, rather than the figures on them? What were the relations between producer and buyer? To what extent was Greek pottery produced for markets outside Greece and adjusted to the taste of the consumer in these areas? How well versed were, for example, Etruscans in Greek mythology? The questions are far from new and naturally the authors do not reach any consensus, but they put the focus on several very important issues and it makes for stimulating and interesting reading.
In the introduction the editors point out the danger in our often very static view of ‘culture’. The theme is further developed in the case study by B. Schweizer, who problematises the term ‘Greek vases’ in a discussion of vases and pictures from Etruria and the European Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In this thoughtful article Schweizer puts the terms ‘hellenisation’ and ‘mediterranisation’, ‘acculturation’ and ‘cultural interaction’, ‘intercultural communication’ and ‘construction of cultural identity’ against each other, exploring how these perspectives are reflected in modern research.
The volume is divided into three parts, called ‘Wege’ (Roads). In Part 1 F. Giudice, R. Scicolone and S.L. Tata present a statistical overview of Attic production from c. 500 into the fourth century b.c., while M. Langner discusses the trade in late red-figure kraters and compares their function and imitation of late red-figure pottery in Spina, Etruria and in Pantikapaion by the Black Sea, suggesting that pictures with a less concrete content, that are more open to interpretation, will be more easily accepted by the consumers. T. Mannack concentrates on one motif, the ‘Liebesverfolgungen’, on pots from South Italy, and suggests that the motif, alongside other interpretations, also may have functioned as ‘Trostspender’.
Part 2 treats pots from specific places or regions. Three of them concern places in Italy. I. Wehgartner treats the Sammlung Feoli that contains pots from Vulci, M. Iozzo discusses the Pittore di Penelope in Chiusi and J. Nels the Dokimasia Painter in Morgantina. An interesting article by E. Manakidou looks at the import of Attic and Corinthian pottery and their function in graves in Macedonia.
The third and last part, ‘Perspectives’, contains articles on Amazons (L. Puritani) and Attic heroes (F.-H. Massa-Pairault) in Etruria, while V. Sabetai and A. Schöne-Denkinger study the reception of Attic pottery in Boeotia, and A. Petrakova and O. Jaeggi examine Greek pottery in the Kerch area.
Thus the regional focus of the volume is – perhaps not surprisingly – the Italian peninsula, especially Etruria but also South Italy and Sicily. Additionally, non-Attic regions in Greece are treated. Boeotia cannot perhaps be seen as from another cultural sphere than Attica, but in their articles Sabetai and Schöne-Denkinger clearly show that it had its own cultural ‘dialect’. Another case is Macedonia, which is the focus of Manakidou's article. It is noteworthy that the Attic and Corinthian imports to Macedonia seem to have been made more with an eye to the function of the pot rather than because of its decoration and figurative themes. It raises the question how the pots and their figures may have been used in constructions of identities. When persons were buried with imported pottery in Macedonia, in the Kerch area or Italy, what did that imply for their perceptions of themselves, their identity?
The discussions suggest that we should not draw any sharp line between, for example, an Etruscan or South Italian recipient's way of looking at the figures and a Greek way. The Etruscans had long traditions of contacts with Greek culture and would have been able to understand the pictures, but would equally have been able to make their own interpretations, fitting their culture, mentality and way of living. Certain motif circles, such as the Amazons discussed by Puritani, may well have had special functions. Puritani suggests that they found another function in Etruria as carriers of positive values for women: uirtus, beauty and courage.
To what extent did Greek potters produce for specific markets? In the case of the Nikosthenes Painter and his use of Etruscan vessel shapes, it is suggested by the editors that a specific tradesman was responsible for the export/import, an example of a stable relationship between producer and middleman over a long period of time. One wonders if it may have been a family venture?
Another issue is the imitation or adoption of Greek traits in shapes and motifs in local pottery, whether in the Central European Hallstatt culture as discussed by Schweizer or in the Black Sea area, treated by Petrakova and Jaeggi. Petrakova opens with a necessary caution concerning the difficulty in working with this pottery that has to a large extent reached us through illegal digging and dealing. Working from good find contexts she puts forward a good case for refuting some of the standard ideas about the Kerch vases. She argues convincingly that the vases were not produced in Attica solely for the Pantikapaion market. They were often used for various functions and had sometimes even been repaired, before they finally became grave goods. But the grave finds show examples of reflection on the Greek imagery and use of both pictures and pots in an Athenian manner. She suggests that the imported pottery was highly regarded as beautiful luxury items and therefore those who could afford them preferred them in their graves to local imitations, and they probably reflect the personal taste of the persons involved.
R. Osborne rounds off the volume with an article treating polysemy and its limits. His case in this discussion of controlling the interpretation of Greek vases in changing cultural contexts, is based on the fact that no two Greek vase pictures are identical, in contrast to the modern world of mass-produced images that may be seen all around the world. He criticises the interpretation of Barthes, Lissarague and others of the pictures as ‘myth’, instead their ideology is subject to question. As a case study he discusses vases with doors, interpreting the scenes as representing a meeting point between inside and outside and stressing their narrative function. In his words ‘Athenian pots do not deliver a series of statements about what life is like … (they) make us question what life is like’.
This interesting volume raises many questions, since clearly the forms of reception did vary from region to region and even place to place. The authors treating the same regions do not always come to the same conclusions, since they treat their material from different viewpoints. But this is necessary in order to achieve a better understanding. As suggested by the editors the road to more differentiated answers lies in making more analyses of local find contexts and regional studies, including the imitation of imported pottery.
