Dissertation committee:
Π. Πολυχρονάκου-Σγουρίτσα, Ομότιμη Καθηγήτρια Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας Ε.Κ.Π.Α
Ι. Παπαδάτος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Ε.Κ.Π.Α.
Α. Χασιακού, Λέκτορας Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, ΕΚ.Π.Α.
Ελ. Μαντζουράνη, Καθηγήτρια Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Ε.Κ.Π.Α.
Ελ. Πλάτων, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Ε.Κ.Π.Α.
Γεω. Βαβουρανάκης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Ε.Κ.Π.Α.
Αιμ. Μπάνου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια Προϊστορικής Αρχαιολογίας, Παν/μιο Πελοποννήσου
Summary:
This work examines the period after the fall of the Mycenaean palaces until the beginning of the Early Iron Age (early 12th century to about 1000 BC) focusing on coarse, and especially cooking pottery, with reference to Kynos, a settlement in Locris, which flourished in this period of time, and its environment in Central Greece.
The first section presents the site and the area where this specific pottery has developed, so as to define the spatial framework of the research and to outline the physiognomy of the settlement (Ch. 1). Successive seismic events caused the formation of stratified deposits, in which recognizable, sufficiently dated and interdependent findings were identified.
In the second section, the setting of the study is analysed, namely the characteristics of the periods discussed are depicted. Residential or burial sites, contemporary with Kynos, are briefly described, (Ch. 2), as well as the spatial distribution of coarse pottery (Ch. 3).
By identifying temporal, spatial and cultural interrelations, it is pursued that the conditions are revealed under which coarse pottery emerged and how it was formulated. The uneven historical development of the regions mentioned, the different evaluation and classification of the material, the excavation methods and the process/targeting of the research may create a misleading conception about the distribution of certain cooking ceramic types and the intensity of the relevant pottery, as well as the perception of the activities associated with the preparation of food.
The third section refers to the material itself, primarily discussing the challenge of handling the issue and analyzing the methodology of approaching and classifying cookware (Ch. 4). Coarse pottery is characterized not as much by typological evolution, but by production techniques, through which the craftsmen’s choices for the intented function of the vessels are revealed. Different ways of manufacture procedures are associated with distinct ceramic categories and types.
However, conventional typological classification helps to categorize and identify the individual characteristics, while chronological data come out from the identification of vessels associated with specific habitation phases of Kynos (Ch. 6). Comparable elements from other sites indicate the distribution of types and reveal local peculiarities. The vases are classified into two main categories, the wheelmade and the handmade ones, mainly having a burnished surface, which also fall into two chronological horizons, the post-Palatial and post-Mycenaean (early PG) period-respectively. Since the distinction between wheelmade and handmade pottery does not constitute, as it turns out, a chronological indicator and manufacture usually encompass a variety of techniques, eventually, the generic classification into utilitarian/household pottery of Mycenaean versus post-Mycenaean tradition is adopted.
The dimension of space distribution is mentioned to a lesser extent, because only few vessels were found at the spot of their possible use, and most of the fragments have come out from destruction levels, waste/accumulated deposits, but also due to recycling, in open spaces, which were reconstructed after each seismic disturbance (Ch. 7). Establishing the interdependence of the elements of the ceramic assemblage and the integration of the vases within distinct habitation layers, the relationship of Mycenaean coarse ware with handmade burrnished pottery could be easily inspected, while detecting the sequence of transition from one ceramic tradition to another. An overview of cooking pots aims to demonstrate the simplification of types of the post-palatial period in contrast to the previous one, but also that local peculiarities, especially appearing among the handmade tradition, do not synchronize with chronological changes. With this approach, research is expanded spatially and temporally and in relation to the material of Kynos (Ch. 8). Moreover, the affinities resurge the question of whether and to what extent cooking pots reflect ideological conceptions and/or are carriers of indigenous or foreign practices with ethnological associations.
The fourth section deals with the social context of ceramics. Cooking pots are treated as elements of a production process, whose parameters are analyzed (standardization, labor investment, craftsmanship) according to typological and technological criteria, but also as objects in which specific social codes are incorporated. Through the evaluation of technological choices, in which morphological, aesthetic, functional and personal features are pointed out, it is attempted that the social and economic conditions are reconstructed, as well as the type of organization of production concerning the two distinct categories of ceramics, as mentioned above (Ch. 9).
The use of coarse/cooking pottery is placed in a nexus of defined production, management and disposal practices, explored both spatially and chronologically. Emphasis is put on understanding the daily life of the settlement inhabitants, the meaning and value that these utensils acquire within it and the needs they fulfill when offering, preparing and consuming food (Ch. 10). Finally, through the reconstruction of the contact networks between producers and consumers, the specificity and importance of Kynos as a cooking pottery workshop, in relation to other neighboring regions, is approached, and the dynamics of variability from wheelmade to handmade ware are pointed out, as a consequence of internal processes, with occasional local differences, and as an expression of the social and economic transformations that characterize the end of the Mycenaean world.
In the synopsis (Ch. 11), Kynos is valued as a dynamic settlement and as a important example of study on how the fluctuations of the time affected the flourishing, development and, ultimately, weakening of various locations in Central Greece.
The text of the work is accompanied, in volume B, by visual material (plates and figures), while volume C includes the catalogues of all examined vases and fragments, with relevant drawings and photographs.
