A petrographic contribution to the study of handmade vessels from Early medieval Greece: A case-study from Boeotia and Achaea

The beginning of the Byzantine ‘Dark Ages’ (7th-9th cent. CE) conventionally signify the end of Antiquity, as the transition to a new, yet prolonged, dismal period that transformed every aspect of life for the societies in the Eastern Mediterranean (Haldon, 1990, Karayannopoulos, 2001; Vionis, 2020a). Amongst the many ‘misfortunes’ to befall upon the Byzantine Empire, the advance and settlement of Slav tribes into the southernmost regions of the Balkan peninsula have repeatedly been discussed by scholars as one of the key events of the Early Middle Ages in mainland Greece (Avraméa, 1997, Charanis, 1950, Koder, 2020). Traditionally in material culture, this descent is exemplified by a type of handmade vessels, known as Slav ware, and found in various contexts from the late 6th century onwards (Anagnostakis and Poulou-Papadimitriou, 1997, Aupert, 1980, Gallimore et al., 2022, Gregory, 1993a; Vida and Völling, 2000).

Despite its particular interest, little attention has been drawn on this pottery, often mentioned in archaeological reports, though generally overlooked. However, numerous studies recently (e.g. urban centres, fortresses, burial sites, rescue excavation findings) have contributed greatly to the typology of these vessels (Athanasoulis and Vassiliou, 2009, Athanasoulis and Vassiliou, 2014, Aupert, 1980, Vida and Völling, 2000; Vikatou, 2002; Zachariadis, 2014, Zachariadis, 2021), yet they remain almost absent from analytical pottery studies. In this paper, samples from two regions, the province of Boeotia in central Greece (Bintliff, 2012, Vionis, 2008, Vionis, 2017, Vionis and Loizou, 2017) and the area of Kamenitsa in Achaea, provide a representative assemblage of handmade pottery of the ‘Slav’ tradition. By attempting a macro to micro approach, this study presents some preliminary remarks regarding technological and compositional characteristics of this ware through TL-OM and aspires to initiate a discussion on aspects of handmade pottery technology, the ‘Slav’ ware tradition, population movement and the accommodation of modes and styles in the Byzantine Early Middle Ages.