DEALING WITH THE CRISIS: MOBILITY OF AEGINETAN-TRADITION POTTERS AROUND 1200 BC

Abstract

This article investigates the final episodes of a long-lasting potting tradition that developed on Aegina during the Bronze Age. From c. 1400 bc, cooking pottery constituted the only class of that tradition that was still manufactured and exported in quantity. Detailed study of several settlement contexts from sites scattered along the Euboean and up to the Pagasetic Gulf dating to c. 1200 bc shows that pottery imported from Aegina became increasingly less available, whereas similar cooking pots produced in various non-Aeginetan fabrics appear at the same time. Macroscopic analysis of traces related to manufacture of such pots reveals that it followed the typical chaîne opératoire of the Aeginetan tradition, strongly suggesting that their appearance reflects technological transfer and, thus, could not be explained without taking mobility of potters into account. Following a comprehensive presentation of available evidence, we argue that potters trained in the context of the Aeginetan potting tradition produced cooking pottery in several locations along the Euboean Gulf and up to the modern city of Volos. By considering the socio-economic and political context of their activity, as well as the development of Aegina and its pottery production during the later stages of the Late Bronze Age, we are able to shed more light on potters’ motivations to move, as well as on the population and the time scale of this mobility phenomenon. It appears that it had two stages, characterised by itinerant activity followed by permanent relocation, and that it was relatively short-lived, as by c. 1150 bc Aeginetan-tradition potters become invisible in the archaeological record.