Kynos Through Time: Decorated Pottery Sherds from Eleven Strata of a Homeric Greek Site

Abstract

Excavations at the Kynos settlement, a Homeric site and the home of an early school of key Greek pictorial pottery painting, revealed extensive remains of several chronological horizons which continuously span the period from Middle Helladic (∼2100 BC) to Byzantine times (330 AD onwards), along with thousands of decorated sherds. The scope of the present study is the exploration of the technological traits of this pottery, which would contribute substantially to the archaeological understanding of the site. Samples from a sizeable assembly of decorated sherds were studied by means of analytical techniques, i.e., scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX) analyzer, micro X-ray fluorescence (μXRF), and portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF). Results indicate that the dark decorations have been achieved by versions of the iron reduction (IRe) technique using mostly materials identical to those of the red decorations, while for the white decorations contrast-enhancing Ca–Mg-enriched clays were used. All coexisting red and dark hues reflect similar compositions while the color difference is due to the thicker application of the darker decorations, which are thus not affected by the last oxidative firing stage of the IRe technique. X-ray fluorescence analysis focusing on several clay-origin markers shows that only a minority of samples is of non-local character and continuity in Kynos pottery tradition, at least as far as raw materials is suggested. Some of the local body-clays exhibit a puzzling enhanced level of Ni, Cu, and Zn at a nearly fixed ratio. Finally, we find that XRF may provide valuable nondestructive analysis in the case of fine pottery decorative layers of cultural significance.