View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Radboud Repository PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/105734 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2018-07-08 and may be subject to change. 1980-09_Babesch_15_reviews 24-08-2009 11:40 Pagina 215 BABESCH 84 (2009), 215-247. doi: 10.2143/BAB.84.0.2041646. Reviews BEATE BÖHLENDORF-ARSLAN/ALI OSMAN UYSASL/ Vroom), Harim Castle in Syria (S. Gelichi and S. Nepoti) JOHANNA WITTE-ORR (eds.), Çanak. Late Antique and Kubad-Abad in central Anatolia (R. Arık). Three and Medieval Pottery and Tiles in Mediterranean stratified deposits from Amorium are presented: 6th to 9th-century bricks and tiles (J. Witte-Orr), terracotta Archaeological Contexts (Byzas 7). Istanbul: Deutsches spacers from the late antique bathhouse (O. Koçyigˇit) Archäologisches Institut Abteilung Istanbul, 2007. and a long sequence from the southwest of the city wall 560 pp., figs.; 27.5 cm. – ISBN 978-975-807-197-5. (B. Böhlendorf-Arslan). Pottery is not always found in well-stratified contexts This book results from a conference held in June 2005 or below dated destruction levels. The relationship at the Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale. Most of the between potsherd, coin and historical text can be tenu- 36 papers published here address excavated pottery ous. In these circumstances there is greater reliance on from locations across the Mediterranean, with an em- typologies, established through characteristics of ves- phasis on Turkey, as well as Cyprus, Greece and Italy. sel shape and attributes. Sometimes more general fea- There is little in the way of editorializing, although the tures of production and distribution typify certain subject matter is arranged in roughly chronological phases: forms of Early Byzantine table ware display order, starting with the Late Roman and Early Byzantine remarkable conservatism and continuity from Roman period (4th to mid-7th century), through the Middle (8th times. Slight morphological variations allowed for tax- to 11th) and Late Byzantine (12th to mid-15th) centuries, onomies to be formulated, notably, John Hayes’ influen- and concluding with Seljuk and Ottoman contexts. But tial work on red slip ware and the various amphora clas- these historical phases and sub-phases are not so neatly sifications. However, as more material comes to light demarcated: several of the papers deal with sites and from more sites, and as closer attention is paid to fab- sequences spanning long stretches of time and different rics, regional trends emerge and the picture of mass, cen- cultural milieux. tralised manufacture becomes more nuanced. Surface Rather than attempting a synopsis of each article, I finds from Pednelissos in Pisidia indicate the co-exis- will here focus on some recurring issues that emerge tence of imported and locally produced fine wares in from reading them together. Although wide-ranging in late antiquity, and may show the relocation of estab- their temporal and geographical scope, the contributions lished workshops (F. Kenkel); chemical analysis of to this volume implicitly and explicitly raise a number finds from Priene near Miletus show that pottery was of common themes. These relate to method and approach, imported from a range of places (Z. Yılmaz); and at and may be summarised as follows: chronology; typol- Elaiussa Sebaste on the Cilician coast, ‘derivatives’ ogy; and, more generally, the role and aims of the were produced alongside imports, and distinctive, ver- ceramics specialist. nacular techniques of carving and painting were prac- The difficulty of matching material culture with pol- ticed (M. Ricci). itical events and entities is exemplified in what we call Increasingly regional and localised traits are recog- ‘Byzantine’. For Jerusalem, Byzantine rule is customar- nised from the 6th century onwards, including in Greece ily dated from AD 335 to the Arab conquest of the city (P. Petridis), the lagoon of Venice (E. Grandi) and south- in AD 638 (R. Avner, p. 196), while in parts of Greece ern Apulia (P. Arthur). Classification based on well- and Asia Minor it can be seen to last from the mid-4th known, site-specific forms therefore becomes less valid; to the mid-15th century. But, of course, ceramics crossed more so when fabric analysis reveals a range of sources, political boundaries. During the long, Byzantine millen- and when newly-discovered contexts allow for more nium, around the lands controlled (and not controlled) precise dating. All too often classification schemes are by Constantinople, regional identities were continually imposed on the material culture and reports abide by evolving and coalescing. Thus, the labels assigned to reified typologies rather than dealing with the evidence ceramics - Byzantine, Seljuk, Frankish, Genoese etc. - at hand. Typologies can obscure subtleties in the material are often inadequate to describe the diversity of set- record. And they can lag behind developments in the tings in which they were produced, consumed and cir- field - who knows how discoveries at the ongoing culated. Even where precise production centres are Yenikapı excavations in Istanbul will affect long-held known for certain classes of, say, sigillata or sgraffito, precepts? derivatives and imitations were often being made else- Adherence to outmoded typological schemes is high- where. lighted in a review of scholarship on medieval ceram- Whether we call a pot Roman or Byzantine, the first ics from Cyprus (M.L. von Wartburg). Categories have concern of the ceramics specialist is often to provide a derived from stylistic studies that focused on form and date and origin. Most desirable is the stratified deposit surface decoration - slip, glaze, and painted and incised or closed context. Several such contexts are presented motifs. However, stratified finds from controlled exca- here, including late antique deposits from Zeugma (C. vations allow for far more precision and detail that are Abadie-Reynal et al.), Hierapolis (D. Cottica) and Deir not always compatible with former classifications. But el-Bachit in Egypt (T. Beckh), and medieval and post- where precise contextual evidence is not available, as medieval assemblages from Aegina (B. Wille), Sparta is often the case, it may be necessary to turn to fabric (J. Dimopoulos), Paphos (J. Rosser), Belgrade (V. Bikicˇ), analysis to discern origins, or to consider alternative Pliska in Bulgaria (V. Petrova), Dürres in Albania (J. questions - how vessels reflect the activities or status of 215 1980-09_Babesch_15_reviews 24-08-2009 11:40 Pagina 216 consumers, or to look more broadly at regional distri- Castelli) moved to Pesaro to marry Chiara Gozze, to the butions, using a looser chronological framework. present day. Valeria Purcaro’s contribution includes a Archaeologists will always be faced with variable precious paragraph on the Del Monte-Gozze-Baldassini qualities and quantities of evidence. Much depends on palace in Pesaro. The author addresses both its building what work has been done, and where: distribution maps history and attribution, as well as the role of the area of certain pottery classes are often more representative of where it stands into the texture of the Roman town archaeological fieldwork and publication than they are from the 1st century AD. The publishing of several doc- of past patterns of deposition and circulation. What is uments about the family, and its estates, after the move important is to use all the evidence at our disposal - from to Pesaro follows. In a shorter paragraph, Mareva Car- archaeometric studies of individual fabrics to broad syn- done reconstructs in detail the history of both the Gozze theses of surface assemblages collected on wide-ranging family and the antiquities that Francesco Maria inher- field surveys - and continually ask ‘what do we want to ited from his wife’s relations, for the most part found in learn from this material?’ the Gozze estate at Calibano, except for a small group Simply describing pottery classes and their findspot presumably purchased in Rome. is not enough. The tyranny of the taxonomy can be chal- Maria Elisa Micheli’s Chapter 3 is probably the most lenged through interpretation and synthesis; of who captivating. In these pages, all the information on both produced, used and deposited the pottery and why, collections (in Terni and in Pesaro) acquired so far are set and comparison of assemblages across different sites and within a wider cultural context. At the same time, Gabri- contexts. Empirical descriptions of form, fabric and spa- ele Castelli’s taste in purchasing antiquities, and his tial context are integral to the pottery report, and will descendants’ in displaying them, is described with strik- continue to be a mainstay of archaeological knowledge, ing clarity. Notwithstanding the relative worth of the but the more successful and stimulating papers in this collection, it apparently met with two centuries of obliv- volume are those that go beyond the descriptive, to ion after the death of its initiator. During the 18th cen- explore pottery’s historical and social significance. tury, these works of art and antiquities were scarcely W. Anderson considered, and were probably not given a defined place in the Pesaro palace yet. According to Micheli, MARIA ELISA MICHELI/VALENTINA PURCARO/ANNA today’s display can be most probably ascribed to the 19th-century naturalist Francesco Baldassini and was SANTUCCI, La raccolta di antichità Baldassini-Castelli. perhaps mainly due to the need of preserving the works Itinerario tra Roma, Terni e Pesaro. Pisa: ETS, 2007. of art belonging to the family. Sculptural fragments and 268 pp., figs., 24 cm. – ISBN 978-884671728-3. relief panels were thus tidily organized all over the Gallery without following recognizable typological cri- It was through various vicissitudes, and more than one teria or an iconographic sequence.