HESPERIA 70 (200I) MAG N A AC H A E A Pages373-46° AKHAIANLATE GEOMETRIC ANDARCHAIC POTTERY IN SOUTHITALY AND SICILY In memoryofEmilyToionsend ABSTRACT Vermeule ImportedAkhaian and locallyproduced Akhaian-style pottery occurs in SouthItaly, Sicily, and beyond, found not only in the Akhaianapoikiai, but also in other settlements.The most characteristicAkhaian shape the kantharos is discussedwithinthe contextof its homeregion, including Elis. Examplesof ArchaicAkhaian pottery in theWest are assembled and the dis- tributionis comparedto thatof Akhaianand West Greek imports in the Late BronzeAge. A patternemerges that suggests a complexreality of interaction andmovement of people,commodities, and ideas between Greece and Italy in the pre- and protohistoricperiods, thus contributingto a betterunder- standingof the firstwestern Greeks. AIMSAND SCOPE OF THE STUDY Thispaper emerged from a studyof thepottery from the site at Francavilla Marittima,the extramuralsanctuary of theAkhaian apoikia of Sybarison the siteof an earlierindigenous settlement (Fig. 1).1 In dealingwith the potteryfrom the sanctuaryon the Timponedella Motta (see below),I discovereda largenumber of plainbanded and monochrome kantharoi, manyof whichwere locally produced, either in the plainof Sybarisor elsewherein SouthItaly, while others were imported. These are not iso- latedexamples, but together form one of themost numerous categories of potteryafter Corinthian. In shapeand style, these kantharoi are closest to a seriesof vesselsfrom various sites in the northwestPeloponnese, par- ticularlyAkhaia. Despite the factthat Sybaris was traditionally founded by Akhaians,the Peloponnesiancharacter of thismaterial has not previ- ouslybeen recognized in studiesof Greekpottery in SouthItaly and Sic- ily.The relevantmaterial from Francavilla will be fullypublished else- where.Comparative material from other sites in SouthItaly and Sicily formsthe basisof this article,the aimof whichis to track,as faras is 1. ForFrancavilla see, most recently, currentlypossible, the distributionof Akhaianand Akhaian-style pottery Maaskant-Kleibrink1993. in thecentral Mediterranean. Some of thematerial that I referto asAkhaian American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia ® www.jstor.org JOHNK. PAPADOPOULOS 374 Figure1. Map ofthe Mediterranean. Ithake,or fromthe R.G. Finnerty orAkhaian-style may ultimately derive from Elis, oppositeAkhaia. As will regionon thenorth side of the CorinthianGulf, theyare presented as a becomeclear, the results of thisstudy are tentative; in mainlandGreece startingpoint for others more familiar with the material andthe West to buildon or to reassemble. potteryoccurs Threeinterrelated issues are addressed. First, Akhaian Akhaianizingpottery is commonlyat sitesin MagnaGraecia; Akhaian or confinedto the all overSouth Italy and parts of Sicily,and is not found theGreek colonialsphere. Second, in additionto theimports from Akhaian of sites, Akhaianpottery was copiedby pottersat a number mainland, givingrise to especiallythe Akhaian apoikiai of Sybarisand Metapontion, as"Akhaianizing" locallyproduced style of potterythat is bestdesignated a of acknowledg- or"Akhaian-style." Such an appellation has the advantage the terms"Italo- the pedigreeof the material,in the sameway that ing of Corinth. and"Etrusco-Corinthian" point to the influence Corinthian" Corinthianis to addthat my use of termssuch as Akhaianand I hasten styles.Pot- to the identificationof easilydistinguished ceramic confined of socialreali- by itselfcan be a misleadingand inadequate indicator tery preeminenceand ties;in particular,interpretations of social and economic 2. Graham1986; Papadopoulos of ceramicstyle alone.2 esp. ethnicityshould not be formulatedon the basis 1996,p. 158;Osborne 1998, in mind,since it is Papadopoulos1997a; The exampleof Corinthianpottery is worthbearing p. 258;see further potterythroughout the cf. the penetratingstudies of Hall 1997 clearthat the distributionof Corinthian-style movement;the sameis andJones 1997; see alsoMorgan 1991. Mediterraneanis not directly linked with colonial M A G N A A C H A E A 375 truefor Athenian, Lakonian, and other Greek pottery styles. Moreover, Corinthian-stylepottery in Italy,Sicily, and beyond need not havebeen carried-or produced-by Corinthians,and Catherine Morgan has inti- matedthat much of thepottery in theWest referred to asCorinthian may, in fact,be fromIthake or Korkyra.3 Finally,in thisarticle I seekto contextualizethe evidence of Akhaian materialremains not solelyagainst the backdrop of the literarytraditions of the foundationof coloniesin the EarlyIron Age, but within a broader frameworkthat recognizes other avenues of circulation,as well as similar patternsin the BronzeAge. In so doingI attemptto bridgethe systemic dividebetween prehistoric and classical archaeology in the studyof the LateBronze and Early Iron Age Mediterranean. The first western Greeks wereMycenaeans, and it is strikinghow very similar the Archaic Akhaian patternis to thatof theirBronze Age Akhaianforebears. In drawinga commonthread between the Akhaians of theMycenaean age and those of the historicperiod, my aim is not,however, to conflatethe very different worldsof heroicand historic Akhaians; nor is it myintention to confuse ethnic"Akhaian" with geographical or stylistic "Akhaian." As JonathanHall has argued,there are numerous tiers of identitythat were explored and exploited.4My aim,rather, is to movetoward eradicating the perceived gapbetween the "last Mycenaeans" and the "first western Greeks." Followinga historicalintroduction that sets out the parametersof Akhaianoverseas settlement and the materialevidence associated with it, an overviewis presentedof Akhaianpottery in its homeregion. This is followedby an annotatedlist of Akhaianand Akhaian-style pottery, pri- marilykantharoi, found outside the northwestPeloponnese and adjacent regions.The purposeof the list,which forms the coreof this study,is to revealthe distributionof Akhaianand Akhaian-style pottery in South Italyand Sicily. A synthesisis thenpresented that summarizes the main patternsin the distributionof Akhaianand Akhaian-style pottery of the laterGeometric and Early Archaic periods and compares this distribution withthat of Mycenaeanpottery in theWest. In thefinal section I explore moregenerally the evidencefor Akhaians in SouthItaly. 3. Morgan1997; Morgan l999a; Anyaccount of the distributionof Akhaianpottery must necessarily see alsoMorris and Papadopoulos beginwith the mostcharacteristic shape in the Akhaianrepertoire: the 1998.As Morganhas further argued, distinctiveshape is foundall over Akhaia, parts of neigh- the perceivedneed to fleshout the kantharos.This Corinthiansequence by adducing boringElis, especially at Olympiaand Eleian Pylos, as wellas at various evidencefrom the Westto fill what siteson the northside of the CorinthianGulf. Such a distribution,par- were,until recently, gaps at Corinth ticularlyin the coastalareas of the westernCorinthian Gulf, raises the hascreated a falsepicture, conflating issueof whetherthese kantharoi are specifically Akhaian or, more generi- westernand Corinthian evidence in a cally,western Greek. Although it is clearthat many ofthe kantharoi found misleadingway. For filling in manyof the notedgaps in Corinthsee esp. in Elis,Phokis, Aitolia, and Akarnania were locally made, this is a ques- Williams1983; Williams 1986; Pfaff tion thatcannot be answeredconclusively at present.In somecases, the 1999;and, most recently, Isthmia VIII. claysof this greaterarea are too littleknown to providea moredetailed 4. Hall 1997. guideto preciseprovenance within the region.It maywell be thatwhat I 5. As Morgan(1991, p. 135) notes, referto as theAkhaian kantharos and generally as theAkhaian pottery the areaof ancientAkhaia essentially largerthan the modern prov- correspondsto thatof the modern style wasproduced in anarea considerably Greekadministrative district of the inceof Akhaia.5There exists, for example, a greatdeal of similarmaterial samename. in southernPhokis, Elis, Aitolia, southern Akarnania, and on Ithake.This 376 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS pottery,along with that from various sites in Akhaiaand Arkadia, is cur- rentlybeingstudied byvarious scholars working in theseregions, and much of it is eitherunpublished or hasappeared only in preliminaryreports. It is wellbeyond the scopeof thisarticle to providea comprehensive overviewof the potteryfrom these various regions or to anticipatethe resultsof morethorough analyses of individualcategories of pottery.New discoveriesin the Peloponneseand western Greece and the systematic publicationof material,such as WilliamCoulson's contributions on the EarlyIron Age potteryof Messeniaand Birgitta Eder's recent studies of Elis in the EarlyIron Age,6 are helping to definemore clearly the indi- vidualtraits of eachregion. It is worthstressing, however, that the very distinctionbetween Akhaia and Elis in the EarlyIron Age, for example, maybe moreapparent than real.7 The evidentlykoine style of pottery,par- ticularlyin Akhaiaand Elis, may well reflecta moreprofound cultural, economic,and political koine in thenorthwest Peloponnese. The extentto which"Akhaia" or"Elis" were meaningful terms in the Geometricperiod orreferred to clearlyprescribed geographical areas remains moot. A situationsimilar to thatof the potteryhas beenobserved in the regionalstyle of ArchaicDoric architecture of the Akhaian cities of South Italy.Barbara Barletta's thorough examination of