Fine ware pottery

A major advantage of Classical pottery is that much is already known about its function. Decades of painstaking description, cataloguing, and iconographic studies has thrown light on the function of almost every individual Classical pottery shape (Sparkes and Talcott 1970; Rotroff 1997; Lynch 2011b; McPhee et al. 2012). And despite uncertainties, many of them are even known by their ancient names (Sparkes and Talcott 1970; 3-9). Assemblages TTP2 and TTP3 consist of roughly the same number of fine ware vessels, TTP2 of 43 vessels, and TTP3 of 39. Considering that the context of Pyre 3 has not been fully excavated, it is reasonable to assume that in terms of numbers the two assemblages are closely comparable.

In Assemblage TTP2, 39 vessels and sherds can be attributed with certainty or a fair amount of certainty to a known shape. Of them, 24 (55.8%) are vessels for consuming liquids: kotylai, cups, the Laconian mug, and the Ithacan one-handlers. Vessels for serving and pouring liquids, like jugs and the Laconian table amphora, are eight (18.6%). Vessels clearly for serving and consuming food appear to be only the two Attic stemmed dishes (4.6%). Interestingly enough, in what Lynch interprets as a sympotic assemblage of Late Archaic pottery from the Athenian Agora, she notices that the only food-consumption shapes were stemmed dishes (Lynch 2011b, 17). The vessels for oil and perfumed oil, like the Attic lekythos and the Corinthian small pyxides and oinochoai, are five (11.6%).

In Assemblage TTP3, 33 out of 39 vessels and sherds can be attributed with certainty, or a fair amount of it, to a known shape. The vessels for consuming liquids, like skyphoi, kantharoi, and kotylai, are 14 (33.3%). The vessels for serving and pouring liquids are four (10.2%). The vessels for serving and consuming food like plates and echinus blows are eleven in total (28.2%). Vessels for oil can be characterised the askoi and the small closed vessel 126 (12.8%).

At first sight these functional attributions display an inconsistency between the two assemblages (fig 37). Assemblage TTP2 displays predominance in drinking vessels with very few vessels for consuming food; whilst in Assemblage TTP3 the ratio is more balanced between these two categories. Only the ratios of the vessels for oil are comparable. Such a discrepancy may occur because the vessel function is not always so clear-cut. The one-handlers of

Assemblage TTP2 are sometimes considered vessels for consuming liquids (McPhee et al. 2012, 180), and sometimes for serving food (Rotroff 1997, 155). The large kotylai, like the Corinthian kotyle 1, and the “Western Greek” kotyle

(29) and cup (30), are too large. Risser has suggested that these Corinthian large kotylai may have been used as bowls and not for drinking (Risser 2001, 67).

There are uncertainties with regard to Assemblage TTP3 as well. The lids (130, 131, and 132) have been included in the drinking vessels although the lekanai they ought to have covered have not been found. The large jug fragments

127 and 128 have been counted as distinct, although they might belong to the same vessel. The sherd 103 is not clear what type of vessel represents. It has been tentatively identified as skyphos in the Catalogue (Appendix I), although it might be a jug with cylindrical neck. The large skyphos 104 appears too large to be a simple drinking vessel. From the extant dimensions it seems to have had a large capacity for liquid and it might have been used as a pouring vessel or mixing bowl instead. And the same could be said of the skyphos fragments 96. The vessel looks too large to be a simple skyphos, and it might have also been a pouring or mixing bowl.

This discrepancy between the two assemblages, however, disappears when the unit of function analysis changes, and instead of representing single function it expands to include all vessels involved in the activities of serving and consuming food and drink (fig 38). Assemblage TTP2 displays a ratio of 79% and TTP3 71.7%. So when the activity performed is characterized in more general terms, namely as serving and consuming food and drink, presumably at the same time, the two assemblages are almost identical to each other.

In Assemblage TTP2, vessels for oil comprise the Attic lekythos 24, the “Argive Monochrome” juglet 16, and the Corinthian Conventionalizing oinochoai and pyxides (13-16). The Attic lekythoi are usually considered vases for burial rituals and burial votives. However, Lynch argues that they were common in domestic contexts and probably functioned as containers of oil in occasions of dining; both private and communal (Lynch 2011b, 139-140). The Corinthian oinochoai and pyxides, together with the “Argive Monochrome” juglet, are small, low capacity vessels. As Kourou and Risser remark, they are too small for any practical purpose and may have functioned instead as containers of oil, or

TTP3, vessels for oil are the askoi (122-125) and probably the small closed vessel 126 (Rotroff 1997, 169-178; McPhee et al. 2012, 195-208). 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Assemblage TTP2 Assemblage TTP3

Vessels for oil

Vessels for serving and consuming food Vessels for serving and pouring liquids

Vessels for consuming liquids

Figure 37: Occurrences of fine ware vessels by function as % in total assemblages

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Assemblage TTP2 Assemblage TTP3

Vessels for oil

Vessels for serving and consuming food and drink

Figure 38: Occurrences of fine ware vessels for serving and consuming food and drink, and vessels for oil, as % in total assemblages