Two for Tuesday: Slavic Ware in Greece

As readers of my blog know, my current research in Greece examines the latest phases of ancient activity at the Roman Bath at Isthmia. This involves a “Dark Age settlement” visible in both some scrappy architecture features built into the carcass of the 2nd century AD bath and a significant assemblage of hand-made “Slavic” pottery. As I have argued before, this material represents the culmination of the ancient ceramic tradition and the perfection of the functional form without the frivolous and distracting glazes, slips, and shapes of earlier pottery production. 

There have been two recent articles that discuss this handmade pottery that I have read this week as I warm up for work at Isthmia.

First, Anna Panti’s 2023 article in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports titled “The Maroneia cave in Aegean Thrace. Byzantine period transport amphoras and coarse ware.” The Maroneia cave produced a small assemblage of 6th-8th century handmade vessels as well as an assemblage of pottery dating from the 6th to the 12th century. The earlier material from this assemblage consists of several familiar forms of Late Roman amphora — including our beloved LR1 and LR2 types — as well as flat based juglets which seem to be a favored form of table ware in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine period. 

Cave sites seem to be more common toward the end of antiquity and they fit a narrative that there is significant instability in the southern Balkans associated with the decline in Roman power in the region. The presence of both handmade and imported pottery suggests that whatever disruptions occurred in the 6th, 7th, and 8th century they did not necessarily restrict the arrival of amphora to the site, but did perhaps disrupt the movement of regional fine ware and cooking pots.

The other article is a by T.K. Vasileiou and A.K. Vionis in the same journal but in 2025. It’s titled “A petrographic contribution to the study of handmade vessels from Early Medieval Greece: A case-study from Boeotia and Achaea.”  Vasileiou and Vionis compare two samples of handmade ceramics: one from Boeotia and one from Achaea. They combined traditional formal analysis with ceramic petrography using transmitted-light optical microscopy (TL-OM). 

Their conclusions are probably as important and their methods. They recognized that communities in the 7th and 8th centuries must have still had access to larger regional markets, while also supplementing their needs with locally produced forms. These handmade or slow wheel made forms showed enough standardization to suggest some form of local manufacture beyond the household level, but mostly like below the regional level. The introduction of handmade wares likely reflects both the arrival of new settlers in the region, but also hints at exchange and sustained cultural contact between the groups.

This parallels our arguments from Isthmia as well, although greater attention to the size and shape of vessels might help us understand production more clearly. Thus far, we’ve been so intently focused on sorting local context that we’ve missed out on some of the larger regional considerations. While we won’t have an opportunity to do the kind of scientific analysis that Vasileiou and Vionis performed — at least at this stage of our work — we can leverage some of their broader conclusions to expand the context for our work.