Author: Billur Tekkök-Biçken

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13:

The present study of the Hellenistic and Roman pottery of Troia is based on the finds from the excavations of 1989 to 1995 which cover the area of the Acropolis, the Greek and Roman Sanctuary, and the Lower City. The main aim of this study is to establish the chronology of the site and its structures. The finds from the fill deposits are also used to provide evidence for the typology of the wares, mainly the locally produced wares. In the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods, roughly around the middle of the second century B.C. to the first century A.D., there is a local production of fine and coarse wares. Fine ware production includes moldmade bowls, relief wares, and red slipped, semi-glazed, and white-slipped wares. The forms commonly used are fish-plates and bowls. Fine wares imitate common forms of sigillata, mainly Pergamene wares. Coarse ware production is identified in plain wares, basins, amphorae, and vessels with thin-walls. The geographical position of Troia in relation to the trade of both the Aegean and Black Seas led to the importation of a wide range of fine and coarse wares. Pergamene wares imported from the middle of the second century B.C. onwards include black glazed wares, West Slope style kantharoi, plates, kraters, Pergamene thin ware and gray examples. From the late Augustan period onwards Pergamene/Candarli wares dominate the market in Troia. Second to the third century A.D. examples of the ware are well represented in the Lower City houses. Examples of Italian sigillata are few in quantity, mostly appear in the Julio-Claudian period, after which there is a decline of the ware. Eastern sigillata A is present from 100 B.C. onwards, and extends to the Antonine period. Eastern sigillata B starts to appear in late Augustan period in the Sanctuary area, and from the Claudian to Hadrianic periods in the Lower City. Pontic sigillata imports start in the middle of the first century and extend into the second century A.D. Other unknown sigillata groups are present, they may link to the Black Sea centers. Thin-walled wares start to be imported at the end of second century, but are more frequent in the first century B.C. from Italy; middle of the first century to the second century A.D. examples are Phocaean. African sigillata imports start from the middle of the third century A.D., with few examples present in the second. Late Roman C/Phocaean Red Slip wares from the fifth to the end of the sixth century A.D. are well-represented, they share the market with widely distributed forms of African Red Slip wares within the fifth century A.D. The Troia pottery furnishes evidence for the scope of maritime trade connections with the West and East Mediterranean, and the Black Sea region during this period of time. There is a rise in the quantity of fine pottery from the Claudian to the Flavian periods, not yet supported by building activity at the site. Hadrian's renovation of the major buildings relate to the second and third century A.D. activities at the site. Third century A.D. burned deposits in the Lower City and the Odeion scaenae may relate to the Gothic and Herulian attacks. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).