Cargo in context : the morphology, stamping and origins of the amphoras from a fifth-century B.C. Ionian shipwreck

Between 1999 and 2001, underwater excavations off the western coast of Turkey at Tektaş Burnu brought to light new evidence for ancient Greek trade, in the form of a small merchant ship that was wrecked between 440 and 425 B.C. Chapter 1 summarizes the archaeological remains of the ship, which was carrying a cargo of wine, pine tar, and butchered beef contained in approximately 215 twohandled clay jars known as transport amphoras, in addition to smaller quantities of East Greek pottery. The amphora cargo, which is the focus of Chapter 2, is comprised in part of about twenty Mendean, Chian, and Samian jars, as well as two other unidentified (North Aegean?) amphoras. The vast majority (over 90%) of the jars, however, belong to a type that is presently not attributed to an individual Greek polis. By weighing morphological characteristics, clay fabrics, regional vii styles, and the distribution of parallels from sixth- and fifth-century B.C. sites in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, I conclude that the source of the unidentified amphoras from Tektaş Burnu is likely located in the South Aegean. This hypothesis is refined slightly in Chapter 3, which evaluates the presence of pre-firing stamps on a portion of the unattributed South Aegean amphoras. Among the stamps is a lettered type featuring the Greek letters EPY, a designation that appears on later amphora stamps and coin types as the abbreviated ethnic of Ionian Erythrai. The EPY stamp from Tektaş Burnu assumes particular importance as one of the earliest examples of the abbreviated ethnic stamp type, and its presence alongside other, less transparently meaningful stamp types in the same cargo provides a unique context for the evaluation of early Greek stamping practices. Finally, in Chapter 4, the Tektaş Burnu shipwreck is evaluated more generally against the archaeological evidence of five other Greek shipwrecks from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., in an effort to draw some preliminary conclusions about ship size, cargo composition, and long and short-distance trade networks in the Classical Greek world.Classic