Il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Zara (Croazia) conserva alcuni frammenti pertinenti ad un cratere a campana lucano attribuibile al Pittore di Dolone, artigiano attivo nel primo quarto del IV secolo a.C. a Metaponto (Matera, Italia). Il vaso, rinvenuto nel 1964 nel settore abitativo dell’insediamento liburnio dell’Età del Ferro di Beretinova gradina, costituisce un’interessante testimonianza della presenza di importazioni dell’Italia meridionale sulla costa orientale del Medio Adriatico all’inizio del IV secolo a.C.

Il tema della toletta e del bagno di figure femminili alla fontana o al semplice louterion ha negli ultimi anni ricevuto grande attenzione; numerosi sono gli studi relativi alla ceramica attica e alle ciste prenestine mentre minore è invece l’interesse dimostrato nei confronti dell’articolazione del tema nella ceramica dell’Italia meridionale , dove esso è caratterizzato da percorsi in parte originali. Le notevoli particolarità presenti nelle singole produzioni inducono ad analizzare, in questa sede, le attestazioni presenti nella ceramica apula e in quella lucana.

Presentazione dei frammenti di ceramica attica e italiota rinvenuti nello scavo di Fattoria S. Biagio (Metaponto, Bernalda).

Studio della ceramica figurata rinvenuta nel survey condotto nella chora di Metaponto.

Presentazione e discussione deli frammenti di ceramica figurata rinvenuti a Fattoria Fabrizio, nella chora di Metaponto

Studio della ceramica figurata rinvenuta nel survey condotto nella chora metapontina

I crateri a volute entrano a far parte del repertorio morfologico della ceramica lucana a figure rosse sin dalle prime fasi della produzione con un esemplare attribuito ai Pittori di Pisticci e del Ciclope; sempre attestati con un numero esiguo di esemplari, essi sono decorati anche dal Pittore di Palermo, dal Pittore delle Carnee e dai Pittori di Creusa e Dolone. Le evidenze relative alla presenza di vasi di questa forma a Metaponto e nel suo territorio riguardano invece principalmente la seconda metà del IV secolo a.C. quando crateri a volute sono stati rinvenuti, oltre che nelle necropoli urbane (Crucinia) e della chora (Pantanello, Avinella, Giardinetto, Pizzica), anche nel santuario di Pantanello.

Ce chapitre présente une estimation des vases grecs qui ont été recueillis lors des premiers travaux dans les nécropoles qui entourent La Castellina et, en appendice, quelques fragments mis au jour dans le sondage de 1964 sur le sommet du site. Cette recherche se base sur la documentation publiée et, pour les travaux postérieurs à 1945, sur les objets qui sont conservés au Musée national de Civitavecchia. L’étude de la distribution des vases grecs d’importation dans les tombes de La Castellina a permis d’entrevoir une dynamique cohérente dans l’implantation des sépultures au départ de positions marquantes.

Shapes have received little attention in the study of South Italian Red-Figure Pottery. Although the general lines of development of individual forms were occasionally discussed by Trendall, his main interest lay in vase-painting. The topic has been neglected also by later scholars, more interested in iconography and, to a lesser extent, classification and style. The morphological study of shapes and the analysis of potter-work details has instead virtually no tradition. This contribution aims to provide some preliminary discussion on this issue. The role played by potters in the development of red-figure pottery in Southern Italy, which also meant the introduction of new shapes previously not attested in the local morphological repertoire will be addressed analyzing the framework in which this production originated at Metaponto. Some case-studies chosen among Lucanian workshops of the second half of the 5th and the beginning of the 4th century BC will be furthermore presented to investigate the relationship between potters and painters. Particular attention will be reserved to the Creusa and Dolon workshop, which constitutes one of the most important and lively episodes in Metapontine red-figure production. While the personalities of the painters are to some degree established, there is still little information available about the potters active in the workshop a complete understanding of this workshop. Nonetheless, the large output and the variety of shapes produced by the atelier both in red-figure and in black-gloss confirm that the potters’ originality and capacity for innovation was by no means inferior to the painters’.

In 2014, the Università degli Studi della Basilicata (Postgraduate School of Archaeology, Matera, Italy) in collaboration with the École Pratique des Hautes Études (UMR 8546, Paris) carried out a four week excavation campaign in Policoro (Basilicata, southern Italy) within the scope of a 3-year agreement with the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Basilicata. Three excavation trenches were laid out. The first one (A) was positioned in the courtyard of a building with portico within insula I in the so-called “Quartiere centrale” on the Castello Hill, partly excavated in the 1960s. This trench yielded evidence of the production of bronze coins during the 3 rd and 2 nd centuries BC. In particular, two small pits dug into the ground contained two types of coin blanks, as well as a coin of the same type as some of the blanks, slags and scoriae, and terracotta fragments. Moreover, a discarded rim fragment from a matt-painted olla found in trench A testifies to the production of local pottery on the site during the 7 th century BC. Another trench (B) was placed on the southern edge of the Castello plateau. Here, the outskirts of a Hellenistic living quarter were brought to light. On the surface, there were numerous Archaic pottery fragments, among others a Milesian oinochoe from the third quarter of the 7 th century BC. In the third trench (C), situated in the cella of the so-called “Archaic Temple” in the Varatizzo Val- ley, the excavations brought to light a pebble floor that yielded various pottery fragments from the second half of the 7 th century BC. In light of these promising results, excavations in all three trenches will be carried out in future campaigns

Research undertaken following the creation of the Soprintendenza della Basilicata in the nineteen-sixties has progressively increased our knowledge on Metapontine red-figure pottery. Trendall’s classification, involving the identification of the main groups of southern Italian red-figure pottery, was in the process of being formulated when the Metapontine kerameikos (the potters’ quarter) was discovered. This confirmed that Metapontine workshops situated in the urban centre were engaged in the production of red-figure pottery, beginning at the least with the Amykos Painter and continuing down to the end of the 4th century bc. Although a large part of the material brought to light still remains unpublished, what is known is of particular interest. Extensive excavations of sites in the chora, which led to the publication, by J.C. Carter, of the Pantanello Necropolis and of the minor clusters of tombs located at Saldone and Sant’Angelo Vecchio have already given us a detailed knowledge of the figured wares from the necropoleis of the chora. The range of information we possess for the urban necropoleis is on the contrary limited by the small number of published burials and by the large number of tombs plundered by clandestini or destroyed by agricultural activity before this was controlled. Consequently, the evidence from the new clusters of necropoleis excavated by the Soprintendenza of Basilicata under the direction of Antonio De Siena between 2004 and 2007 makes an important contribution to filling a gap in our knowledge. The excavations were undertaken as part of a wider project necessitated by the widening of the ‘Ionica’ coastal road, the Super Strada 106, the course of which cuts through areas likely to contain much archaeological material, as confirmed by the excavations. More than 700 burials ranging in date from the last quarter of the 6th to the 3rd c. bc. were discovered. On the whole, between the mid-5th and the end of the 4th there are 69 tombs with red figure pottery which have yielded 98 vases. They have been found in tombs located in almost all the burial areas though always in reduced percentage. The study of the necropoleis, begun less than one year ago, is still ongoing and the present contribution will consider only the period from the second half of the 5th to the first decades of the 4th century bc. The range of shapes adopted in funerary assemblages of the Ionica encompasses pelikai, squat lekythoi, hydriai, lebetes gamikoi, pseudopanathenaic amphorae and skyphoi. The selection of shapes is consistent with what already known for Metapontine necropoleis both in the asty and in the chora. Most of the painters and workshops already connected to Metaponto (such as the Pisticci Painter and the Amykos Painter and their workshop, the Brooklyn-Budapest Painter and the Creusa, Dolon and anabates Painters) have been recognized. A small percentage of vases are instead stylistically connected to the Tarporley Painter and artisans linked by Trendall to his workshop. The analysis of the red figured vases from the necropolis along the Jonica integrated to what is known also from the chora confirms that Metapontine production of red figure was also thought for a consistent local consumption.

Lungo le coste adriatiche e ioniche si addensano giacimenti riferibili alla fase in esame, che presentano aree di particolare concentrazione ed un picco per la tarda repubblica, tra II e I sec. a.C. Per i giacimenti di età ellenistica il lavoro di revisione dei materiali, alla luce delle ultime acquisizioni degli studi ceramologici, si è rivelato particolarmente utile: in tutti appaiono quelle produzioni dell’Italia meridionale e della Sicilia, indici del boom agricolo e produttivo che interessa queste aree, e protagoniste di flussi di esportazione ormai consistenti, solitamente in associazione con anfore corciresi. La maggiore “densità” di testimonianze si registra però solo alla fine dell’età ellenistica, negli ultimi due secoli della repubblica: i carichi di produzioni “grecoitaliche tarde” e soprattutto adriatiche (Lamb. 2, Dr. 6A, anfore ovoidali) costituiscono il nucleo più numeroso. Ad esse si associano produzione greche, a conferma di quell’appartenenza dell’Adriatico alla “pars orientalis” del Mediterraneo. I carichi secondari sono rappresentati da ceramica fine e comune dell’Italia meridionale, di entrambi i versanti, e dell’area egea. Particolarmente emblematico appare il carico tardorepubblicano di Torre S. Sabina (Br), alla luce delle ultime indagini stratigrafiche condotte dall’Università del Salento. Vi figurano anfore di produzione locale ed egea – in particolare rodia – cui si associano ceramiche comuni da mensa, da dispensa e da cucina e ceramiche fini di produzione apula, come ceramica a pasta grigia, sovraddipinta, a vernice nera, anche nella produzione HFR (Hard Fired Red), e coppe a rilievo. È inoltre possibile riconoscere anche ceramiche di ambito tirrenico (Campana A e B) e manufatti provenienti dal Mediterraneo orientale, tra cui una notevole quantità di coppe megaresi (ca. 600 frammenti) e di Sigillata Orientale A. Si tratta di una preziosa attestazione di un commercio di redistribuzione che vede in Brindisi il suo epicentro. Va tuttavia sottolineato che l’ingente ed eterogeneo deposito di Torre S. Sabina, tuttora in corso di studio, comprende anche materiali da ascrivere alla discarica portuale, che rendono ancora problematica la restituzione complessiva di questo carico. I giacimenti con anfore Lamb. 2 e Dr. 6A e/o forme di transizione tra i due tipi sono particolarmente numerosi, lungo entrambe le coste dell’Adriatico; in alcuni di essi appare anche vasellame decorato di produzione norditalica o laterizi. Un’ultima notazione, infine, concerne le navi a dolia: rinvenimenti in Adriatico e Ionio hanno permesso di arricchire e precisare il quadro del commercio di vino sfuso di minor pregio e più largo consumo, trasportato nei grandi contenitori globulari e in anfore Dr. 2-4 di produzione adriatica.

The sixth volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology’s series on the rural countryside (chora) of Metaponto is a study of the Greek settlement at Sant’Angelo Vecchio. Located on a slope overlooking the Basento River, the site illustrates the extraordinary variety of settlements and uses of the territory from prehistory through the current day. Excavators brought to light a Late Archaic farmhouse, evidence of a sanctuary near a spring, and a cluster of eight burials of the mid-fifth century BC, but the most impressive remains belong to a production area with kilns. Active in the Hellenistic, Late Republican, and Early Imperial periods, these kilns illuminate important and lesser-known features of production in the chora of a Greek city and also chronicle the occupation of the territory in these periods. The thorough, diachronic presentation of the evidence from Sant’Angelo Vecchio is complemented by specialist studies on the environment, landscape, and artifacts, which date from prehistory to the post-medieval period. Significantly, the evidence spans the range of Greek site types (farmhouse, necropolis, sanctuary, and production center) as well as the Greek dates (from the Archaic to Early Imperial periods) highlighted during ICA’s survey of the Metapontine chora. In this regard, Chora 6 enhances the four volumes of The Chora of Metaponto 3: Archaeological Field Survey—Bradano to Basento and provides further insight into how sites in the chora interacted throughout its history.