Learning Outcomes
-Τo give a comprehensive and documented knowledge of pottery production from the early Iron Age up to the classical period with emphasis on some of the most important ceramic workshops of Greece.
- Το emphasize their major contribution to the development of ceramic technology and iconography in general.
- Τo demonstrate the importance of pottery finds in many areas of archaeological research (dating, trade-economy, cult, funeral rites etc.).
- Τo familiarize students with the numerous categories of pottery from different workshops, many of which are encountered in excavations and museum collections.
Course Content (Syllabus)
Main objective of this course is to discuss various topics of ancient Greek painted and related pottery. As an introduction we shall examine different aspects concerning organization and production terms in the ancient ceramic workshops, based on material evidence, vase-representations and written sources. Next we will study the most important decoration techniques and the most characteristic vase-shapes during the geometric, archaic and classical periods, with emphasis given to the ceramic production from Athens and Corinth (protogeometric and geometric, protoattic and protocorinthian, black- and red-figure, black-glaze vases) but also with references to other regional workshops (Euboea, Argos, Cyclades, Laconia, Boeotia, East Greece). We will focus on some significant potters and painters, on the distribution of their vases and the influence that their work had on other contemporary ceramic centers. We shall also examine some iconographic subjects as well issues on chronology, finding places, dissemination and evaluation of Greek pottery, esp. of the decorated categories.
Keywords
pottery, vase-painting, black-figure style, red-figure style, iconography, trade of vases, white vases, ceramic workshops
Additional bibliography for study
R.M. Cook, Ελληνική αγγειογραφία (ελλην. μετάφρ. 31994).
T. Rasmussen - N. Spivey (επιμ.), Προσεκτικές ματιές στα ελληνικά αγγεία (ελλην. μετάφρ. 1997).
B.A. Sparkes, Greek Pottery: An Introduction (1991).
B.A. Sparkes, Το ερυθρόν και το μέλαν. Μελέτες στην αρχαία ελληνική κεραμική (ελλην. μετάφρ. 2000).
Μ. Τιβέριος, Eλληνική τέχνη. Αρχαία αγγεία (1996).