Late Roman Amphoras from the Kounoupi Workshop, Southern Argolid: New Petrographic and Elemental Investigations
(2025) 17th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics — Location: Bilbao (10.September.2025)
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Liard, Florence 
- Abstract
- This paper presents the results of a multi-method fabric analysis of 30 fragments of Late Roman amphoras collected during intensive archaeological surface survey in the Mazi Plain, northwest Attica (which comprises the sites of Eleutherai and Oinoe). This study was undertaken under the auspices of the Mazi Archaeological project, a collaboration between the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attika, Piraeus, and Islands and the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece. The sampled sherds are attributable to the Late Roman Amphora 2 and other related types that were in use from the early 4th to the mid-7th centuries AD. The combined petrographic and WD-XRF analysis of the fabric suggests a homogeneous composition and a provenance of the sampled sherds from a single location in the northeastern Peloponnese, attributable on geological and archaeological basis to the Kounoupi workshop in the southern Argolid. The archaeometric, typological, and archaeological data obtained from our sample set, and their comparison with previously published data pertaining to various findings from the western, central, and eastern Mediterranean, allow for a detailed reconstruction of the production history and production strategies of this major amphora industry in the Late Roman Mediterranean. In particular, our study highlights the early date of the operation of this workshop (from the 4th century AD) and its survivance into the early Byzantine world (7th century AD), with a wide distribution network reaching remote areas such as northern Italy and northern Spain, and a larger range of production types than hitherto suggested, with not only LRA2 but also fruit amphoras, small versions of LRA2, and a local imitation of the widespread LRA1 (probably around the 7th c. AD).
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Citations
Liard, F., & Cloke, C. (2025). Late Roman Amphoras from the Kounoupi Workshop, Southern Argolid: New Petrographic and Elemental Investigations. 17th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics, Bilbao. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/272428