ERETRIA XXIV

Guy Ackermann, La céramique d’époque hellénistique. Une chrono-typologie au service de l’histoire d’une ville grecque entre la fin du IV^e et le I^er siècle av. J.-C.

With its sanctuaries, public monuments, residential areas and fortifications, Eretria is one of the most thoroughly explored cities in the ancient Greek world. Since the end of the 19^th century, excavations have brought to light numerous remains, in particular an abundant pottery of the Hellenistic period, which is the focus of this study.

The author has revisited a number of closed contexts dated from the end of the 4^th to the middle of the 1^st century B.C. He proposes a chrono-typology of the ceramic repertoire in use in Eretria during the Hellenistic period.

The comparative analysis of local production and imports allows a better understanding of the economy of the city. The Eretrian market is characterised both by self-sufficiency, with local workshops meeting the bulk of the population’s demand, and by its insertion into the trade networks. The potters quickly adopted the innovations coming first from Athens and Macedonia, then from Asia Minor and the East.

A reviewed chronology of closed contexts (destruction layers, filling of wells and pits, monetary treasures) allows the author to propose a new history of the city and its progressive decline: to a densely populated settlement until the middle or second half of the 3^rd c., it evolved into a sparse dwelling with large stretch of the urban area left in ruins before the occupation moved on the acropolis in the middle of the 1^st c. BC. Several residential quarters were severely damaged in the middle of the 3^rd century and in 86 BC, but the sieges of 267 and 198 BC were clearly not as devastating as has been claimed so far.

2020, 2 vol. of 264 and 272 pages in French with abstracts in French, German, English and Greek, Paperback, 22x30cm, numerous color illustrations and plans. Infolio editions, Gollion.

ISBN 978-2-88474-413-3 (print)
ISBN 978-2-88474-347-1 (digital)
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.4966961

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