G 2-3 ware is a fine, wheel-turned Geometric painted ware which Cedric Boulter, in the first consistent catalogue of this ware, named after the trench at the site of Troy where it was found in abundance (Blegen et al. 1958). Since this ware was first documented in the late 19th c., several short studies have been dedicated to it, concerning mainly Troy, Lemnos (Mustilli 1932/33, 146–168) and Thasos (Bernard 1964, 77–146), but also Samothrace (Lehmann 1952, 19–44), Lesbos (Lamb 1931/32, 41–67), Tenedos (Arslan and Sevinç 2003) and other Northern Aegean sites. It was placed chronologically into the 8th–7th c. soon after its first discovery: it thus represents a key ware for understanding the transition from the Geometric to the Archaic period in this region. Conducting a regional study on this ware, found in scattered sites mainly during old excavations, is not an easy task: but this is the courageous aim of the book written by Petya Velichkova Ilieva, which not only provides a synthesis of the available documentation, but also prompts many new hypotheses and publishes an elemental analysis on this ware.
The book includes seven short chapters (113 pp.), an Appendix detailing the results of archeometrical analysis, a list of illustrations, a bibliography, an index of place names and 52 plates. This dense volume is not a handbook: too many questions still have to be debated, and it lacks key features of a handbook, as we will see. But it provides a very welcome and useful state of the question of this little-known ware, which will surely help new identification and encourage its better publication.
The first, introductory, chapter sketches the history of research on this ware, from Troy to Lesbos, Samothrace and Lemnos, and finally Thasos in the sixties. It defines the main questions addressed to date, its production centers and timespan. This ware was initially associated with Aeolian colonization. This connection cannot be confirmed, but it now seems likely that it was produced in several centers, and its diffusion facilitated by itinerant potters — an interpretative model defined by Michalis Tiverios and followed by Ilieva, who started this study as a postdoctoral researcher under his supervision. Elemental analysis conducted in the early 2000s by two independent teams showed that in Troy, G 2-3 ware was produced with local clay, whereas the Samothracian one was not. A few years later, another study of the clay used in Lemnos proved its local origin (see the study by Nikolaos Zacharias and Maria Karapou [2011, cited elsewhere, but not here by Ilieva]). Troy and Lemnos are thus the two main production centers that have been recognized. This could call into question the way this ware is labelled: should we call it “Trojan” or “Lemnian” Geometric ware? The author sticks to the most widely adopted label, G 2-3 ware.
The timespan of the production of this ceramic has been disputed: first situated in the 8th–7th c., then the late 8th–early 6th timespan was defended, and most recently Dieter Hertel (2008) argued for an earlier beginning, in the 9th century. Ilieva discusses chronology in several sections of the book, and chooses to follow the first established timespan, 8th–7th c.
The second chapter aims at providing criteria for identifying G 2-3 ware, describing its technological features and ornamental system. A proposition of stylistic development divided into three phases is then proposed: an early phase in the second half of the 8th c., a “developed” phase in the first half of the 7th, and a “later series” in the second half of the same century. The first is characterized by the influence of Protogeometric decorative techniques, whereas the second combines several linear motifs (particularly the zetoid) with hooked spirals, rosettes, and sometimes birds. The later series does not seem to be defined by a change in decoration, rather than by the development of the kantharos sessile shape. The big open shapes (kraters, lebetes or dinoi) have an ornamental system that is similar but denser. The description of the ornamental system is followed in the third chapter by a description of shapes (small open, big open, big closed, and others), with occasional hypotheses about their transformation through time. This discussion again highlights the North-Western Anatolian connection of this ware (the beaker, p. 35; the skyphos-bowl, pp. 41–43; the lebetes-dinoi, pp. 45–47), but also Ionian (the one-handled cup, pp. 36–37) and even Phoenician (the jug with offset rim, p. 49) influences.
The fourth chapter addresses the question of the centers of manufacture and the distribution patterns for this ware. Ilieva presents a micro-XRF analysis of 117 fragments, which had been only briefly presented in the Archaeological Research in Macedonia and Thrace conference published in 2014. The results seem to corroborate Ilieva’s hypothesis of a common place of export toward Antissa, Argilos and Samothrace; but the statement that it is Lemnian is still hindered by the absence of samples from Lemnos or Troy among the sherds analysed. The connection between samples from Eion, Neapolis and Thasos would also support her hypothesis of a Thasian workshop, possibly led by Lemnian itinerant potters (pp. 68–69). Again, it only lacks analysis of a local Thasian reference clay. The general scheme is that of a production rooted in Trojan Tan Ware (as Pavol Hnila already proved), which influenced Lemnian potters, although they also developed the type independently, with closer connections with Euboean Protogeometric and Subprotogeometric pottery traditions.
Surprisingly, a fifth chapter about chronology follows, at a point where the reader might have assumed that chronology had already been sufficiently discussed; in fact, Ilieva provides a summary of the phases presented in chapter 2. She makes clear that the end of the Early phase is determined by the chronology of Thasian colonisation, the end of the Developed phase rests on Trojan chronology, and the last, Later phase, follows the chronology of the ceramics from the Kabeirion in Lemnos.
The sixth chapter analyses the use of G 2-3 ware in its contexts. Vessels of this ware come from cult places on Samothrace (the Sanctuary of the Great Gods), Lemnos (the Kabeirion) and Troy, and possibly cult places in Neapolis (cult of Parthenos), Samothrace (Athena) and at the theater of Lemnos. Domestic contexts are subdivided into apsidal or oval buildings, domestic, and possibly domestic. The category domestic contexts include Eion, Argilos, Madytos, Asar Tepe in Aegean Thrace, Avlonas and Hephaestia on Lemnos, Antissa on Lesbos and Limenas on Thasos, as well as Troy. The ware is found in only a few funerary contexts, usually not connected to a settlement with G 2-3 ware: G 2-3 ware was found as isolated gifts in tombs from Skyros, Akanthos, Kastri (Thasos) and Tenedos. Hephaestia possess the only excavated necropolis where this ware is dominant. Ilieva distinguishes a final catch-all contextual category, which includes refuse pits at Methone and Troy and a museum collection in Vienna.
The seventh and final chapter wraps up the previous discourse into a historical narrative about the Late Geometric and Early Archaic Northern Aegean, from a ceramic perspective. Here, despite numerous clues that suggest the production of G 2-3 ware had already begun as early as the 9th c. (see recently Sarcone 2020 and Fadelli and Sarcone 2024), Ilieva maintains her late chronology, assuming an Anatolian migration to Lemnos by the end of the 8th c. From then on, Lemnos took the lead in the production and distribution of G 2-3 ware in the North-East Aegean, being most probably, according to the author, a port of call. But Ilieva does not consider the Lemnians themselves to have been maritime traders and would rather consider the sailors to come from the South-East Aegean or Eastern Mediterranean. Finally, although the G 2-3 ware set is obviously associated with feasting and particularly drinking, with two main phases in the repertory of shapes used, Ilieva would not assume that it would necessarily have been used for wine: consumption of beer (a Thracian and Phrygian practice according to ancient written sources) is also an option, supported only by the Phrygian influence in the shape and decoration of some vases (p. 107).
As we suggested, this book is a welcome, useful and interesting synthesis about a ware of crucial importance for our understanding of the transition from the Geometric to the Archaic period in the Northern Aegean. Despite this, we notice that the evidence is not always used in a balanced way: for example, no reason is given to exclude a date in the 9th c. as the starting point for the production of G 2-3 ware. This creates an artificial problem regarding the way in which Protogeometric visual culture could be remembered well enough to reappear intact after a gap of a century (p. 101).
The chronology of G 2-3 ware is indeed a significant issue, which, to be elucidated, deserved a deep reappraisal of the archaeological evidence, a study of the finds according to their stratigraphic contexts. Unfortunately, Ilieva did not engage in this task. This leads to some blurred or even fallacious statements. One of these regards Thasos, where precolonial and colonial G 2-3 wares are not distinguished (esp. pl. 6c), which leads to a useless hypothesis about a rupture in the G 2-3 ware presence on the island. Another concerns the necropolis of Hephaestia, where there is a confusion (starting on p. 18) between areas A and B of the necropolis, and ceramic groups A, B and so on, as distinguished by Domenico Mustilli (1932–1933, pp. 146–147, 198). Whereas areas A and B are synchronous, Mustilli assigns group A to the 8th century BCE and group B to the 7th. But most of the vases of both categories were discovered in area A. Also, the chronology of group B is based on only four tombs (out of 291) associated with Protocorinthian and Corinthian ceramics. Nothing allows us to exclude the possibility that the appearance of group B was earlier than the Protocorinthian imports, but this claim is used, following Luigi Beschi (2000, p. 70) to date group B to the Late series, in the 2nd half of the 7th c., whereas Mustilli associated it with the whole span of the 7th c.
A reading of François Salviat (2017, pp. 83–86) would have solved the improbable scenario of an expulsion and return of the Thracians from Thasos (p. 111), in the frame of a Thaso-Naxian war. Salviat provides a new, more convincing reading of the fragments of Archilochus (98 LB = 93 West and 80-81 LB = 89 West) which disconnects the Thracian and Naxian issues. The archeometrical analysis also deserved a more balanced conclusion, in so far as the discriminating factors are of low percentage, between 17 and 39%. We could expect them to be over 60 %, otherwise we are left with a dominant part of unknown potential discriminating factors.
The editing is also disappointing for two important aspects: the plates do not provide a systematized or unified view of the vases’ shapes, thus not making clear the typology, and, last but not least, the book does not provide a catalogue, or at least an index, of the finds discussed. It makes it very difficult to move between this book and the catalogues of finds that have been published elsewhere.
Despite these significant issues, however, this book is a useful result of a difficult enterprise, which, we are sure, will prompt scientific debate and encourage further research on this ware.
References
Arslan and Sevinç 2003: N. Arslan and N. Sevinç, “Die eisenzeitlichen Gräber von Tenedos”, Istanbuler Mitteilungen, 53, pp. 223–249.
Bernard 1964: P. Bernard, “Céramiques de la première moitié du VIIe siècle à Thasos”, BCH, 88, pp. 77–146.
Beschi 2000: L. Beschi, “Cabirio di Lemno: testimonianze letterarie ed epigrafiche”, ASAtene, 74–75, pp. 7–192.
Blegen et alii 1958: C.W. Blegen, C.G. Boulter, J.L. Caskey, and M. Rawson, Troy Excavations Conducted by the University of Cincinnati 1932–1938. 4: Troy Settlements VIIa, VIIb and VIII, Princeton, 1958.
Danile 2011: L. Danile, La ceramica grigia di Efestia dagli inizi dell’età del ferro all’età alto-arcaica, 2/1, Athènes , coll. Monografie della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle missioni italiane in Oriente, XX, 2011.
Fadelli and Sarcone 2024: G. Fadelli and G. Sarcone, “The Lemnian Pottery from the Geometric to the End of the Archaic Period”, ASAtene, 102, 1, pp. 388–403.
Hertel 2008: D. Hertel, Die Besiedlung Troias durch die Griechen (1020–650/25 v. Chr.), München, 2008.
Hnila 2012: P. Hnila, Pottery of Troy VIIb. Chronology, Classification, Context and Implications of Trojan Ceramic Assemblages in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Transition, PhD dissertation, defended at Universität Tübingen, 2012.
Lamb 1931–32: W. Lamb, “Antissa”, ABSA, 32, pp. 41–67.
Lehmann 1952: K. Lehmann, “Samothrace: fifth preliminary report”, Hesperia, 21, pp. 19–44.
Mustilli 1932–1933: D. Mustilli, “La necropoli tirrenica di Efestia”, ASAtene, 15–16, pp. 1‑278.
Salviat 2017: F. Salviat, “Archiloque hoplite et général — À Thasos avec Glaucos — Retour à Paros”, in D. Mulliez and Z. Bonias (eds.), Θάσος: μητρόπολη και αποικίες: πρακτικά του Διεθνούς συμποσίου στη μνήμη Μαρίνας Σγούρου, Θάσος, 21–22 Σεπτεμβρίου 2006 [Thasos: métropole et colonies: actes du symposion international à la mémoire de Marina Sgourou, Thasos, 21–22 septembre 2006], Athènes, 2017, pp. 65–112.
Sarcone 2020: G. Sarcone, “La ceramica G 2-3 a Lemno: nuovi dati e problemi”, ASAtene, 98, pp. 525–553.
Zacharias and Kaparou 2011: N. Zacharias and M. Kaparou, “Appendix. Archaeological Pottery from Lemnos. A Technological Case Study”, in Danile 2011, pp. 157–164.