When Pia Guldager Bilde passed away in 2013, she left behind the unfinished manuscript as well as the extensive material documentation of many years of research into Hellenistic relief bowls in the Black Sea region. It was the wish of her husband Per Bilde (†2014) and her colleagues to publish these important studies posthumously, a difficult and responsible task, that was placed in the hands of Susan Rotroff. It was Rotroff’s intention to intervene in the manuscript as little as possible, which also means that literature published in the meantime has not been incorporated. However, this is largely irrelevant, since in the last 10 years little material has been published that has a significant impact on the results and material studies presented here.
With her publication, Guldager Bilde pursues a number of goals: presenting a corpus of the mouldmade bowls (MMB) in the northern Black Sea region and—as a result—an analysis of the connection of this area with the Mediterranean world, gaining knowledge about the workshops of the ceramics imported into this region and, finally, providing information on general questions related to the material. This project is largely influenced by the fact that the majority of MMBs in the northern Black Sea region comes from foreign production centers. In order to create the basis for further considerations, the origin of the several thousands of MMBs found in various sites in the Black Sea region had to be determined first, which is a difficult task due to the poor state of publication. Therefore, the majority of the specimens were personally inspected by Guldager Bilde wherever possible and when access was granted. The fact that the finds from a single location were often distributed across several museums and depots did not make this undertaking any easier.
As a consequence, the book is divided into 4 parts with a total of 30 chapters, with Part 1 devoted to the overarching topics, while Parts 2, 3 and 4 contain detailed discussions of the material. Within this review, it is hardly possible to discuss the full range of results, ideas and considerations contained, so I will concentrate on aspects that I consider particularly worthy of emphasis or in need of correction.
Part 1 (chapters 1–6), ‘General Considerations’, is probably the most demanding part in terms of content; countless ideas, observations and results from the study of the material are incorporated here. After explaining her goals and the necessary steps to achieve them, Guldager Bilde then goes on to explain the history of research. Due to the numerous Ephesian imports in the Black Sea region, she deals in detail and critically with Laumonier’s treatment of the MMB finds in Delos,[1] showing that his workshop assignments are largely no longer accurate because they were based on inadequate criteria. Guldager Bilde, who also personally examined the material in Delos, then continues with discussing additional relief bowls found there, which were also processed by Laumonier but not published, and thus provides an overview of MMBs from other production centers on the island. Chapter 3 deals with research methods and, taking theoretical models into account, addresses general questions regarding quantification, the definition of workshops, the spatial and temporal distribution, the adoption of the innovation ‘MMB’, and also explains the conclusions that the author draws from them. Based on her observations on the material, Guldager Bilde identifies, in addition to the first initial wave of inspiration in the late 3rd century BC, a second wave coming from Egypt in the second quarter of the 2nd century BC, which brought new impulses to relief bowl production with its baroque style and Nelumbo decoration. The next chapter (4) focuses on the organization of workshops, the scale of their production and finally the distribution and trade of the MMBs. What is essential here is the number of MMBs of different origins found at the various Black Sea sites and their respective relationship to one another, with particular reference being made to signed bowls that can be clearly identified and assigned. The predominance of bowls from Ephesus, which make up 50% or more of the total stock, is—besides Delos—particularly evident at the sites in the Black Sea region, while local products or vessels from other production sites occur in significantly smaller quantities. The large number of potters belonging to the Ephesian workshops points to an industrially organized production—in contrast to all other workshops in the Mediterranean region, some of which lag far behind in terms of production scale and distribution of their products. It becomes clear how the initially individually designed bowls developed from precious unique pieces into a mass product that flooded the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions with the beginning of the Ephesian production of repetitive designs. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that despite this detailed study, we are still far from understanding the Hellenistic workshops and their organization.
In the following chapter (5), attention is focused on other—supplementary—vessel types, which also make up a small part of relief ceramic production. Guldager Bilde lists 38 vessel types within the Mediterranean production series, discusses their chronology and function and finally explains the role of the supplementary shapes in the Pontic assemblages. To my knowledge, this is the first such comprehensive compilation of supplementary types, which represents another important but previously largely ignored aspect of MMB production, as demonstrated by the attached catalogue with over 600 individual vessels. ‘Iconography and interpretation’ are the subject of the last chapter of Part 1. First, Guldager Bilde addresses terminological problems such as the naming of the lotus leaves, an important decoration of the bowls, but also the possible ancient designation of the bowls as such. Her study of this significant decoration in connection with literary sources leads her to the conclusion that the MMBs are the vessel type known as kiborion—‘lotus bowl’. This is followed by a discussion of various common decorative motifs, which are presented in terms of their date, origin and distribution. The evidential value of previously little-known contexts from the Black Sea region is also included. New interpretive possibilities are offered for some motifs, above all the so-called altar scenes. As a result of these motif studies, Guldager Bilde concludes that the thematic focus of the decorative elements differs from production site to production site, but highlights the universally special role of Dionysus and his cult. Here, one must critically remark that the interpretation of various motifs as Dionysian symbols is sometimes very one-sided. Dolphins, for example, also play a not insignificant role in the cults of Apollo or Poseidon, and they might simply symbolize the sea when arranged above a wave ornament; hence, the context should always be decisive in the interpretation.
In part 2 (chapters 7–16), the MMBs from Mediterranean production centers are presented, including those from well-known workshops such as Athens, Knidos and Ephesus, but also from unknown workshops that Guldager Bilde locates in the Aeolian/northwestern Asia Minor region. One of the main tasks was to reassess the Ephesian material and to assign the bowls to specific workshops on a fundamentally new basis using a combination of a variety of criteria. The redefinition of the workshop groups also involves the reconstruction of a chronological sequence of the potters. A larger number of bowls can be attributed to the production of Kyme. These include primarily the vessels signed by Kirbeis, Possis, Zenodotos and Zenodoules, which Guldager Bilde recognizes as belonging to a single workshop due to the uniform motif in the medallion and other similarities—the so-called Meter Medallion workshop. For the first time, Guldager Bilde presents a comprehensive corpus of bowls from this workshop group, for which a chronological sequence of potters could also be reconstructed. She also succeeds in isolating another small group of connected bowls within the material, which should, in her argument, also be located in Kyme. Much more problematic is the attribution and grouping of MMBs from workshops whose potters do not sign, including those of the important art centers of Pergamon and Knidos. Unfortunately, it must be noted that the MMBs considered by Guldager Bilde to be Pergamene were with some certainty not produced there for the most part. As the comparison with the material now presented from Pergamon shows, the assigned sherds contain numerous motifs that do not belong to the Pergamene spectrum, such as mantled dancing women and amazons.[2] The most prominent example of this misattribution is probably the famous Olbia situla (here PER-91), which combines several non-Pergamene motifs. On the other hand, characteristic Pergamene motifs do not appear on any of the pieces in this group (different, i.e., from the Knidos group, where the motifs known from Knidos itself can be found). The MMBs assembled under Pergamon should, if they actually all come from the same workshop, be considered as another unspecific Aiolian group. For two other workshop groups within the material, whose origin Guldager Bilde sees in the Aeolian region (Aiolis A + B), production in Pergamon can also be ruled out on the basis of the decoration; whether they come from Elaia, Pitane or Gryneion, as speculated by Guldager Bilde, can only be answered by presenting actual findings from future archaeological excavations. In addition, Part 2 offers a thorough and critical discussion of all workshop groups in terms of research history, chronology, distribution and especially their decoration. Each chapter is accompanied by a detailed catalogue of the associated finds, which concludes with a list sorted by findspots.
Part 3 (chapters 17–19) is dedicated to the limited Pontic production of MMBs and therefore accordingly short. After a general introduction to the MMBs in the Black Sea region, Chapter 18 introduces the only known Pontic workshop—that of Demetrios—which is located in Myrmekion near Pantikapaion. Here, too, it should be emphasized that this is the first condensed presentation of this workshop with 264 catalogued individual pieces, which are otherwise scattered in the Russian or Ukrainian specialist literature or not published at all.
The 4th and final part (chapters 20–30) presents the most important sites where MMBs have been found in the Pontic region, first examining their history and the current state of research, and then analysing and comparing the distribution of MMBs from the different workshops for each site. It should be emphasized that in this context the finds from Istros/Histria, some of which had already been published previously,[3] were re-examined by Guldager Bilde and the workshop attributions were—rightly—revised.
Throughout the entire volume, all explanations are underlined by 110 illustrations, tables, graphics and maps; all steps of the research are clearly explained and methodically comprehensible. Of the total of more than 3300 catalogued pieces, the lion’s share is shown on the 245 attached plates as colour photos and/or drawings. What is not understandable, however, is why, despite the large amount of free space on the plates, the images with the small motifs were reduced in size, which means that details of the stamps that are important for workshop assignment are sometimes barely recognizable. In terms of the methodology in this field of research, at least a 1:1 image would be necessary, and enlargement would be desirable.
Apart from the dilemma with the Pergamene bowls, the considerations formulated by Pia Guldager Bilde on many aspects of the MMBs and the results achieved will give a lasting impetus to research in this field. Not least because of the important basic research carried out here and the wealth of material presented, the volume is likely to be irreplaceable standard literature for decades to come.
Notes
[1] A. Laumonier, La céramique hellénistique à reliefs 1. Ateliers “Ioniens”. Exploration archéologique de Délos 31 (Paris 1977).
[2] G. de Luca, Hellenistische Reliefbecher aus Pergamon. Die ‘Megarischen Becher’ von der Akropolis, aus dem Asklepieion, der Stadtgrabung und von weiteren Fundorten, Pergamenische Forschungen 18 (Berlin 2021). The incorrect attributions are mainly due to the fact that the descriptions of the fabric in the literature available to date are inconsistent and, above all, in the older literature, no distinction was made between local and imported vessels. A whole series of examples previously considered to be local have now been traced back to Ephesus through chemical analyses.
[3] C. Domǎneantu, Les bols hellénistiques a décor en relief, Histria 11 (Bucharest 2000).