Pantellerian Ware: A Comprehensive Archaeometric Review*

Abstract

Pantellerian ware is a Late Roman cooking ware whose production centre was established on the island of Pantelleria by the pioneering research of Fulford and Peacock almost 20 years ago (Peacock 1982;Fulford and Peacock 1984). Archaeological and archaeometric studies carried out by the authors of the present contribution during the past four years have aimed to fully characterize this ceramic class. Recurrent ceramic forms, their distribution over time and space, their petrographic characteristics and their chemical identity, as well as possible raw materials and their technological properties, were considered. The present paper is a comprehensive review of this archaeometric work and aims to establish a 'reference group'. Using a representative number of samples of Pantellerian ware that were recently discovered in the island through archaeological field surveys or surface and submarine excavations, it was possible to characterize in detail the compositional variability of this ware in terms of chemistry and petrography. Furthermore, the physical properties of this ceramic type have been defined in order to better understand its performance characteristics, mainly in response to induced thermal stress. In the meantime, the experimental mixing and tempering of locally sampled raw materials have shed light on the ancient manufacturing process and have led to an approximation of the original paste. INTRODUCTIONPantellerian ware is acknowledged to be a distinctive ceramic manufacture ( Fig. 1 (a)) produced on the island of Pantelleria. It reached its highest diffusion in the Mediterranean area during the Late Roman period. The name of this ware was first proposed by D. P. S. Peacock and M. G. Fulford (Peacock 1982;Fulford and Peacock 1984). During their archaeological excavations at Carthage, which focused on stratigraphic layers dating between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the seventh centuries ad , they brought to light a cooking ware assemblage. Its distinctive macroscopic features and their characteristic morphology led these authors to regard it as a specific ceramic production. Moreover, thin-section petrography helped them recognize very particular non-plastic inclusions (mineral and rock fragments) that 456 G. Montana et al. © University of Oxford, 2007, Archaeometry 49 , 3 (2007) 455-481were directly related to the volcanic rocks outcropping on Pantelleria, thereby giving them enough evidence to propose that the island of Pantelleria was the manufacturing centre.The overall aspect of Pantellerian ware is sufficiently coarse-grained ( Fig. 1 (b)) to suppose that it was thrown on a turntable. The walls of the artefacts are quite thick (around 10 mm), often with visible trails thought to be due to rubbing with a hard tool. The colour is dark-brown to reddish-brown, evidently inhomogeneous due to possible irregular firing. The well-known forms, few but yet recurring, are relatively simple and relate to food preparation : pots, casseroles, pans, bowls and lids (Fig. 2). Since it was first reported i...

A volcanic inclusions based approach for provenance studies of archaeological ceramics: application to pottery from southern Italy

“…Lentini in the Hyblean area, Messina and Pantelleria; Agodi et al, 1998;Barone et al, 2002;Montana et al, 2007). The two examined specimens (Group 3) clearly indicate a provenance from Pantelleria, where a distinctive cooking ware manufacture, namely the ''Pantellerian ware'', is already known Santoro, 2002).…”

“…Validity of such an approach was recently proved for pottery from the central Aegean by Dorais and Shriner (2002) and Dorais et al (2004), who based their archaeological inferences principally using amphibole compositions related to volcanic activity of the Aegean volcanic arc. On this respect, since microscopic observations of pottery from southern Italy frequently reveal the presence of variously abundant volcanic inclusions (Agodi et al, 1998(Agodi et al, , 2000Bacci et al, 2009;Barca et al, 2006;Barone et al, 2008Barone et al, , 2009aBelfiore et al, in press;Bogard and Cavalier, 2003;Grifa et al, 2009;Jones et al, 2008;Lombardo et al, 2000;Montana et al, 2007;Williams and Levi, 1995), we tried to obtain unambiguous distinctive characters by correlating the petro-chemical features of volcanic inclusions with those of magmatic products outcropping in the area. In particular, we have here focused the attention on the pyroxenes composition, since they exhibit a large chemical variability related to the magmatic affinity of the erupted products.…”

Tracing formation and durability of calcite in a Punic–Roman cistern mortar (Pantelleria Island, Italy)

“…to 439 A.D., Pantelleria was embedded into the Roman Empire [17][18][19][20][21]. The latter period is known to be of high prosperity for Pantelleria, which is documented by locally manufactured and widely distributed ceramic products called 'Pantellerian ware', often used for archaeological dating [22,23].…”

Petrographic and geochemical characterization of Archaic‐Hellenistic tableware production at Solunto, Sicily

“…Individuation and characterization of the ceramic production centers of the area were accomplished mainly through mineralogical, petrographic, and chemical analysis of ceramic artifacts belonging to different typological-functional ceramic classes, which were recovered from the most important local ancient settlements (Alaimo, Greco, & Montana, 1998a;Alaimo, Montana, & Iliopoulos, 2003Iliopoulos, Alaimo, & Montana, 2002;Montana et al, 2006aMontana et al, , 2007Azzaro et al, 2006). Meanwhile, similar analyses were performed on natural clay sources available in the same area, which were identified and selected through geological and ethnographic field survey (Alaimo et al, 1998b(Alaimo et al, , 2002aMontana et al, 2006b, Montana et al, 2007. A similar approach has proved successful in a number of case studies concerning ceramic productions in insular areas of the Mediterranean (Day et al, 1999;Tsolakidou et al, 2002).…”

“…Unique to the Mediterranean, Phoenician, and Greek settlements coevally existed in proximity on the island of Sicily (Anello, Martorana, & Sammartano, 2006;Kolb & Speakman, 2005), with Phoenicians withdrawing from their early trading posts toward the western parts of the island, in reaction to the conquering arrival of the Greek colonists (Niemeyer, 1995). Individuation and characterization of the ceramic production centers of the area were accomplished mainly through mineralogical, petrographic, and chemical analysis of ceramic artifacts belonging to different typological-functional ceramic classes, which were recovered from the most important local ancient settlements (Alaimo, Greco, & Montana, 1998a;Alaimo, Montana, & Iliopoulos, 2003Iliopoulos, Alaimo, & Montana, 2002;Montana et al, 2006aMontana et al, , 2007Azzaro et al, 2006). Meanwhile, similar analyses were performed on natural clay sources available in the same area, which were identified and selected through geological and ethnographic field survey (Alaimo et al, 1998b(Alaimo et al, , 2002aMontana et al, 2006b, Montana et al, 2007.…”