Commercial Networks and Marks of Trade on Athenian Pots

Abstract

The study of Athenian vase trade presents several complexities and can be better approached through a variety of perspectives aimed to understand equally the roles of its key actors: potters, painters, traders, and consumers. The entire spectrum of mechanisms involved in the pottery trade is not fully apparent, and the decision-making of middlemen/traders typically remains particularly obscure to scholars (Gill 2009; Bundrick 2019). The markings found on the bottom of primarily Attic figured pots from the 6th through 4th centuries BCE, termed trademarks, could provide therefore a crucial dataset for enriching our understanding of how trade occurred during this period. The trademarks, meticulously collected and classified by Alan W. Johnston, have been underutilized. The present thesis aims to dig deeper and to approach this untapped resource more systematically through statistical and network analysis, in order to underscore the importance of the trademarks for analyzing the nuances of the Attic vase trade. The trademarks can encourage scholars to further examine the interconnections between pottery workshops and producers, and traders, and evaluate better the complex and geographically- varied consumer bases across the Mediterranean and beyond.I used, as a proxy, an updated and expanded dataset I built from Johnston’s Trademarks on Greek Vases: Addenda (2006). The updated dataset of 3100 entries represents 147 types of trademarks, over 250 artists and 97 distinct destinations, mostly in Italy but also throughout the Mediterranean from the Black Sea to Spain. I ran the first-ever set of statistics for techniques, shapes, and destinations, extracting thus the most information from this rich dataset. On a more advanced level of analysis, I employed social network visualizations to investigate the relationships of painters, trademarks, and destinations. With focused analyses on the cities and artists with the most trademarks and with time-sliced network graphs for the period from 600-300 BCE, I also explored both the extent of a pot-marking system, how it functioned, and how it changed over time. The network analysis helped establish a fuller picture of the interconnection present between traders, producers, and consumers, through the intentionality of mark placement on specific pots for export. Through the study of these systematic marking systems, I highlight the important role of traders and their mechanisms, the mercantile savviness of the producers in their pottery workshops, and the market impact of consumer choices.