Julie Hruby (editor) - From Cooking Vessels to Cultural Practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean

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Front cover: Minoan-style cooking pots made by Jerolyn Morrison; photo by Chronis Papanikolopoulos

Back cover: Photo by Walter Gauss, digital remastering by Rudolfine Smetana

Debra Trusty and Julie Hruby

Debra Trusty

Julie Hruby

Joann Gulizio and Cynthia W. Shelmerdine

Bartomiej Lis

Walter Gauss, Evangelia Kiriatzi, Michael Lindblom, Bartomiej Lis, and Jerolyn E. Morrison

Evi Gorogianni, Natalie Abell, and Jill Hilditch

Salvatore Vitale and Jerolyn E. Morrison

Jerolyn E. Morrison

Elisabetta Borgna and Sara T. Levi

Reinhard Jung

Michael L. Galaty

The study of the production, trade, and consumption of cooking vessels represents a long-standing lacuna in prehistoric Aegean archaeology. Until recently, cooking vessels were typically mentioned in passing in works that focused primarily on decorated fine ware and other archaeological remains. This volume is an attempt to remedy that situation and is entirely dedicated to the study of prehistoric cooking vessels through comparative methods. It is the product of a panel that was organized by the editors for the 115th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, which took place in January 2014. Since that time, we have added chapters from a selection of other scholars whose work fits well with that of the initial participants.

We would like to thank the many people without whose assistance the production of this volume would have been impossible. All our contributors refereed each others papers. Jeremy Rutter kindly read and provided feedback on the contents of all the papers. Too many people to count, let alone name, have provided stimulating discussions and bibliographic recommendations on the topic. Daniel Pullen provided advice on formatting. E. M. Thompson provided copy editing assistance, and two successive associate deans of the arts and humanities at Dartmouth College, Adrian Randolph and Barbara Will, provided funding that enabled us to hire her. We would also like to thank all the people at Oxbow who have been so patient with our project, including Clare Litt, Julie Gardiner, Mette Bundgaard, Hannah McAdams, and Katie Allen. We both would like to thank our colleagues for their encouragement. Debra would like to express her appreciation for the support of her partner Jason Taber and Julie for her partner, Eric Chatterjee. The editors take full responsibility for whatever flaws inevitably remain.

NATALIE ABELL Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan, Michigan, USA

ELISABETTA BORGNA Department of History and Preservation of the Cultural Heritage, Universit degli Studi di Udine, Italy

MICHAEL L. GALATY Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University, USA

WALTER GAUSS Austrian Archaeological Institute at Athens at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Athens, Greece

EVI GOROGIANNI Department of Anthropology, University of Akron, Ohio, USA

JOANN GULIZIO Department of Classics, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA

JILL HILDITCH Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies and Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

JULIE HRUBY Department of Classics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA

REINHARD JUNG Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

EVANGELIA KIRIATZI Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens, Athens, Greece

SARA T. LEVI Universit degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy and Hunter College, The City University of New York, USA

MICHAEL LINDBLOM Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

BARTOMIEJ LIS Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

JEROLYN E. MORRISON Mediterranean Section, Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

CYNTHIA W. SHELMERDINE Department of Classics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

DEBRA TRUSTY Department of Classics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

SALVATORE VITALE Department of Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge (Archaeology), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

As we brought this volume together, a consensus emerged among the contributors that more attention should be dedicated to Aegean cooking vessels. We maintain that cooking wares reflect economic, political, and social developments, much as painted fine wares do. Additionally, they answer questions about culinary culture that painted fine wares cannot, especially when cooking vessels are examined diachronically, inter-regionally, or in other comparative ways. In this introductory chapter, we discuss some of the obstacles that our contributors have had to overcome, offer some solutions, and suggest future research topics. Our hope is that by recognizing these issues, scholars can begin to collaborate to develop a better understanding of this under-researched class of Bronze Age Aegean functional ceramics.

There is a long history of variability in how archaeologists choose to define, identify, and classify cooking vessels. These pots can be found in categories including coarse ware (French 1961), domestic ware (Blegen 1921; Dalinghaus 1998), unpainted vessels or wares (Blegen 1928; French 1965), plain ware (Wace et al . 1921/19221922/1923), and kitchen fabrics (Catling 2009). Other scholars prefer to separate them entirely from other ceramic fabrics (Stubbings 1947). Michael Galaty, who has also written the concluding piece for this volume, recognized that there is often a very fine line between traditional coarse wares and the fabrics used for cooking functions, a situation that is bound to result in unnecessary confusion (1998, 102). By failing to come to a consensus in our definitions, we have inadvertently impeded our ability to understand the impact such vessels had in the ancient world.

Unfortunately, this situation has not changed, and no unambiguous definition of cooking vessels has been postulated for the Aegean. We would therefore like to begin this volume by proposing a working definition: cooking pots are ceramic vessels designed to resist thermal shock and maintain toughness despite repeated exposure to temperature changes.