An investigation of production technologies of Byzantine glazed pottery from Corinth, Greece in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Volume 1 : Text

The century of archaeological excavations carried out at Corinth, Greece have resulted in the accumulation of a collection of Byzantine glazed pottery unparalleled in the Aegean. The site is set apart from others as being one of only a few sites in the Byzantine world where glazed pottery manufacture has been confirmed. The glazed pottery assemblage demonstrates a changing industry there. During the eleventh century local production consisted of brown glazed, unslipped vessels in a conservative range of forms that were in use alongside the imported, fine Constantinopolitan slip painted and polychrome White Wares. By the end of the eleventh century the local industry had established itself and these imports had ceased as a competitor. At this time local pottery production went through a major revolution in terms of decorative techniques and vessel morphology. Instead of the earlier plain glazed products slips and green and brown glazes were used in combination to produce a range of decorative styles each lasting only a generation or so. In this thesis, the development of production technologies of Byzantine glazed pottery manufactured at Corinth between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries are examined using a number of archaeometric techniques: pottery fabrics are examined using ceramic petrography and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy and their corresponding glazes are investigated using electron probe microanalysis. The data collected were used to establish patterns of pottery production and trade, and in particular explore developments in methods of glazing. A period of transition in glazing technologies is identified, while certain technological practices are shown to be more sophisticated than has previously been acknowledged for the period in question.