General Information

Aegean cooking ware were extremely popular in Greece, in western Asia Minor, in the Adriatic basin and throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, during the second and third centuries CE. They were present less frequently in Cyprus – as we can see in the example of material from Nea Paphos – and on the Levantine coast. During excavations in the Athenian Agora two types of deep cooking pots, casseroles with carination on the body and trefoil jugs were identified as the main shapes of Aegean cooking ware (Robinson 1959: 53–56, Pls 11, 72). G. Lüdorf in her typology of the Roman and the early Byzantine pottery from western Asia Minor classified five different shapes of casseroles and six of deep pots of Aegean cookware (Lüdorf 2006: 43–51, Figs 5–12), whereas four basic forms of deep pots of Agean cooking ware were distinguished in the ceramic material from the destruction layers at the Villa Dionysos at Knossos (Hayes 1983: 105, Fig. 5:58–59), dating to the second and third centuries CE. Aegean products are the most frequent cooking ware imports at Maloutena site; usually these are deep baggy pots and carinated casseroles with concave walls, both forms having wide flat rim and two small ‘sliced’ handles (Knossos type 2). However, during season 2016 an example of pot with short vertical, triangular rim, rare at Nea Paphos or elsewhere, belonging to Knossos type 1 and base fragment of a jug were found.

Fine, compact, orange-pink fabric (surface 5YR 7/6, section 5YR 6/8). The outer side (except for the bottom) always fired smoky gray (10YR 5/1). Usually some golden flakes of mica visible on the surface. Deep globular pots and carinated casseroles with plain, flat rim and two tiny handles, thin-walled, ribbed. Also in the same fabric were produced trefoil jugs with concave bottom (analogies: Hayes 1983: 105, Fig. 5:58–59).

Paphos/Nea Paphos (Cyprus/Western South Coast)

Kinet Höyük (Turkey/Eastern Mediterranean)