This paper examines the economic and other social relations that emerged in the colonial landscape of the northern Aegean through a new approach to pottery production, exchange and consumption. Our analytical data about pottery origins allow a new reconstruction of the exchange networks between the northern and central Aegean. The chapter suggests that the gradual increase in non-local pottery use along the northern Aegean shores and certain changes in local pottery production cannot be taken as a result of any growing colonial agency. They are interpreted instead as the low residue of locally driven transformations in the economic organisation of the northern Aegean. The new analytical data support a recently expressed view that these advances represent a pull factor of migration from central Greece towards its so-called northern Aegean periphery.

In its capacity as the principal city on the east coast of the Mediterranean, Antioch was an important center of both minting and coin circulation during the fourth through seventh centuries. Moreover, as the launching site for military expeditions against the Persians and, eventually, the Arabs, Antioch served as the temporary capital for emperors and other military leaders stationed there and as a distribution point for soldiers’ salaries and other monetary activities.

Jews were among the founders of Antioch and contributed greatly to the social and material evolution of the city. How they adjusted to the imperial agendas of Late Antiquity, as well as their characterization in the textual record are the main objects of inquiry.

This chapter describes the topography and monuments of Antioch as known through the textual sources and archaeological investigations. The earthquakes that shattered the city on various occasions are also foregrounded.

Antioch’s circuses and theaters are well known; however, how they gradually became locus to faction rivalries and hotbeds for civic strife is brought into focus by this chapter.

The use of Aegean pottery – comprising a few drinking vases – is rather limited in the Iron Age cemetery of al-Bass in Tyre despite the large number of investigated tombs. This finding stands in contrast to the evidence recovered from the excavations at the settlement site of Tyre, on the ancient island, where a broad range of typologically variable Greek ceramics came to light. Nevertheless, the imported wares at the settlement seem to be represented by even lower percentages than those at the cemetery. This paper aims to analyse this discrepancy through various perspectives that include examination of typology, functionality, social dynamics and economics. The conclusions drawn from this analysis suggest that these non-local artefacts did not significantly alter the way in which the community of Tyre consumed wine. Instead, their deposition in burial and possibly other social contexts can be associated with issues of social status manipulation.

This paper summarises some of the results obtained from Neutron Activation Analysis of early Greek pottery that was sampled in the Mediterranean. It provides an overview of analytical evidence about the provenance and geochemical clustering of major pottery wares such as the Protogeometric and Geomtric transport amporas and K-22 or common pottery types such as PSC, chevron, Thapsos and Aetos 666 bowls. Their historical implications include aspects of specialisation in pottery production, modes of technology transfer, appropriation and exchange of ‘colonial’ pottery types. Finally, this concluding chapter presents new insights into the economic and cultural relations among remote communities in the Mediterranean, and the chronological implications of our pottery analysis on the correlation of Phoenician and Greek migrations.

The opulence of Antioch and Daphne’s houses is well known; how new theoretical and methodological approaches help us evaluate this complicated archaeological record is the focus of this chapter.

The earliest Greek pottery at the coast of Málaga comprise two Middle Geometric II skyphoi from La Rebanadilla, on the mouth of the Guadalhorce River. They are associated with local, Phoenician, Cypriot and Villanovan ceramics, all of them part of feasting tableware. The Geometric pottery from La Rebanadilla is dated to the second half of the 9th century BCE by means of calibrated radiocarbon dates. In the 8th century BCE, Greek imports were not consumed at coastal Málaga, except for a transport amphora from Cerro del Villar. Despite the scarcity of Greek imports during the 8th century BCE, skyphoi of Greek type were produced in Phoenician workshops in the region of Málaga and became surprisingly common in the next century. This new local shape became common at sites such as Toscanos, demonstrating that the ritual consumption of wine with skyphoi was appropriated by the Phoenicians.

Klazomenai, in the North Ionian region of the eastern Aegean, is an important site with a long occupation history that began in the 5th millennium BCE. Recent excavations have revealed diverse data from the domestic and the funerary spheres dating to the Early Iron Age. Large dwellings located on the southern outskirts of the prehistoric mound at Liman Tepe suggest continuous occupations during the transition from the end of the Late Bronze Age and throughout the Early Iron Age. Nineteen pottery samples were selected covering a chronological sequence from the late 12th through the late 6th century BCE for NAA. The results show Klazomenai’s involvement in pottery production during the 10th through the 6th centuries BCE and prove the site’s participation in long-distance maritime trade networks in the (northern) Aegean basin during the early first millennium BCE.