Medieval And Early Modern Pottery 389
recent historiography and still unpublished studies conducted in northern
Sardinia, this contribution will summarize the presence of Mediterranean im-
ports and local pottery production, which increased thanks to new techniques
introduced by the relocation of a specialized workforce.
We have chosen to prioritize references to northern Sardinian contexts and
to present some unreleased data, so as to avoid a mere list of pottery that might
be applied to various areas of the Mediterranean. However, it is important to
note that from a typological point of view there were no discrepancies in the
circulation of materials in the whole region. Differences might emerge from
the quantification of the materials, that would allow us to understand if indeed
some groups of merchants, as sometimes emerges from the written sources,3
had different weights in the two areas of the island, according to the various
political influences. The current state of the research, however, does not allow
an analysis based on archaeological data, as they are still too heterogeneous
and the published contexts are still very limited. The pottery evidence from
northern Sardinia is also valid for the southern part of the island, and the rare
dissonances ought to be quickly solved by further research.4
Studies on medieval and modern pottery in Sardinia make it possible to
clarify the chronology of towns and villages, and in some cases have led to a
better definition of the dynamics of abandonment. While in others they pro-
vided elements on the birth of these settlements, providing earlier data than
that given by the written sources.
1 Regional Production between the Tenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Unglazed pots and pans, with a heatproof ceramic body—necessary for use
over the fire—as well as pottery meant for storing foodstuffs and tableware
were manufactured in Sardinia in the period under consideration. Kitchen
pottery, defined as coarse due to the granulometric quality of the clay used
for its production, is quantitatively the most plentiful, ranging between 40
and 50 percent. A recent article on the state of research has sketched out
3 Pinuccia Franca Simbula and Alessandro Soddu, eds, La Sardegna nel Mediterraneo tardome-
dievale, Atti del Convegno di studio (Sassari, 13–14 December) (Trieste, 2013).
4 Until a few years ago it seemed that the circulation of Forum Ware affected only the northern
and central part of Sardinia, but recent excavations at the ramparts in Cagliari have returned
abundant evidence: Sabrina Cisci and Matteo Tatti, “Cagliari. Indagini archeologiche presso
il Bastione di Santa Caterina. Campagna 2012–2013,” Quaderni della Soprintendenza per i Beni
Archeologici per le province di Cagliari e Oristano 24 (2013), pp. 1–24.