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9
PATTERNS OF AMPHORA STAMP
DISTRIBUTION
Tracking Down Export Tendencies
Tania Panagou
The transport amphora was the most common form of jar used in ancient
commerce. Many of these amphoras are marked with stamps, which permit us
to locate their place of origin. As a result, scholars have for a long time used
amphora stamps in their studies of ancient trade to track the flow of goods
and to locate trading networks (Lawall 1998 : 74). One can approach the study
of amphora stamps either from the perspective of the exporting community
or the importing community/region (e.g., Tzochev 2010 ). In publications that
record stamped amphoras found in one area (importing center), there is often
an analysis of the different types of amphora stamps and an attempt to identify
the communities which exported these stamped amphoras based on their find
spots, that is, the importing center (e.g., Ariel 1990 : 14–17, table 1). Another
type of study examines an individual series of amphora stamps exported from
one community or region, such as the Rhodian or the Thasian (e.g., Bon and
Bon 1957 : 537–8 index; Étienne 1990 : 216–20 with fig. 4; Avram 1996 : 39–50;
Garlan 1999a: 83–92; Conovici 2005 ; Lund 1999 ; Lund 2011 ). On the other
hand, there have been a few attempts to provide general lists with distribu-
tion figures for several classes of stamped amphoras, and the few that have
been published are not very extensive (for one of the more extensive lists, see
Sherwin-White 1978 : 237–9).
The aim of this chapter is to present and analyze the distribution of amphorastamps originating from the production centers around the Aegean and the