MARKETS, AMPHORA TRADE AND WINE INDUSTRY 231
history, there must be interpretation’ (Lawall 2001 : 105). Since the late 1980s
there have been an increasing number of attempts to use the data of amphora
stamps to analyze the dynamics of trade and production and to place such
data in their historical context (e.g., Avram and Poenaru-Bordea 1988 ; Avram
1996 ; Finkielsztejn 1999 ; 2001 ; Lund 1999 ; 2011 ; Conovici 2005 ). There have
been fewer studies based on amphoras without stamps, and such studies are less
ambitious in terms of precision, but address a wider range of issues in economic
history (Lawall 2002 ; 2005 ). At present, the growth of published material and
the improved understanding of the chronologies of amphora production have
provided scholars with much more information, but this information will con-
tribute little to our knowledge of the ancient economy unless there is a parallel
improvement of the methodologies used to interpret this evidence.
This chapter presents an interpretative study of amphoras from Thasos dur-ing the fourth and third centuries BCE based on statistical analysis of the data
provided by amphora stamps and aims to make a positive contribution to
our understanding of the Thasian wine trade. The chapter includes an exten-
sive methodological discussion and some suggestions about how to improve
current methodology and then applies these suggestions to the Thasian data.
The results thus obtained are used to consider the role of markets and market
mechanisms in the production and transport of wine and wine containers.
Why Thasos?
In the current state of research, few Greek city-states that exported amphoras
have provided richer, more varied and more accessible evidence than Thasos.
Literary sources contain many references to Thasian wine and Thasian ampho-
ras, and several inscriptions preserve documents about the production and
trade of Thasian wine (Salviat 1986 ). Because of this plentiful evidence, Thasos
has often been cited as one of the earliest city-states producing wine on a
large scale for export to foreign markets (Osborne 1987 : 170; Unwin 1991 : 97;
Horden and Purcell 2000 : 219; Migeotte 2009 : 87). While it is often difficult to
determine the contents of amphoras produced in other city-states, the ancient
sources leave little doubt that Thasian amphoras served primarily as wine con-
tainers. The archaeological evidence for wine making and amphora produc-
tion on Thasos exceeds what has been published for other amphora-exporting
areas (Garlan 1986a; 1993 ; 2004 –5; Picon and Garlan 1986 ; Brunet 1993 : 207).
Finally, a large number of the stamped fragments of Thasian amphoras spread
throughout the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea has been carefully
and systematically recorded, providing an excellent database for the study of
Thasian trade (Garlan 1999a; Debidour 1999a). One of the main advantages for
scholars is that the Thasians consistently marked their amphoras with stamps