234 CHAvDAR TzOCHEv
beginning of the fourth to the mid-second century BCE, are stamped. About
12,300 of these stamped pieces have been found outside the island of Thasos
(Figure 10.1), each of them corresponding to a single amphora, exported
abroad.
The concentrations of finds reveal the most significant importers of Thasian
wine. Besides Athens (ca. 1,000 stamps), these are most of the large communi-
ties in the North Aegean – Abdera (ca. 670), Amphipolis (ca. 570), Maroneia (ca.
850), Doriskos (ca. 200); in Macedonia – Pella (ca. 300); in Egypt – Alexandria
(ca. 190); in the interior of Thrace – Kabyle (ca. 110) and Sboryanovo (ca. 140);
and most of all, in the Black Sea – Panticapaeum (ca. 900), Phanagoria (ca.
670), Olbia (ca. 440), Histria (ca. 800), Callatis (ca. 450), and Odessos (ca. 140).
The figures presented here are actually not high at all, if one takes into
account the fact that they cover periods between one- and two-and-a-half
centuries long. In rare cases the number of stamps from a single year found
in one city may reach up to forty, but most are quite small – often, only a
single stamp is recorded for a single year, and there are also years without<100 stamps>100 stamps
>500 stamps
10.1 Geographic distribution of Thasian Amphora stamps (C. Tzochev).