middle of the eighth and the early decades of the seventh centurybc,as
well as other ceramics originating from the Thermaic Gulf, including
‘silvery’-slipped tableware and transportamphorae, the latter probably
conveying wine from the mainland of Macedonia.^70 The single biggest
attractor of imported pottery on the mainland was the best harbour
facility on the Thermaic Gulf, and the associated Toumba Kalamarias
(Thessaloniki Toumba), which has produced an exceptional range of
ceramics from all over the Aegean; a sequence that seems to match the
Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age sites in the Chalkidic peninsula.^71 There
was a visible surge in the volume of imports during the eighth century
bc, notably of Euboian-styleskyphoi, cup types that were appearing on
Thasos at the same time. Just as a range of Aeolian and Ionian ceramics
triggered a new level and variety of ceramic outputs in the east Balkan
region, on a progressive scale from the seventh, and particularly from the
second half of the sixth centurybconwards, so there was an elaboration
of ceramic forms at the western end of the north Aegean in the same
period, inspired partly by Euboian models, but also north Ionian ones. So
there is something of an overlap in terms of popular forms between the
north-western and the north-eastern trajectories of technological
exchange in pottery manufacture. In the region of the Thermaic Gulf,
the most popular forms were thephialeand various types of jug, with a
preference for the indigenous jug with an oblique,‘cutaway’neck, but
imported Ionian, Attic and Corinthian models were also copied.^72
The wide popularity of a limited range of ceramic forms has given rise
to the idea of a distinct regional set of preferences in what is now Central
Macedonia. The‘silvery’pottery includes large storage vessels, as well as
tableware, and is so called because of the mica-dusted slip that gives it a
distinctive sheen. Pithoid-amphorae, deep bowls, water jars, shallow bowls
(lekanai), and other shapes were decorated with lozenges, zigzags, and
bands of waves, in a purplish coloured slip, using a multiple brush. These
distinctive pots were made either at Sindos, close to Thessaloniki
Toumba, or perhaps at multiple sites along the Thermaic Gulf.^73 Trans-
portamphoraewith‘sub-Geometric’decoration (multiple bands and
concentric circles) may have been manufactured at Sindos, but there
(^70) Muller 2010, 217. (^71) Manakidou 2010, esp. 464–9.
(^72) Panti 2008, provides a detailed conspectus of local fabrics, based on microscopic
analysis of clays resembling those identified from fourth-centurybckilns located at
Akanthos, including‘Ionizing’and other imitative forms, and Attic Black Figure and
Corinthian fabrics (15–150); Karabournaki, 151–204; Sindos, 205–21; see esp. 234– 5
[= Karabournaki] and 344–5. See also Chapter 6 for Euboian connections.
(^73) Manakidou 2010, 465–6 andfig. 317; Gimatzidis 2010, 227, 251fig. 75.
170 Thelongue duréein the north Aegean