these minerals, the different user groups who transformed the mineral
into a more accessible form, those who bought this form on behalf of end
users, and the end users themselves. Iron production, as discussed in
Chapter 4, involved a supply chain linking remote parts of Rhodope with
cities on the Aegean coastline. This is a relatively straightforward pattern,
because the trace elements in the ferrous ores can be followed in the
artefacts and tools used in places within a 30 km radius of the mining
areas.^6 There was a limited number of miners and smiths with the
requisite knowledge to extract the metal in thefirst place, and an equally
restricted number who knew how to manipulate these particular ores so
as to produce workable tools. The distances are not large and the
mechanisms of the supply chain were located within a small geographical
area, as in the three cases explored in Chapter 4—the hinterlands of
Zone, the fort of Kalyva, and Abdera. The situation is more complicated
when we consider either more complex networks, with multiple potential
suppliers and a more opaque process of supply or transmission (as in the
case of grey-faced pottery, discussed in the same chapter), or more
complex distribution patterns of objects, such as silver bowls inscribed
with royal names and what appear to be places of origin.^7 Distribution
maps of coins that originated in a given civic centre, or were minted by
certain rulers, are one of the well-known ways of demonstrating particu-
lar kinds of economic outreach. Gary Reger has recently explored the
regional significance of Milesian silver and copper alloy coins, minted in
the later third and early second centurybc,in this light, as well as other
Milesian issues such as the gold and silver‘Alexanders’, which are usually
thought to reflect payments made to retiring war veterans.^8
The most obvious and the most widely researched investigations of
economic connections within the east Balkan area are those associated
with the delivery of substantial quantities of wine and olive oil to many
inland locations.^9 These were not merely mechanical patterns of bulk
transmission of stock. As we saw in Chapter 1, transportation is not to be
divorced from consumption and conscious patterns of demand. The
capillary movement of wine and oilamphoraewas complemented by
evidence of other cultural traits that match the consumption of these two
key foodstuffs—in the culinaryfield, the use of specific types of tableware
andhaute cuisine; in architecture, the adoption of ashlar masonry for
(^6) Ch. 4 n.91.
(^7) See Ch. 4 for grey-faced pottery; silverphialai: see below, n.56.
(^8) Reger 2011, 378–83.
(^9) Tzochev 2010 and other contributions in Kassab Tezgör and Inaishvili 2010; Tzochev
2011; Tzochev (forthcoming).
Regionalism and regional economies 197