The Ancient Greek Economy. Markets, Households and City-States

PATTERNS OF AMPHORA STAMP DISTRIBUTION 219

Athens and at the Northern coast of the Black Sea, and Peparethian in the

Black Sea.

We can also place the case of Zacynthos in this category, although only a

handful of undated stamps are known. Its stamps have all been found in a nar-

row range of sites, which were all probably reached through the Corinthian

Gulf (Athens one, Corinth three, Orchomenos one). Export to areas around

the Black Sea is striking also for the stamps of Smyrna (three stamps in Istros

and one in Olbia, dated to the second century BCE), whereas three more

stamps of Smyrna have been found in nearby Pergamon.

It is particularly interesting that in these cities with mid-range distribution,

we may detect a distinctive pattern in their export routes. Obviously, there

may have been several contributing factors to explain this distribution: his-

torical, political, social, geopolitical, economical, traditional or circumstantial,

to name a few. The exact reasons for these tendencies can only be sought and

analyzed in a meticulous study of each production and consumption center

taken by itself.

Category 3: Cities with Wide Distribution of their Amphora Stamps

As expected, large-scale distribution is attested in cities that produced large

numbers of stamped amphoras, such as Acanthus (dated from the mid-fourth

to the beginning of the third century BCE), Hellenistic Chios (dated to the

third through first centuries BCE), Ephesus (dated to the second half of the

third and from the mid-second to the beginning of the first century BCE),

Corcyra (earliest stamps dated to the late sixth and fifth centuries BCE, but

the majority of stamps are dated to the second half of the fourth and the third

centuries BCE), Hellenistic Mende (dated from the fourth to the early second

century BCE) and Paros (dated to the third and early second centuries BCE).

Stamps from these six cities have been found at a wide range of sites and in

large quantities (see Table 9.4).

It is obvious that these productions play a fairly important role in a large

trade network. The products in question seem to have been regularly trans-

ported for a long distance, and there were many markets to which they were

shipped. This points to a strong, constant, well-organized production and a

substantial trade network.

If one examines this wide distribution more closely, large concentrations of

stamps appear in certain regions: Acanthian in the Northern Aegean and the

Black Sea; Ephesian in the Southern Aegean, the Levant and Egypt; Corcyrean

toward the west, but also in Athens, Corinth and Pella; Mendean and Parian

in the Aegean and the Black Sea. Chian stamps, on the other hand, show an

extremely wide and universal dispersal of stamps with big concentrations in

Athens, Delos, Pergamon and Alexandria.