TRANSPORT AMPHORAS AND MARKET PRACTICES 255
Regulating Market and Market Place). This chapter begins, therefore, with
an overview of ways of thinking about markets that are conducive both to
an archaeological approach and to a consideration of diachronic change as
opposed to ahistorical description.
Archaeological data, much like the evidence provided by some dossiers ofeconomic papyri and inscriptions, are particularly advantageous when seeking
a diachronic view of ancient economic behaviors. Thus, following the discus-
sion of definitions of markets, I turn to the evidence provided by transport
amphoras: how they functioned in ancient transactions (as far as we can tell
from the jars themselves), what can be concluded about the functioning and
roles of markets from patterns of amphora distribution both as containers of
trade goods and as containers for storage, and how such evidence changes
over time.
Notes on Methodology
The result of this inquiry is not a single definition of market behavior that
encompasses all transactions involving amphoras/amphora-borne goods.
Quite the contrary: different kinds of transactions involving amphoras likely operated
within different systems. This point should not surprise – even in the economic
system of modern Canada or the United States (and I assume elsewhere too),
different kinds of transactions operate under very different rules (e.g., payment
of unreported cash to the teenager next door for yard work vs. payment of
reported salary, taxes, benefits, and so on to the office worker).
A further point of methodology should also be clarified. In this chapter,I refer to models of economic behavior derived from studies of bazaars and
other modes of marketing faced with imperfect information and to peasant
interactions with markets, interactions which may be based on rationalities
that contradict the expectations of formalist economics. The use of the term
‘bazaar’ in modern Classical scholarship runs the risk of characterizing the
Greek agora as somehow exotic and ‘oriental’. Unlike Rostovtzeff ’s use of the
term bazaar to label the central marketplace of Dura-Europos under Parthian
rule, justifiably criticized by Baird ( 2007 : 35–7), my comparison of ancient
Greek evidence to more modern ethnographic and economic research is not
intended to equate the two. And, there is no intention by this process to make
the ancient Greek seem more exotic, primitive, irrational or foreign – the goal
is to make ancient behavior more comprehensible. Indeed, the comparative
process highlights similarities of conditions and thereby raises the likelihood
that some ancient behaviors might be more understandable when viewed
through these other paradigms. Again, if I argue here that some transactions are
understandable through these other models, I am not arguing that all trans-
actions operated in the same way. Nor, as I think Bang did very successfully