Transport amphoras and trademarks: Imports to Athens and economic diversity in the fifth century B.C.

Abstract

An essential element of any economic system is the means by which information is communicated among participants in transactions. Such means of communication include the shapes of, and markings on, commercial containers. Coarseware transport amphoras played a dominant role as shipping containers in Antiquity and, as such, permit the comparison of local and regional systems of transmitting commercial information. The specificity with which an amphora's shape and markings can be associated with a single producing area is used here as a relative index of that producer's economic complexity. Such evidence for changing local economic structures comes from a historical survey of amphora production in Athens, Klazomenai, Corinth, Chios, Northern Greece, Lesbos, and the area of Samos and Miletos. This survey also includes a brief view of production in the western Mediterranean and consideration of two unidentified amphora forms (Solokha I and Solokha II). A large part of the study is devoted to synthesizing the evidence for identifying the different amphora types and defining their morphological changes over time. This survey emphasizes both the various degrees of regionalism exhibited by different types of amphoras, as well as the historical developments of regional marking practices. The survey also begins to show a positive correlation between changes in the volume of exports from a given region and the increased structuring of communication for transactions (by marks and specific shapes). This relationship between the volume of trade and the level of organization of that trade is further supported by a case study of changes in imports to Athens from the late sixth century through the end of the fifth century. This case study centers on an increase in imports of Mendean and Chian amphoras to Athens in the third quarter of the century and considers possible Athenian influences on the changes in the Mendean and Chian economic structures. While Athens may have sought to control these local economies (e.g., through the Standards Decree), the local Chian and Mendean changes seem more a result of an increased volume of trade requiring changes in the structure of transactions.