Cooking Pots as Indicators of Cultural Change: A Petrographic Study of Byzantine and Frankish Cooking Wares from Corinth

by Louise Joyner

Hesperia, Volume 76, Issue 1
Page(s): 183-227
Stable URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2972/hesp.76.1.183
Publication Date: 2007

Period: Byzantine, Frankish
Site: Corinth
Subject: Pottery: petrographic analysis of provenance and production technology

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ABSTRACT:Two styles of cooking pot were used sequentially at Corinth from the 12th to the 14th century A.D., a time during which Frankish crusaders occupied the Byzantine city. Utilizing thin-section petrography, the author investigates possible differences in the provenance and production technology of the two forms of cooking ware. The Byzantine form was made in many fabrics while the Frankish form, introduced some 50 years after the Frankish incursion, was limited largely to one fabric. The fabrics are all consistent with the local geology, suggesting that both forms were produced locally and that the observed differences are the result of changes in the procurement and/or production of the vessels over time.