Transforming Clay, Transforming Space: Ceramic Practices and the Making of Early Gortyn, Crete (Greece)
ReForm Scholar
The ongoing research project is focused on understanding ceramic production in the urban and social development of the ancient city of Gortyn, Crete, from the Protogeometric (ca. 1050 – 900 BCE) to the Archaic period (ca. 600 – 480 BCE) and thus covering the timespan of five centuries.
The project has so far investigated ceramic materials recovered from the 2019 excavations at the sanctuary of Apollo Pythios, but dated from earlier periods than the foundation of the sanctuary and therefore hinting at an earlier use of the area – potentially for communal gatherings and festivities. As the monumentalization of the sanctuary marks a period of significant transformation in Gortyn’s urban landscape, with the transferring of the city’s nucleus from the settlements on the hills of Aghios Ioannis to the Messara plain, the research is of critical interest to uncover broader shifts in the organization of space and communal practices in the early city.
The motivation for this research is rooted in the importance of reconstructing the history of Gortyn’s urban landscape through focusing on the role of material culture in the formation and transformation of the city. In this sense, the central research question is how ceramic production evolved in Gortyn during the transition from the Protogeometric to the Archaic period and how these changes reflect broader socio-cultural transformations, particularly in the context of the city’s nucleus being transferred from the hilltops to the plain. The principal aim of the project is to analyse potential changes in the composition and production techniques of pottery, thereby adopting a diachronic approach that enables the identification of potential continuities and discontinuities in ceramic recipes over time. Additionally, it aims to contribute significant data to the ongoing excavations conducted by the University of Padova and Ruhr-Universität Bochum, which have recovered many relevant finds on the early development of Gortyn and the sanctuary of Apollo.
A multidisciplinary approach has been applied to analyze these materials, including petrographic characterization through optical microscopy, mineralogical characterization through X-Ray Diffraction, chemical characterization through X-Ray Fluorescence, and statistical treatment of the data. This was combined with the macroscopic characterization of the material and the extensive literature available on the archaeology and history of Iron Age Gortyn. So far, the results have demonstrated that ceramic production in Gortyn was rooted in cultural practices, with specific ceramic recipes being applied to vessels of the same typology and with these typologically-driven ceramic recipes remaining consistent throughout the centuries. This interesting finding suggests the persistence of traditional practices in ceramic production, while also indicating a potential consistency in resource exploitation while the city’s urban landscape underwent significant transformations.
Future work aims at expanding the number of samples analyzed by gathering more material from the sanctuary of Apollo and from the hills of Aghios Ioannis, where the first settlements of Gortyn were located. This would aim to understand whether the Protogeometric and Geometric material found in the plain prior to the foundation of the sanctuary displays a similar composition to that of those from these earlier hilltop settlements, thus signalling a pattern of landscape use. If it is proven that the material from these two locations shared a similar composition, it is possible that the peoples from the hilltop settlements were engaging in seasonal meetings on the plain, perhaps with ritualistic meaning, that led to its transformation as a sacred space in the mid-7th century BCE with the foundation of the sanctuary. If, however, the ceramic recipes of the material found in the plain differ from those of these hilltop settlements, suggesting the existence of a local ceramic production on the Messara plain, it would point to a more consistent human presence on the plain than initially thought.
The ongoing results of this research were presented in the Meeting of the Ceramic Petrology group, held in February 2025 in Padova, Italy. Moreover, the work has been accepted for presentation at the Archaeometry Colloquium, held by Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, in May 2025.
