AT THE SANCTUARY

Our information about the early Greek pottery in Cyrenaica grows apace. The second final report on the excavation at the Demeter sanctuary in Cyrene is devoted to the Archaic pottery found there, excluding, sadly, the Attic and Corinthian — which is saved for other experts — and the local wares. The thoroughness with which the material is here presented makes it the more regrettable that we do not yet have it all and that Schaus, who is admirably suited to making good historical and archaeological sense of such finds, is not surveying it in entirety. It is, I suppose, part of the price paid for employing experts. The pottery is not stratified, but it is plentiful although extremely comminuted: a tantalising challenge to the archaeologist. The natural comparison for the material is with the Archaic finds from Tocra (Taucheira) the settlement along the coast, nearer Benghazi, which was excavated by the British School at Athens in 1963-1965 and published in two volumes in 1966 and 1973 (with the second of which the infant Libyan Society was associated). Schaus makes the best of the opportunities offered for comparison, and elsewhere Stucchi has, at least in a roughly statistical manner, done the same for finds from the Italian intramural excavations at Cyrene (in Ancient Greek and related Pottery; Proceedings of the International Vase Symposium Amsterdam 1984, Allard Pierson Series 5, 1985, 139-143). The three groups involved present acutely the problems of such numerical comparisons, which seem to acquire a factual status as soon as their sources are forgotten (which is usually rapidly). The Tocra material is from a nearly fully excavated series of votive deposits and seems fully representative for the years covered, as well as being very rich in near-complete vases, but we can never be sure that, for a while, votives were not disposed of elsewhere. The Demeter material at Cyrene is a disturbed scatter through the excavated area, but the volume makes it reassuring as an index to pottery received in the sanctuary in early years. For the other finds at Cyrene, in the Agora, we have no assurance of their validity as an index to the relative volume of finds, and it is not surprising, nor should it therefore be discouraging, to find that Stucchi is despondent about the value of such comparative statistical studies. Restricted to the non-Attic, non-Corinthian and non-local, Schaus is excluded from deducing anything about two major importers of the sixth century BC, but he makes the very best of what can be done with the material at his disposal. It begins somewhat later than the foundation of Cyrene (and of Tocra), in about 600 BC, and the main classes recognised, using traditional archaeological stylistic analysis aided by a limited amount of clay analysis, correspond very closely with those from Tocra. The quality of the pottery seems generally higher, which is only to be expected of the Cyrenaican metropolis, although its present state is wretched. Some of the minor island and mainland Greek fabrics represented at Tocra have yet to be recognised at Cyrene, and of these perhaps the most surprising is the 'Melian' (probably Parian), especially in view of the many 'Melian' (quite probably Melian) Island Gems found there and of roughly the same date, indicating close Cycladic connections. Nor is there the Boeotian, which was rather a surprising find at Tocra, and to which has to be added the work of the remarkable black-figure Tocra Painter, now revealed as an immigrant Attic potter/painter in Boeotia. But this probably reflects little more than the vagaries of cargoes and the element of opportunism in ancient 'trade' which is of more archaeological than historical significance. It is reassuring to find sixth-century Cretan wares represented. They had been first identified at Tocra, by decoration, shape and analysis, although not yet discovered in Crete itself. Probable Theran pottery is better represented at Cyrene, which is understandable since Therans were the colonists. There is also at Cyrene a fuller range of sixth-century East Greek wares including North Ionian ('Clazomenian') and Milesian ('Fikellura'), almost wholly lacking at Tocra. In time, no doubt, clay analysis will enable us to adjust properly the apparent 'Rhodian' contribution which is of some importance historically since there is documentary evidence for sixth-century immigration from the island. The overall range of the pottery sources and their similarities to Tocra make one the more confident of using pottery criteria to explain the origins and connections of the residents in Greek cities far from home.