Distinctive Volcanic Material for the Production of Campana A Ware: The Workshop Area of Neapolis at the Duomo Metro Station in Naples, Italy

Abstract

Recent transportation infrastructure works in Naples, Italy, provided important discoveries related to the production of pottery in the Hellenistic workshop area of Piazza Nicola Amore. A minero-petrographic investigation was conducted on 35 samples belonging to the widespread Campana A ware and production indicators (clayey raw materials, unfired Graeco-Italic amphorae, kiln wastes, workshop tools). Additional analysis was conducted on black-glaze and common ware samples for comparison. The analyses reveal compositional and technological homogeneity of Campana A ware. Samples are characterized by low CaO content with evidence of both volcanic and sedimentary components, suggesting that different clay sources were properly mixed to prepare a standard recipe. Production indicators, black-glaze and common wares, have a composition well consistent with the calcareous clays from the island of Ischia. Leucite- and garnet-bearing temper from the Somma Volcano were used for the preparation of coarse-grained pastes, unfired Graeco-Italic amphorae, and clayey raw materials, thus suggesting that they represented the clay sources for amphorae production. Our results reveal new technological and socioeconomic aspects of Hellenistic pottery production in the Bay of Naples, in particular for the Campana A ware, now representing a new reference group: Neapolis

Local production and imitations of Late Roman pottery from a well in the Roman necropolis of Cuma in Naples, Italy

“…A high‐CaO base clay (HCC; De Bonis et al, ) was used for samples CM 19 and CM 24, whereas low‐CaO clayey deposits (LCC; De Bonis et al, ) were used for all the other samples (Table ). From the comparison with the Campanian clayey deposits that most probably supplied the ancient workshops (De Bonis et al, ), the composition of the high‐CaO pitchers is consistent with the chemical features of Ischia clayey deposits (De Bonis et al, ; Figure a,b,c), largely adopted in Campanian ceramic productions from the Greek to Medieval periods (De Bonis et al, , ; Grifa et al, ).…”

“…A local production was inferred for this type of pottery due to the mineralogical, textural, and chemical features of the clay bodies as well as the mineral chemistry of the volcanic temper that shows quite good compositional affinities with Phlegraean volcanics. In addition, the chemical composition of the ceramic vessels suggests the exploitation of Ischia clayey raw materials as largely debated and argued for other local pottery manufacturing (De Bonis et al, , ; Grifa et al, ; Olcese, , , ).…”

“…The XRF data were treated by a statistical multivariate approach, which permitted an evaluation of the chemical behavior of the ceramic fragments in a multidimensional space, using R software (Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ). Raw chemical data were standardized by a log 10 transformation to avoid the risk of a false classification of objects with input variables with very different variances, as in the case of chemical concentrations (De Bonis et al, ; Grifa et al, ); moreover, chemical elements easily influenced by burial conditions (MnO, P 2 O 5 , Ba) were omitted (Fabbri, Guarini, Arduino, & Coghé, ; Maggetti, ).…”

“…The statistical procedure was carried out utilizing R software (R Development Core Team, ), as described by Grifa, Morra, Langella, Cultrone, & Sebastián (), Grifa et al (2009a,b), Grifa et al (), and De Bonis et al (). The principal component analysis (PCA) resulted in ca.…”

5th-Century BC Himera and the Campanian Connection: Petrographic and Archaeological Studies on Western Greek Amphorae from Poseidonia and Elea Unearthed in the Necropolis of Himera

“…Somma older than that of AD 79 [43,45]. A distinctive marker of the activity of this volcano is garnet [46][47][48], which was found in one sample collected in Pithekoussai (M37/26) and is common in samples of the Sauer's petrographic types RVA003/RVA003a from Poseidonia.…”