Neutron Activation Analysis of Late Sixth Century bce Pottery from the Pointe Lequin 1A Shipwreck and Massalia, and Comparison with the Cala Sant Vicenç Shipwreck and Emporion

Abstract

This paper presents the results of neutron activation analyses of pottery samples from four late sixth century bce sites in the Western Mediterranean: the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck, the Bourse site in Marseilles, the Greek colony of Emporion and the Cala Sant Vicenç shipwreck, with the goal of locating the production of a commonly found cup type, the so‐called ‘Ionian’ cup, type B2. The NAA results show three distinct compositional groups, although the location of production could not be determined with certainty. The results also show that submarine diagenesis of pottery samples does not necessarily render them incomparable with samples from terrestrial sites.

Spartan dependence on Laurion lead

“…In addition to the shipwrecks and LIA already mentioned, we can look at the Cala Sant Vincenç wreck off the Balearic Islands. This is more relevant to the argument of lead trade at the end of the 6th century, since it is dated to 520-500 BCE. Alongside amphorae manufactured in Iberia, Magna-Grecia and Greece, fineware and tableware pottery (Krotscheck et al, 2018), iron tools and other trade goods, the ship transported at least one lead ingot, which LIA has linked to a source from Cartagena (Brown, 2011, p. 200, Appendix A no. 8.1;Nieto Prieto & Santos Retolaza, 2010).…”