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The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Classical Athenian Agora

by K. M. Lynch

Although the symposium has received great scholarly interest, most discussions are heavily dependent on literary accounts or evidence gleaned from public dining assemblages. This book presents the first well-preserved set of sympotic pottery recovered from an Athenian household. The study examines the artefacts from well deposit J 2:4, which served a Late Archaic house in the Athenian Agora until it was closed with debris during the clean-up following the Persian destruction of Athens in 479 BC. The deposit contains household and fineware pottery, nearly all the figured pieces of which are forms associated with communal drinking. The archaeological context allows the iconography of the figured wares to be associated with a genuine Athenian worldview, in contrast to Attic figured pottery made for export markets. Since it comes from a single house, the pottery also reflects purchasing patterns and thematic preferences of the homeowner. The multifaceted approach adopted in this book shows that meaning and use are inherently related and that through archaeology, we can restore a context of use for a class of objects frequently studied in isolation.300p, 282 b/w and col figs (American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2011)

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