Description:
This volume is the first of two to present the Hellenistic fine ware from the excavations in the Athenian Agora. Its scope is restricted to the moldmade hemispherical bowls manufactured from the late 3rd century to the early 1st century B.C. in Athens. The material studied, consisting of some 1,400 fragments of which about 800 were inventoried by the excavators, was unearthed between 1931 and 1973. Of the inventoried pieces, 364 fragments of bowls and molds are catalogued and discussed here, with 40 additional imported pieces, 6 related moldmade examples of other shapes, and 5 pieces used in the manufacturing process. The author first discusses the origins and dating of the bowls and then takes up the various types, in order of appearance on the historical scene: pine-cone, imbricate, floral, and figured bowls and their workshops and chronology, long-petal bowls, and other special types such as concentric-semicircle and daisy bowls. The discussion is followed by a detailed catalogue including references to comparanda.

About the Author: Susan I. Rotroff is the Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis.