Pottery Consumption and Hellenistic Globalisation Bottom-up

Abstract: 

Wider research context / theoretical framework

The project examines processes of Hellenistic globalisation (330-30 BC) by foregrounding the active production of locality in urbanised rural areas of the Mediterranean. Drawing on Appadurai´s theory of locality and assemblage thinking, it introduces a triadic framework that conceptualises the local as the situated interplay of cosmopolitanism, traditionalism and regionalism. This model challenges dominant top-down perspectives that view rural communities as passive recipients of globalising trends, emphasising instead their role in shaping material cultures and identities.

 

Hypotheses / objectives

The central hypothesis is that ceramic consumption patterns reflect complex discursive-material regimes and can reveal how rural actors engaged with globalising dynamics. The project aims to (1) develop and refine the Potter Consumption Profile (PCP) tool as a quantitative proxy for culturally embedded consumption practices, and (2) apply this tool within a comparative, multi-case framework to empirically explore the materialisation of locality at four Hellenistic sites: Monte Iato, Lousoi, Cossyra and Pompeii.

 

Approach / methods

By combining stratigraphic excavation, digital quantification and soci-topographical recontextualisation, the PCP tool translates ceramic data into visual diagrams that represent the triadic discourse of cosmopolitanism, traditionalism and regionalism. The project uses radar charts to visualise pottery consumption profiles and validate them trough hermeneutic multi-case analysis. Cross-site comparisons support the iterative refinement of both data modelling and theory. Each case study combines in-situ excavation, re-analysis of legacy data and high-resolution contextualisation to trace shifts in ceramic use and spatial practice.