The invention of 'Tarentine' red-figure.

The invention of 'Tarentine' red-figure. Introduction The production centre of Apulian red-figure pottery is a subject onwhich the archaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. is largely mute. The first century ofthis pottery's production has left no trace in the dozens of kilnsand kiln dumps that have been excavated in South Italy over the past 150years. In spite of this gap, the consensus opinion today is that thepottery was produced exclusively at the Greek colony of Taras up untilthe final few decades of its existence. This consensus is in no waysupported by archaeological finds, which tend to tell a rather differentstory. Its foundation has been a suite of 'hunches andpreconceptions' that often reveal more about the pottery'sinvestigators than they do about the pottery itself (Carpenter 2003:5-6). This article illustrates a prominent (though under-explored)example of how colonialist, core-privileging assumptions can impact onthe interpretation of archaeological material. In the case of Apulianred-figure pottery, a frustrating frus��trate?tr.v. frus��trat��ed, frus��trat��ing, frus��trates1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart: paucity pau��ci��ty?n.1. Smallness of number; fewness.2. Scarcity; dearth: a paucity of natural resources. of evidence has facilitated aforum of discussion in which opinions have tended to dominate in theabsence of real data. In many cases, it can be shown that these opinionshave been deeply rooted in the historical and geopolitical ge��o��pol��i��tics?n. (used with a sing. verb)1. The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation.2. a. contexts inwhich they were formulated. Colonial past, colonialist present Thanks to the efforts of A.D. Trendall, Apulian red-figure is todayone of the most thoroughly classified groups of ancient Mediterraneanpottery. Strongly influenced by the work of J.D. Beazley and his pupilNoel Moon, Trendall cultivated an interest for South Italian South Italian is a designation for ancient Greek pottery fabricated in Magna Graecia largely during the Fourth Century B.C. The fact that Greek Southern Italy produced its own red figure pottery as early as the end of the fifth century B.C. vase-painting while pursuing postgraduate work at Trinity College Trinity College,Ireland: see Dublin, Univ. of. Trinity CollegePrivate liberal arts college in Hartford, Conn., founded in 1823. It is historically affiliated with the Episcopal church, though its curriculum is nonsectarian. ,Cambridge (McPhee 1998). Beazley had been pioneering the study of Atticfigured vase-painting according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. artistic hands and workshoprelationships, and Moon had made the first serious attempt to apply thismethodology to South Italian red-figure. But aside from scattershot scat��ter��shot?adj.Covering a wide range in a random way; indiscriminate: "his habit of scattershot comment on whatever issue catches his eye"Howell Raines. publications of individual finds and collections, the vast andheterogeneous body of South Italian red-figure had never been studied ina systematic manner. Trendall made this daunting daunt?tr.v. daunt��ed, daunt��ing, dauntsTo abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay.[Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin task his life'swork. With Alexander Cambitoglou, he was able to attribute, seriate andcatalogue thousands of vessels and fragments in The red-figured vases ofApulia and its supplements. The exhaustiveness of Trendall'sresearch was owed in large part to his indefatigable interest intravelling across the globe to see vases in person. However, thequestion of where these thousands of vases were actually produced wasone that could not be resolved by autopsy. As had other leadingauthorities before Trendall, he felt compelled to weigh in on thisquestion, and he did so in favour of Taras: 'There cannot be much doubt that at a very early stage themain centre of production was located at Taranto, the largest city inApulia, with convenient access to extensive beds of clay, which arestill in use. It would be an obvious place in which to develop a potteryindustry, especially as it must have had wide trade connexions withneighbouring Greek towns and native settlements, the inhabitants :This article is about the video game. For Inhabitants of housing, see Residency Inhabitants is an independently developed commercial puzzle game created by S+F Software. DetailsThe game is based loosely on the concepts from SameGame. ofwhich could have bartered local produce (wool, grain, wine, etc.)forTarentine luxury goods, among which pottery would find a place'(Trendall & Cambitoglou 1978: 3). Though Trendall's opinions on the production of Lucanianred-figure would be shaped and modified by important finds made duringhis lifetime, he remained steadfast in his attribution of Apulianred-figure production to Taras. He also expressed the belief that theestablishment of 'branch workshops' outside Taras would havebeen a late phenomenon, if it had happened at all; according to hismodel, if Apulian red-figure had ever been produced in Italic towns likeRuvo or Canosa, it was only as a result of Tarantine craftsmen moving tothose sites after c. 340 BC (Trendall 1989: 94, 170). All earlierApulian vases were, according to Trendall, produced exclusively byTarantine workshops. This view has been widely disseminated and rarelyquestioned over the past 40-50 years. Trendall played an instrumental role in the development (and,indeed, in the founding) of the Department of Archaeology at theUniversity of Sydney The University of Sydney, established in Sydney in 1850, is the oldest university in Australia. It is a member of Australia's "Group of Eight" Australian universities that are highly ranked in terms of their research performance. . His legacy has been passed down to subsequentgenerations of scholars working out of Sydney, including J.R. Green, whohave used Trendall's work as a springboard for more nuanced studiesof the iconography iconography(ī'kŏnŏg`rəfē)[Gr.,=image-drawing] or iconology[Gr.,=image-study], in art history, the study and interpretation of figural representations, either individual or symbolic, religious or secular; and reception of South Italian red-figure(particularly regarding the role of Greek theatre in Italy) (e.g. Green1995; Robinson 2004). These same scholars have followed Trendall'slead in presuming pre��sum��ing?adj.Having or showing excessive and arrogant self-confidence; presumptuous.pre��suming��ly adv. that all Apulian red-figure was produced at Tarasuntil c. 340 BC; they have also, in some cases, resorted to calling thepottery 'Tarentine' (Robinson 1990; Green 1994). The preference for Taras is seductive. In many respects it is evenlogical. The vases are Greek in style; their distribution is largelyconfined to Apulia; and Taras is the only Greek colony in Apulia. Itsneighbours in the region were small Italic hill-settlements that areonly hazily understood compared to Taras--a large Greek-speakingpopulation mentioned often in ancient Greek Noun 1. Ancient Greek - the Greek language prior to the Roman EmpireGreek, Hellenic, Hellenic language - the Hellenic branch of the Indo-European family of languages literary sources. Thissettlement dynamic has given Taras a certain pride of place indiscourses that privilege cores over peripheries. The Italic populations of Apulia and Lucania figured onlymarginally in Trendall's written work; when they were entered intothe equation, they were often implicated in the decline of South Italianred-figure vase-painting: '... the Roccanova and Primato Painters ... seem content to goon repeating the same stock themes and figures, with a progressivedecline towards barbarism bar��ba��rism?n.1. An act, trait, or custom characterized by ignorance or crudity.2. a. The use of words, forms, or expressions considered incorrect or unacceptable.b. , doubtless due to the isolation in which theymust have had to work, in a hinterland cut off from the main artisticcurrents of South Italy and completely severed from any connexions withthe Greek mainland' (Trendall 1967:117). According to Trendall, a workshop's ability to tap into'artistic currents'--both South Italian and mainland Greek-was an important factor in the quality of its craftsmanship. He alsoimplies that inland (i.e. non-Greek) communities were largely bypassedby these artistic currents. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , Trendall seems to haveassumed that enriching artistic influences were only circulating amongstmainland Greece and its South Italian colonies. Thus the preference forTaras may have become something of a 'no-brainer' for him,since Taras was the only Greek colony in Apulia. Trendall believed that a workshop's move from Greek centre tonon-Greek periphery represented its first step on the road to decline.This belief was predicated on a range of colonialist assumptionsregarding the skills and talents of Apulia's non-Greek inhabitants.When describing the overall decline of Apulian red-figure, Trendallstates: 'The death throes throe?n.1. A severe pang or spasm of pain, as in childbirth. See Synonyms at pain.2. throes A condition of agonizing struggle or trouble: a country in the throes of economic collapse. of Apulian red-figure are to be seen in afew vases ... without any traces of originality and often so badly drawnas to suggest that their painters were not Greeks but natives originallyemployed for minor tasks in the workshop, and quite incapable ofanything beyond hack work' (Trendall 1989: 102). Trendall's hinterland tends to be populated by'natives' with little to contribute to the execution ordevelopment of red-figure vase-painting. These populations were notsimply non-contributors; they were envisioned as having exerted acorrupting influence on the quality of Apulian vase-painting. Trendall has been called the oikistes of classical archaeology 'Classical archaeology' is a term given to archaeological investigation of the great Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about in Latin and inAustralia (Descoeudres 1990: 2), and his research interests were indeedshaped by his experiences as a colonial a fact that he readilyacknowledged (McPhee 1998: 504). As a British-educated New Zealander,his experience at Cambridge may have instilled him with a keenappreciation for the colonial's continuing bonds with 'themotherland'. He may also have left England with a strong sense ofthe virtues of Hellenism. Franco De Angelis has illustrated the impactof this educational experience on the work of T.J. Dunbabin, whichinclined him to draw parallels between Greece and Britain, Magna Graecia Magna Graecia(măg`nə grē`shə)[Lat.,=great Greece], Greek colonies of S Italy. The Greek overseas expansion of the 8th cent. B.C. founded a number of towns that became the centers of a new, thriving Greek territory. and the Antipodes Antipodes, islands, New ZealandAntipodes(ăntĭp`ədēz), rocky uninhabited islands, 24 sq mi (62 sq km), South Pacific, c.550 mi (885 km) SE of New Zealand, to which they belong. (De Angelis 1998: 540-42). One could easily envision asimilar set of formative influences in Trendall's case. Such anacademic background would go a long way in explaining Trendall'sexclusion of the hinterland from the circulation of artistic trends andinnovations; these influences were seen to radiate ra��di��atev.1. To spread out in all directions from a center.2. To emit or be emitted as radiation.ra from motherland tocolonies, and to circulate amongst the colonies themselves. It wouldalso help to account for his assumption that the skills and talents ofGreeks could not have been transmitted to the indigenous Italicpopulation. In the post-Trendall era, very few archaeologists have questionedthe idea that Apulian red-figure was produced exclusively at Taras forthe first century of its existence. But the consensus on this issue wasnot always so unanimous. In fact, the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries witnessed a vigorous international debate in whichTaras was only one of several more-or-less convincingly proposedcandidates for having hosted red-figure workshops. The followingsubsection will trace the process by which Greek colonies like Tarascame to dominate this debate. More important, it will draw attention tohow the various non-Greek settlements came to be summarily dismissed inthe years before Trendall delivered his vote against them--a vote thathas carried much weight in recent approaches to Apulian red-figure. How Apulian red-figure became 'Tarentine' The earliest scholarly explorations of the production-site questionare owed to two members of the Jatta family of Ruvo di Puglia. Bothnamed Giovanni, this uncle-nephew tandem was responsible for assemblingthe collection of antiquities that would eventually come to constitutethe Museo Archeologico Nazionale Jatta (Andreassi 1996: 18-21). Ascollectors and scholars the Jattas were motivated in part by thedespoliation de��spo��li��a��tion?n.The act of despoiling or the condition of being despoiled.[Late Latin dspoli of the city's archaeological heritage by uncontrolledlooting. For them, it was not simply a passion for vases that wereunearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia.Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. at Ruvo; they were both thoroughly convinced that the Apulianred-figure vases found there had also been produced there (Jatta 1844:63-78; Jatta 1869: 15-28). The study of Apulian red-figure took a critical turn when Frenchclassicist clas��si��cist?n.1. One versed in the classics; a classical scholar.2. An adherent of classicism.3. An advocate of the study of ancient Greek and Latin.Noun 1. Francois Lenormant published his first volume of LaGrande-Grece in 1881. This three-volume work was the product of severalvisits to South Italy, and represented an attempt to draw the attentionof the European scholarly community to a little-known archaeologicallandscape. Armed with a thorough knowledge of the ancient literarytradition on the Greek colonies of South Italy, Lenormant set out tofind what traces he could of the cities that had made Magna Graeciafamous for its opulence in antiquity. His primary scholarly aim was toexplore, publicise Verb 1. publicise - call attention to; "Please don't advertise the fact that he has AIDS"advertise, advertize, publicizeannounce, denote - make known; make an announcement; "She denoted her feelings clearly" , and (when possible) preserve the archaeologicalpatrimony PATRIMONY. Patrimony is sometimes understood to mean all kinds of property but its more limited signification, includes only such estate, as has descended in the same family and in a still more confined sense, it is only that which has descended or been devised in a direct line from the of Magna Graecia, and it is important to bear this in mindwhen sifting out his opinions regarding the birth and development ofApulian red-figure. Of the possibility of red-figure production at Taras, Lenormantremarked: 'Les caracteres propres a la poterie peinte de Tarente pendantcette periode [i.e. the fifth and fourth centuries BC] sont encoreinconnus pour moi. Il me semble pourtant qu'on pourrait arriver ales retrouver en etudiant les vases de style grandiose qui serencontrent dans les tombes des villes apuliennes, comme Canosa et Ruvo;car leur provenance prov��e��nance?n.1. Place of origin; derivation.2. Proof of authenticity or of past ownership. Used of art works and antiques. tarentine est tres probable' (Lenormant 1881:93). These casual observations would have a profound impact on the waythe production-site question was approached by subsequent generations ofscholars. Despite an archaeological picture that was lacunose Lac´u`nose`a. 1. (Biol.) Furrowed or pitted; having shallow cavities or lacunæ; as, a lacunoseleaf s>. to say theleast, Lenormant was content to assign to Taras the production of largered-figure kraters that were found primarily in the tombs of Italiccommunities that lay 100-150km distant from that city. Lenormant hadbeen impressed by the quantities of finds coming out of Ruvo; however,he was only willing to admit the possibility of a local production forthe second half of the fourth century BC (Lenormant 1881: 94). Thiscaveat set the tone for another assumption that was to become pervasivein the non-Italian literature on this subject: If Italic settlementslike Ruvo and Canosa had, in fact, produced Apulian red-figure pottery,it was only the late vases that--in their crowded compositions and gaudycolours--showed no resemblance to the reserve and balance of the fifthcentury Attic masters. In other words, non-Greek sites were deemedresponsible for the late decadence of a style that was itself deemed adecadent cousin of Attic red-figure; the notion that they wereresponsible for anything better was not as easily countenanced. Lenormant's theories carried the weight of certain tacitexpectations about the cultural advancement of Greek cities like Tarasand Italic settlements such as Ruvo. According to his assessment, theApulians had inherited the red-figure style and its craftsmen directlyfrom Taras as a consequence of their submission to the Helleniccity's 'influence civilisatrice" (Lenormant 1881: 94).Lenormant's conception of Hellas as civiliser in South Italy mayhave been impacted by his personal experience of the region; inLenormant's time, South Italy was an economic backwater that hadbeen left to languish under centuries of disinterested imperial rulefrom Naples. In other words, it was an environment in which acentre-privileging discourse may have readily suggested itself to ayoung archaeologist looking to reconstruct long-lost dynamics ofcultural and political hegemony. Adolf Furtwangler presented a modification of Lenormant's'Taras position' in his Meisterwerke der Griechischen plastik,published in 1893. He moved the debate in a new direction by attemptingto reconstruct the historical and commercial mechanisms that had broughtred-figure potters and painters from Attica to the Italian peninsula Noun 1. Italian Peninsula - a boot-shaped peninsula in southern Europe extending into the Mediterranean SeaItalia, Italian Republic, Italy - a republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula; was the core of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire between the .Rather than a direct transplant of red-figure workshops from Athens toTaras, Furtwangler proposed a more complex model, taking into accountthe stylistic overlap between Attic and South Italian red-figure, aswell as the ancient literary evidence for Athenian activities in theIonian Gulf. The traditional foundation dates of Thurii and Herakleia(444/3 and 433 BC respectively) coalesced nicely with his proposedstylistic dating of the earliest South Italian red-figure. The primarycatalysts of these two colonies were, moreover, Athens and Taras,leading Furtwangler to suggest an emigration emigration:see immigration; migration. of craftsmen from Athens toits new foundation of Thurii, then to Herakleia and (slightly later) toTaras, giving rise to the development of the two principal branches ofSouth Italian red-figure, Lucanian (at Herakleia) and Apulian (at Taras)(Furtwangler 1893: 150-52). Furtwangler's insistence on Thurii as a key contributor tothis process had more to do with that city's connections to Athensthan it did with archaeological evidence. Just as the material cultureof Apulia has tended to get sucked into the orbit of the region'smost readily identifiable centre, there has been a longstanding desireto accord the city of Athens--the centre of centres in the ClassicalMediterranean--a more influential role in the development of Apulianred-figure than it might deserve. However, the most serious objection, both at the turn of thetwentieth century and today, has to do with the lack of finds from thearea around ancient Thurii (Jircik 1990: 161-2). As was the case withLenormant's theory, a paucity of excavated material opened the doorfor speculations that were coloured by colonialist preconceptions aboutwhat types of settlements were capable of producing high-qualitypottery. The Thurii/Herakleia model ultimately proved unsatisfactorybecause, like Lenormant's model, it represented a distinctlynon-archaeological approach to an archaeological problem. Yet whileThurii and Herakleia are no longer regarded as significant centres ofred-figure pottery production, Taras continues to be regarded as theinitial and primary production centre of Apulian red-figure, despitegaps in our archaeological evidence that are really no less serioustoday than they were in Lenormant's time. Arguments for early red-figure production outside the Greekcolonies most certainly did not die with the Jattas, however. GiovanniPatroni took a stand against the north European school of thought in hisLa ceramica antica nell'Italia meridionale, published in 1897. Headdressed some of the fundamental inadequacies of theLenormant/Furtwangler position, claiming that it 'non ha altrofondamento tranne il fatto che Taranto era una grandee splendidacitta' (Patroni 1897: 132). The lack of Apulian red-figure finds atTaras--downplayed by the contemporary non-Italian scholarship--loomedlarge in Patroni's arguments. He reiterated the fact that nosignificant Apulian red-figure finds had surfaced since Lenormant'sinitial statement of the Taras position in 1881, further stating that'e impossibile credere che una industria locale cosi fiorente, comeapparisce quella della ceramica pugliese, non abbia lasciatoconsiderevoli tracce hello sua patria' (Patroni 1897: 132). Likethe Jattas before him, Patroni preferred to assign the production ofApulian red-figure to the settlement that had yielded the mostimpressive quantities of Apulian vases--Ruvo di Puglia. He noted thatthe Apulian vases from Ruvo exhibited a fully coherent arc of stylisticdevelopment, which would have been unusual had red-figure production atRuvo represented the fleeting existence of a late branch workshop. Italian claims for Ruvo were reiterated with some frequency overthe next two decades, with other Italic centres such as Canosa beginningto figure more prominently in the debate (e.g. Ducati 1907; Cultrera1913). In a 1912 article, Vittorio Macchioro attempted a fullchronological seriation of South Italian red-figure pottery. He proposeda chronology with phases that were anchored to specific sites that had,in his view, housed red-figure workshops. Like Patroni before him,Macchioro recognised a continuous arc of stylistic development in thevases of Ruvo, and concluded that Ruvo had been the birthplace ofApulian red-figure. From there he envisioned a capillary expansion ofthe industry to Bari, Canosa, Anzi, Armento, Paestum and Cumae.Remarkably, Greek settlements like Taras, Thurii and Herakleia played norole whatsoever in Macchioro's reconstruction. He was convincedthat potters and painters had emigrated directly from Attica to Ruvo andBari, and that South Italian red-figure was, in its initial phases, anAdriatic phenomenon that had nothing to do with the Ionian Gulf(Macchioro 1912: 167-78). This is not to say that the Italian arguments emerge as models ofscientific detachment when set aside those of Lenormant or Furtwangler;Italian nationalism certainly played a role in the minimisation ofcolonial-Greek influences (Carpenter pets. comm.). But the widespreadrejection of the Italian arguments for non-Greek production centres wasbased on more than just flawed methodology. During the 1920s, sites likeRuvo were dismissed as candidates for reasons that would come to typifythe tenor of the scholarship for the better part of a century: 'Indeed, it is easier to suppose that Thurii with her Greekpopulation and its Attic nucleus exported her wares to Sicily, Tarentumand Ruvo than that Ruvo, a town in which the Greek element was probablysmall, was able to build up so suddenly the beginnings of a greatindustry' (Tillyard 1923:11). Adhering to the tendencies of previous north European contributionsto the debate, Tillyard essentially ignored distribution data in favourof a hypothesis that made 'Greekness' the primary criterion inassigning red-figure production to a specific settlement. Such anapproach entailed much more than Hellenocentrism, however. Thepreference for a 'Greek population' can be seen as apreference for a whole suite of attributes that were assumed to havegone hand-in-hand with Greekness: culture; literacy; urbanism;political, social and industrial organisation. In other words, theattributes that serve to distinguish cores from peripheries (Rowlands1987: 4). In a 1929 article, Noel Moon echoed Tillyard's sentiments,concluding: 'it is difficult to dissociate dis��so��ci��ate?v. dis��so��ci��at��ed, dis��so��ci��at��ing, dis��so��ci��atesv.tr.1. To remove from association; separate: the beginnings of theindustry from the Greek colonies' (Moon 1929: 48). Noting thestrict stylistic overlap between the earliest South Italian red-figureand contemporary Attic, she thought it improbable that the firstAthenian seedpods would have established themselves in a non-Greeksettlement. Though less explicitly, Moon followed Tillyard'sassumption that Apulian red-figure had been produced on an industrialscale, and that it was likely to have been transmitted from Athenians toa community of fellow Greeks capable of sustaining such a 'greatindustry'. Furthermore, Moon settled on Taras as the most probable centre ofproduction for both Lucanian and Apulian red-figure, adducing ad��duce?tr.v. ad��duced, ad��duc��ing, ad��duc��esTo cite as an example or means of proof in an argument.[Latin add thecity's 'importance and prosperity during the early part of thelife of the industry' (Moon 1929: 48). Excepting a handful ofoccasional objections, the tentative position adopted by Moon--thatTaras had been the initial and primary seat of Apulian red-figureproduction because it was the only Greek city in Apulia has remained theconsensus opinion on the subject for nearly 80 years. The archaeological evidence For Tillyard and Trendall, the relative Greekness of the potentialdestinations was a decisive factor Noun 1. decisive factor - a point or fact or remark that settles something conclusivelyclinchercausal factor, determinant, determining factor, determinative, determiner - a determining or causal element or factor; "education is an important determinant of in where Apulian red-figure workshopstook root. Yet the settlements with the region's largestGreek-speaking populations--though relatively well explored--haveyielded no evidence of Early Apulian production, and only scant evidenceof Early Apulian consumption. The Taras model is undercut by therelative scarcity of fifth-century Apulian red-figure from that site.While vases attributed to the fifth-century pioneers have been publishedwith Tarantine provenances (Trendall & Cambitoglou 1978), not one ofthese finds has been traced back to a properly recorded excavationcontext. In other words, they are simply 'said to come fromTaranto.' Additionally, these vase-painters are known to havedecorated vases of large dimensions--column kraters and volute volute/vo��lute/ (vo-lut��) rolled up. vo��luteadj.Rolled up; convoluted.voluterolled up. kraters.Out of more than one hundred Early Apulian examples of these shapes,only one is said to have been found at Taranto (Carpenter 2003: 7-11).The modern city has yielded more than 10 000 ancient tombs and remainsof at least 20 ancient kilns, yet not one of these contexts includedApulian red-figure pottery datable to the fifth century BC (Cuomo diCaprio 1992; Dell'Aglio 1996). The Thurii/Herakleia model, favoured by Furtwangler and Tillyard,encounters even more pronounced problems. To date only a handful ofSouth Italian red-figure fragments have been found in the area ofancient Thurii (Jircik 1990: 161-2; Mannino 1996: 363). In 1963 a tombwas unearthed at Policoro (ancient Herakleia) that contained 12 Lucanianred-figure vases, all datable to the last quarter of the fifth centuryBC. Degrassi and Trendall thought this discovery lent weight to previoustheories for red-figure workshops at Herakleia (Degrassi 1965: 20, 27;Trendall 1967: 6, 1989: 21); however, it is important to bear in mindthat this one burial assemblage accounts for 12 of the 16 Early SouthItalian vases from the entire settlement. In these two cases, theGreekness of a local population seems to have had little impact on itsdemand for red-figure pottery. Metaponto is the only South Italian site for which Apulianred-figure production has been verified through the discovery ofworkshop contexts. Fragments attributable to the circle of the DariusPainter were discovered in kiln dumps 3, 5 and 6 of the urban kerameikos(D'Andria 1975; Cracolici 2003; Silvestrelli 2005). However, thesethree dumps were composed during the second half of the fourth centuryBC, and thus shed no light on the first 75-100 years of Apulianred-figure production. While the kiln dumps serve to supportTrendall's theory that Apulian workshops had branched out to avariety of centres after c. 340 BC, they do nothing to support hisopinion that previous generations of workshops had been basedexclusively at Taras. It is also worth noting that not a single EarlyApulian vase has been found in the territory of ancient Metapontion--notone, out of more than 1500 catalogued by Trendall (Mannino 1996: 364;Carpenter 2003: 6). In sum, scholars have tended to favour the colonial-Greekcandidates for hosting the first Apulian workshops, but these candidatesreceive only the slimmest support from the archaeological record. Iwould argue that this preference has had much more to do withpreconceptions about the extent of Greek cultural hegemony Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. It means that a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one group or class, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination. in SouthItaly than it has with archaeological finds. The distribution datastrongly suggest that the Italic 'hinterlands' may have playeda much more significant role in the development of Apulian red-figurethan they have typically been accorded (Carpenter 2003: 6, 20). However,this is an issue that can only be resolved by further excavations or bychemical analysis of the ceramic fabrics. Conclusion In this paper I have attempted to illustrate an example of how thecultural backgrounds of leading scholarly authorities continue to impactthe interpretation of an important class of archaeological material. Aswe have seen, Trendall's tendency to dismiss the'hinterland' and its inhabitants was deeply bound up with hisown experience as a colonial, which inclined him to focus his attentionon the Greek colonies and their continuing interest in motherland artand culture (Trendall 1990: 228-30). Similarly, previous approaches tothe problem tended to privilege colonial cores over non-Greekperipheries that were presumed to have been less civilised and lessadvanced. Apulian red-figure vases could be used to illuminate Italiccultures that are not well understood. Instead, these artefacts havemost often been used to reinforce cyclically the centre-privilegingdiscourse that has been employed in their classification for the betterpart of a century: in other words, once the pottery came to be regardedas 'Tarentine', it came to be adduced as evidence for aTarantine cultural and economic hegemony that may not have existed. Inthis sense, even the predominantly Italic distribution of the vases canbe used to reinforce the view of Taras as the apex of a settlementhierarchy: the city produces the vases--made for the consumption ofGreek wine Greece is the oldest wine-producing region in Europe. The earliest evidence of Greek wine has been dated to 6,500 years ago[1][2] where wine was produced on a household or communal basis. and depicting Greek myths--and their dissemination intoApulia comes to be equated with the dissemination of civilisation andculture from core to periphery. For a variety of reasons that havelittle to do with the archaeological record, archaeologists have beeninclined to adopt this view of the region with no modification. It isonly recently that investigators have begun to grapple in earnest withthe possibility that the 'most important' Apulian settlementmay have been one of the least important in the production anddistribution of Apulian red-figure pottery. Acknowledgements This paper was inspired by a series of discussions with Dr T.H.Carpenter, who graciously shared some of his early findings and pointedmy own research in the right direction. His recent work in this area hasopened up several avenues of further investigation, and the subject ofthis paper represents one of them. I would also like to thank Dr K.M.Lynch for her encouragement and for the attentiveness of her commentsand suggestions. Finally, I wish to thank Aaron Wolpert, who provided anadditional perspective that proved invaluable. Received: 12 March 2008; Revised: 2 June 2008; Accepted: 5 August2008 References ANDREASSI, G. 1996. yatta di Ruvo: la famiglia, la collezione, ilmuseo nazionale. Bari: Adda. CARPENTER, T. 2003. The native market for red-figure vases inApulia. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 48: 1-24. CRACOLICI, V. 2003. Isostegni difornace dal kerameikos diMetaponto. Bark Edipuglia. CULTRERA, G. 1913. Di un vaso con scena sce��na?n.1. 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Centre and periphery: a review of a concept, inM. Rowlands, M. Larsen & K. Kristiansen (ed.) Centre and peripheryin the ancient world: 1-11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). . SILVESTRELLI, F. 2005. Le fasi iniziali della ceramica a figurerosse nel kerameikos di Metaponto, in M. Denoyelle (ed.) La ceramiqueapulienne: 113-23. Naples: Centre Jean Berard. TILLYARD, E. 1923. The Hope vases. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. TRENDALL, A. 1967. The red-figured vases of Lucania, Campania andSicily. Oxford: Clarendon Press. --1989. Red figure vases of South Italy and Sicily: a handbook.London: Thames & Hudson. --1990. On the divergence of South Italian from Attic red-figurevase-painting, in J.-E Descoeudres (ed.) Greek colonists and nativepopulations: 217-30. Oxford: Clarendon Press. TRENDALL, A. & A. CAMBITOGLOU. 1978. The red-figured vases ofApulia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jed M. Thorn, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati is a coeducational public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ranked as one of America’s top 25 public research universities and in the top 50 of all American research universities,[2] , POBox 210226, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0226, USA (Email: jedthorn@gmail.com)