Byzantine Glazed Table Wares
Byzantine Glazed Table Wares:
An Overview
The study of Byzantine pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean has been developing over the past few years, with scholars trying to identify wares, establish typologies and relevant chronologies, and move towards a better understanding of the Byzantine ceramics. Table wares, especially the glazed ones, were particularly popular during the Byzantine period, since they were directly connected to the people’s dinning habits and everyday life. Hence, their study can be proven extremely useful for our understanding of the Byzantine citizens.
Table wares include all the vessels used on the table. Thus, the main shapes of table wares are the beaker, cup, mug, bottle, flask, jug, trefoil-mouth jug, bowl, dish, plate, candlestick, lamp, coffee cup and saucer, and coffee pot (Vroom 2014, 19) (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The main shapes of Post-Classical table wares in the Aegean (Vroom 2014, 20)
Table 1: Chronological division of the Medieval and Post-Medieval ceramics (After Vroom 2014, 16)
Table 2: Table Glazed Wares produced or found in Athens in the Early Byzantine Period (Analysis by Vroom 2014, 62-65; Table by Vroom and Hadjigavriel).
In 1930, Rice classified the Byzantine Glazed Table wares into two main categories, the ‘Faience’ and the ‘Earthenware’ (Rice 1930). Nevertheless, this paper follows a classification published by Vroom in 2014, where an overview is given of seventy-six wares found in the Aegean. As she notes, they represent the most commonly found ones and not the entire corpus (Vroom 2014, 15).
Table 3: Table Glazed Wares produced or found in Athens in the Middle Byzantine Period (Analysis by Vroom 2014, 72-93; Table by Vroom and Hadjigavriel)
Vroom classifies chronologically into the three main periods of the Byzantine period, the Early Byzantine period (ca. 7th-9th c.), the Middle Byzantine period (ca. 10-12/13th c.), and the Late Byzantine/Frankish period (ca. 13th-mid-15th), followed by the Turkish/Venetian period (ca. mid-15th-18th c.), the Early Modern period (ca.19th-mid-20th c.) and the Modern period (ca. mid-20th c.-today) (Vroom 2014, 16). For practical purposes, only the ones of the Byzantine periods that were produced or distributed in Athens are presented here.
Table 4: Table Glazed Wares produced or found in Athens in the Late Byzantine Period (Analysis by Vroom 2014, 108-135; Table by Vroom and Hadjigavriel)
