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Protoattic Pottery

Introduction by J.R. Green

Protoattic is the term given to Athenian painted pottery of the period from the late eighth to the late seventh century bc. In this period the production of decorated pottery had narrowed to just one or two workshops, by contrast with the periods immediately before and after.

The fundamental study of Protoattic remains that by J.M. Cook, Annual of the British School at Athens 35, 1934-35, 165-219, but see also the cemetery material K. Kübler, Kerameikos VI.1-2. Die Nekropole des späten 8. bis frühen 6. Jahrhunderts (Berlin 1959, 1970), the same author’s Altattische Malerei (Tübingen 1950) and R. Young, “Graves from the Phaleron Cemetery”, American Journal of Archaeology 46, 1942, 23-57.

Attic pottery at this period was little exported except to the nearby island of Aigina: see S.P. Morris, The Black and White Style: Athens and Aigina in the Orientalizing Period (New Haven 1984), with E. Walter-Karydi, “Aigina versus Athens? The Case of the Protoattic Pottery on Aigina”, in: J.H. Oakley, W.D.E. Coulson, and O. Palagia (eds.), Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings (Oxford 1997) 385-394.