Folio Fine Art Ltd (London), Catalogue 73 (June 1970) no. 729 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 116.

1970.07

Rhodian Amphora Handle

Excavated in the Fayyum, Egypt.

Purchased as a set alongside 1970.06, 1970.08-09.

Max. dimension 11cm; length of stamp 4.1cm.

The impression reads towards the neck of the amphora: ΔΩΡΟΘΕΟΥ

A single-lined rectangular stamp bearing the name of the fabricant Dorotheos (Δωρόθεος); it has no pictorial devices.

This fabricant worked in Period III (ca 205-175 BC, and handles bearing his stamp have been found in archaeological contexts of this date at Pergamon (C. Börker and J. Burow, Die hellenistischen Amphorenstempel aus Pergamon [Pergamenische Forschungen 11, Berlin 1997] 46 and 88). The rectangular stamps of Dorotheos are quite common and have also been discovered in excavations in Rhodes, Delos, Callatis (Black Sea), Nea Paphos, Salamis (Cyprus), Seleukia and Gezer.

All are from amphorae with angular handles and have the manufacturer’s or an official’s name stamped on the upper face of the handle. Typically Rhodian hard, pinkish-reddish yellow fabric with fine white and dull brown inclusions.

The study of stamped amphora handles of the Greek and Roman world provides a significant contribution to our understanding of the volume and destination of ancient trade. Handles of vessels made in Rhodes, such as the four handles in our collection, have been found distributed as far as Sicily and Spain in the west, the Black Sea regions of Russia in the north, Mesopotamia and the Arabian Gulf in the east, and Egypt and Carthage to the south. Rhodian amphorae were stamped between ca 300 and 30 BC and normally had two stamps, on one handle that of the manufacturer of the vessel (the fabricant’s stamp), and on the other the name of an annually-changing magistrate (the eponym’s stamp).

Identification and classification of the makers’ and officials’ stamps on wine amphorae is of course important not only for the evidence they can provide for trade patterns, but, since they often provide an independent series of dates, they can offer useful evidence for Hellenistic chronology in general through the contexts in which they are found. Most known names on the stamps can be dated to within one of the seven periods devised by Grace, and so, like coins, can be used to provide a date for the context in which they are found. In such a way, for example, Grace was able to date the construction of the Middle Stoa in the Athenian Agora to 183 BC because not one of the 1500 Knidian, Rhodian and Sinopean stamped handles found in the construction fill had a name known after that date.

The reason why some production centres stamped their amphorae and others did not, and why not all vessels in an individual class were stamped is unknown. Possibly the eponym’s stamp indicated a licence from the state reflecting taxation of the amphora or its contents. More likely it is an endorsement of standard capacity (most Hellenistic amphorae held 20-25 litres). The use of state symbols such as the Rhodian rose or bust of Helios certainly suggests the role of the state in some respect.

At major centres of importation such as Alexandria (where over 100,000 stamped handles have been recovered, including over 80,000 Rhodian handles), Delos, Athens and Jerusalem, chronological changes in the popularity of certain amphorae (and presumably their contents) can be traced in some detail.

There is an excellent introduction by V.R. Grace, Amphoras and the Ancient Wine Trade (Princeton 1979) (for complete amphorae such as these handles come from, see her figs. 22 and 62), and her article in Oxford Classical Dictionary3 76-77. A further very useful and serious source of information is the internet website http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/amphoras/project.html

For papers discussing the chronology of Rhodian stamps, see V.R. Grace and M. Savatianou Petropoulakou in Délos xxvii, 277-382, Grace, in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 89, 1974, 193-200; Grace, Hesperia 54, 1985, 1-54. G. Finkielstejn gives a revised third-century chronology in Acta Hyperborea 6, 1995, 279-296, and more fully in Chronologie détaillée et révisée des éponymes amphoriques rhodiens, de 270 à 108 av. J.-C. environ. Premier bilan (BAR International Series 990, Oxford 2001) together with the very good and useful review by Lund, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.11.23. Among others note also N. Badoud, “The Contribution of Inscriptions to the Chronology of Rhodian Amphora Eponyms”, in: P. Guldager Bilde and M. L. Lawall (eds), Pottery, Peoples and Places. Study and Interpretations of Late Hellenistic Pottery (Aarhus 2014) 17-28. For a good overview, see Ch. Palamida et al., “The Emergence of ‘Hellenistic’ Transport Amphoras: The Example of Rhodes”, in: IARPotH (Int. Assoc. for Research on Pottery of the Hellenistic Period). Traditions and Innovations 2016, 135-150.

On the usefulness of Hellenistic amphorae for the study of trade….(London – New York 1998) 75-101, Y. Garlan, Amphores et timbres amphoriques grecs: entre érudition et idéologie (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, ns 21, Paris 2000), and J. Lund, “Rhodian Transport Amphorae as a Source for Economic Ebbs and Flows in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Century BC”, in: Z.H. Archibald, J.K. Davies and V. Gabrielsen (eds), The Economies of Hellenistic Societies, Third to First Century BC (Oxford 2011) 280-295.

For an examination of the use of petrographic analysis in the identification of the main classes of Greek amphorae, see I.K. Whitbread, Greek Transport Amphorae (Fitch Laboratory Occasional Paper 4, London 1995).

Folio Fine Art Ltd (London), Catalogue 73 (June 1970) no. 729 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 116.