Porphyreon: Hellenistic and Roman Pottery Production in the Sidon Hinterland Tapa blanda -

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The pottery workshop in the village of Porphyreon on the Phoenician coast (modern Jiyeh in Lebanon), a site midway between Beirut and Saida, operated on a local scale, with some breaks, from the middle of the 2nd century BC to the 7th century AD. It produced mainly amphorae and kitchen vessels. A Polish-Lebanese rescue project in 2004 probed a Hellenistic and Roman pottery production zone in the village, yielding an assemblage of ceramic vessels and wasters that supported an extensive study of the local repertory of vessels as well as the clay of which they were made. By the same, Porphyreon became the second, after Berytus, Hellenistic and Roman pottery production site to be excavated on the Lebanese coast, whereas laboratory analyses of the chemical composition of the clay have supplied a key criterion for distinguishing vessels made locally from other ceramic production in Phoenicia. The study presents the assemblage from Jiyeh, including a typological and chronological classification of the vessels, and discusses the finds in relation to trends and phenomena typical of Phoenician pottery production in the periods in question. The overall picture of local workshop output provides important insights into the history of ancient trade and craftsmanship in central Phoenicia. A formal examination of the ceramic material, combined with an analysis of ancient written and other sources, has thrown light on the administrative status of the settlement, placing it in the hinterland of Sidon rather than Berytus in the Hellenistic and Roman age. Moreover, it has given a unique village perspective of the economy of ancient Phoenicia, knowledge of which has been shaped primarily by data from the large urban centers, such as Sidon, Tyre and Berytus.