GNATHIA: POTTERY AND CERAMICS

The "style of Gnathia" The expression "style of Gnathia" originates in the fact that many potteries of this type were discovered in the tombs of the old town of Gnathia (today Egnazia). This style consists in decorating the traditional black glazed pottery with painted patterns, using mainly white, red and yellow color. This applies generally to small containers (oenochoes, skyphoi, pelike…). A part of the foot is often left in its natural terracotta color. Some lines are sometimes incised. The most usual patterns are friezes of vegetals which run around the vase (grapes, sheets…). In fact, this technique, which reached its summit about 330-320 B.C, would have appeared in Taranto towards 370-360 B.C., and then spread in Apulia, Gnathia and Canosa. It was then imitated in many workshops of Magna-Graecia and exported as far as Egypt. In Campania, it influenced the "Teano ware" (cf. Campania). This technique disappears however towards 270 B.C.