Ancient Greek Pottery: History, Development and Designs

Different styles of Greek ceramics reflect their purpose, and today's video is all about the history and development of ancient Greek pottery. Supporting World History Encyclopedia through likes, subscriptions, and Patreon helps create videos twice a week.

The surviving pottery of ancient Greece provides valuable insights into the cultural beliefs, practices, and daily life of the ancient Greeks. Tens of thousands of pots and fragments from circa 1000 to 400 BCE have been discovered, offering a glimpse into specific functions in daily life. The decorations on the pottery offer insight into cultural and religious beliefs as well as help determine a chronology for ancient Greece.

Forms and Functions of Greek Pottery Ancient Greek pottery had various shapes and sizes, each with specific functions for domestic use, storage, transportation, rituals, and symposiums. The amphora was used for storing goods like oil and wine; the alabastron stored perfumes; the krater mixed wine and water; the oinochoe poured mixed wine into drinking vessels; the kylix was a stemmed cup for drinking wine. Additionally, there were ritual containers like lekythoi used in funerary practices.

Specific Types of Greek Pottery The Panathenaic Prize Amphora was given as a prize during the Panathenaic Games in Athens. Other types included pyxides decorated with wedding scenes or stories such as The Judgment of Paris. Each type served specific purposes related to ceremonies or events within ancient Greece.

The word 'ceramics' comes from the Greek 'keramos', meaning 'clay'. The finest clay for Greek pottery was Attic clay, known for its iconic orange-red color. Greek pottery was made by joining separately made parts on a potter's wheel and then decorating it based on popular styles and vessel type. The kiln firing process involved precise oxidation, reduction stages, and ventilation to achieve specific colors.

Proto-Geometric Pottery The proto-geometric designs featured precise circles, semi-circles, and horizontal lines in black. The upright triangular points from this phase endured for centuries and became a staple of the black-figure pottery design.

Geometric Style The geometric style began around 900 BCE with bold linear designs, long-legged animals and figures, vertical line decoration. It also included circles and triangular points as well as elegant patterns on kraters from Cyprus dating to the mid-8th century BCE.

'Orientalising Style' Influence During the end of the geometric period (8th - 7th centuries BCE), there was an influence from Near East trade connections leading to stylized plants like palm and lotus, exotic animals like lions copied from ancient Egyptian pottery. This led to new heights of technique with black stylized figures giving rise to black-figure pottery by the end of 7th century BCE.

Attica painters excelled in black-figure pottery, featuring figures painted in black on a red background. Details like muscles and hair were emphasized, with graceful posture depicted. Famous examples include the amphora of Exekias depicting Achilles and Ajax playing a board game during the Trojan War.

Around 530 BCE, the red-figure technique replaced the popular black-figure technique in pottery decoration. Red-figure allowed painters to depict human figures more realistically with anatomical detail, diverse facial expressions, greater clothing detail, and everyday life scenes.

In ancient Greece, potters and painters were usually different individuals, but there were exceptions like the partnership between potter Ergotimos and painter Kleitias. Most Greek vessels were unsigned, but Professor J.D Beazley identified over 500 individual artists through careful observation of their styles. The systematic cataloguing of Greek pottery by Beazley has been crucial for studying its evolution in techniques, designs, and decoration.

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