DE FRANJESTIJL & CO. OVER MAT-BESCHILDERD AARDEWERK UIT DE ALTAARAS OP DE 'TIMPONE DELLA MOTTA', FRANCAVILLA MARITTIMA

Samenvatting

During the Early Iron Age in southern Italy, the regions of modern Apulia, Basilicata and Cala­bria saw the production of a special kind af pottery, usually labelled 'matt-painted'. It was hand-made and decorated with geometric motifs in brownish-black paint. The studies of Dr D. Yntema, archaeologist af the AIVU in Amster­dam and international specialist on this pottery, demonstrated that it can be divided into proto-, early, middle and late Geometric styles. A re­markable conclusion in Yntema's work is that during the proto- and early Geomelric periods no regional styles occurred. Only during the middle Geometric period (from c. 775 BC on­wards) did regional styles appear: for instance in the Salento (the heel), in Basilicata and in Calabria. In this article the middle Geomelric style of the Sibaritide is commented upon, es­pecially the material recently excavated by a team from Groningen University, at the Timpo­ne della Motta, in an altar-ash layer which also contained 9th-century BC early Geometric ma­terial. The middle Geometric 'fringe' style, pro­minent among the sherds in the altar-ash layer an the Timpone della Motta, was produced and used mainly in three indigenous sites af the Central Sibaritide: Torre Mordillo, Castrovillari and Francavilla Mma. Judging from this evi­dence - and from the fact that these sites sur­vived as indigenous sites after Sybaris was founded a few decades before 700 BC, while in the northern Sibaritide Braglia di Trebisacce did not - the authors believe that the 'fringe' style identifies the oldest area of common interest of the Greeks and the indigenous Enotrians.