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Document Details :

Title: A Concise Overview of Rhodian Amphorae and Amphora Stamps
Subtitle: Some Remarks on a Newly Published Corpus of Rhodian Eponym Dies
Author(s): MONSIEUR, Patrick
Journal: Bibliotheca Orientalis
Volume: 76    Issue: 5-6   Date: 2019   
Pages: 456-470
DOI: 10.2143/BIOR.76.5.3287398

Abstract :
Fragments of Hellenistic wine amphorae from Rhodes are among the most common finds on archaeological sites in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea region. On their stamped handles one can read the names of Rhodian eponyms and fabricants. The stamps are also regularly decorated with the city emblems figuring a rose and a head or bust of the sun god Helios. In view of the large quantities of amphorae recovered from excavations, the production of wine and its export must have been massive, and important for the economy of Rhodes. The stamps play an essential role in the dating of archaeological contexts since their chronology is based on the one-year term of the Rhodian eponyms to whom the fabricants mentioned on the other stamped handle are connected. Therefore the creation of an online database of dies of Rhodian amphora stamps by the Centre d'Études Alexandrines, followed by a recently published paper version (G. Cankardeş-Şenol, Lexicon of Eponym Dies on Rhodian Amphora Stamps, vol. 1-4, 2015-2017), are essential for their identification and the chronology they can offer to archaeological sites. Besides, this corpus gives possibilities for more detailed and, to a lesser extend, quantified study of wine and amphora production in Rhodes and its peraia.

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