y (pp. 122 and n. 707). It is really difficult to follow his remarks on typology, which derive from recent studies in Macedonia. He does not seem to realize that classification of wares is one thing and ceramic typology another, and there are major methodological problems in the definition of his ceramic groups (“Gattunge” [sic]), wares and shapes/types (pp. 117– 121).4
His belief that the pottery production of each settlement in Macedonia as well as in the Aegean was distinctive and had its own fabric, which he thinks he has discovered by studying the 191 sherds from the pit in Methone, is most naïve. His claim that a slightly different fabric must have been produced by immigrant potters is equally naïve (pp. 126–128). The truth is that by “local” one can refer to the pottery production of Pieria or central/west Macedonia etc. and not to that of Methone, Sindos, Vergina etc. Kotsonas' description of the properties of the Gray Wares of Aeolia (“κεραμική τεφρόχρωμου ρυθμού [!]”) as if there was a single gray fabric in the Northeast Aegean (pp. 179) is awkward. Yet he attributes a common Aeolian drinking vase to the production of Antissa simply because he judges it similar to another vase with known provenance from that site on Lesvos, which he happened to have seen in some collection (pp. 183)!
Similar peculiarities and inaccuracies are also very common in the typological analysis, which must be treated with caution. If one forgets the awkward attribution of some common linear decorated skyphoi and a monochrome handle (!) to the same potter (pp. 129–130) one is really surprised by the fact that Kotsonas ignores the fact that the hanging horns which appear on the hydria no. 43 are the hallmark of the Macedonian Protogeometric and Subprotogeometric pottery and instead looks for parallels for them on Crete (pp. 142). By discussing the jug with cutaway neck he includes – as usual – an overview of the history of the shape by repeating more specialist work.What he does not comprehend is that the name “hydria” that appears in a Greek summary of the German publication of the handmade pottery of Kastanas as a translation for the jug with cutaway is only a typo. Unfortunately he continues to discuss this as an alternative term for the jug (pp. 144–145). After all this one is not surprised by the typological comparison of a late 8th-century jug with similar shapes of the Middle and Late Helladic period from Aghios Mamas (pp. 140) or that a very common gray burnished ware, which was produced almost everywhere from south Albania to East Macedonia, is thought by Kotsonas to have been exclusively produced in Methone or perhaps in another place in the Thermaic golf (pp. 149). A distinctive category of Late Geometric amphorae, which was presented for the first time a few years ago in a symposium on Thasos and recognized as early Milesian trade amphorae,5 are regarded as “Methonean” (pp. 150–154). Chemical analyses of similar finds from other sites, which are in progress, will further highlight their origin. On the occasion of the few fragments of the clearly wheel-made North Aegean trade amphorae of type II from the pit, Kotsonas repeats old information and overlooks, once again, the recent scholarship on their typo- chronological development by means of well-stratified material; he also takes them for handmade.Kotsonas proposes a new name, “Thermaic amphorae” (pp. 155), a rather unfortunate choice for North Aegean trade amphorae because it overlooks the fact that the only piece from an amphora of this category with a known origin was found in a kiln in Torone (where the longest series of their earlier types has also been found) and the only chemical analysis of another piece showed Trojan origin.6 More problematic is the attribution of the trade with these amphorae to the Macedonians (pp. 161; 233–235): Macedonians crossed the river Axios and thus reached the regions of the Thermaic Golf and Chalcidice, where these amphorae were produced, only two or three centuries after these vessels had already stopped being produced.
Kotsonas’ citati