A Mycenaean clay amphora from the Late Bronze Age is being presented for the first time at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki

A ample clay amphora, reportedly originating from the oversea country disconnected Torone in Halkidiki, is being exhibited for the archetypal clip astatine the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, arsenic portion of the accumulation programme titled “New Acquisitions / New Approaches” (October 1 – December 31).

It is simply a ample commercial/transport Mycenaean stirrup-neck amphora from the Late Bronze Age—a unsocial specimen of its benignant successful the Museum’s ceramic collection—likely utilized for storing and transporting plain oregon aromatic oil. The amphora was donated to the Museum successful 2018 by Elisavet Papanikolaou. Its surface, encrusted with marine organisms, suggests that the vas had rested for years successful a calm and acheronian marine environment, i.e., successful heavy waters.

“If its (alleged) root from the Torone Gulf is accurate, past it represents the northernmost illustration of this benignant of amphora successful the Aegean. In that case, is its deposition successful the oversea linked to an lawsuit from Mycenaean times? For example, an chartless shipwreck, anchorage, oregon forced disposal of cargo owed to unsmooth seas? Or possibly to secondary question successful aboriginal times, with the vas being transported determination caught successful fishermen’s nets? What bash its petrographic and chemic analyses bespeak astir its probable root and accumulation center? Can we suggest a hypothetical maritime way for it based connected studies of prehistoric Aegean navigation channels? Which Late Bronze Age coastal sites successful the Toronean Gulf could person served arsenic a last destination oregon intermediate halt on this expected route? Ultimately, it is astir inevitable that an archaeological find not coming from a unafraid excavation context—such arsenic this amphora—raises much interpretive questions than it provides wide answers,” the Archaeological Museum states, inviting visitors to research these questions by visiting the accumulation “New Acquisitions / New Approaches.” In summation to the amphora, visitors volition person the accidental to spot different objects either precocious acquired and presented for the archetypal clip to some the technological assemblage and the public, oregon retrieved from retention for show done a caller approach, pursuing restoration, reinterpretation, oregon caller technological data.

Moreover, the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki volition big an planetary scholarly league connected October 10–11, 2025, focusing connected commercialized amphorae, titled: “Amphoras and the Archaeology of Ancient Economies (8th done 1st Centuries BC) | Part 3 THESSALONIKI: Regional Production – Regional Circulation: Amphoras and Aegean Communities.”

The lawsuit aims to bring unneurotic researchers from Greece and overseas to stock caller discoveries with colleagues and the public, and to sermon issues related to the production, distribution, circulation, and usage of commercialized amphorae successful the Aegean and surrounding regions.