Corinth and the others: the Greek pottery of the 8th century from Salento to the Ionian coast of southern Italy

The analysis and the distribution of the Greek imported and Greek-inspired pottery of the 8th cent. in the south-eastern Italy reveals significant differences between the sites of the Adriatic coast (Salento) and those of the gulf of Taranto/Ionian coast. The comparison of the data collected shows that some peculiar behaviours distinguish and characterize these two areas. While in the Salento only Greek pottery is attested, mainly Corinthian and especially in Otranto, on the Ionian coast, along with smaller quantities of imports concentrated mainly in the Sibaritide, local productions of Greek-inspired, non-Corinthian, pottery are documented in the same period. It is then argued that this can postulate the existence of separate circulation flows, a commercial one on the Adriatic coast and a “cultural” one on the Ionian, and that, ultimately, these differences may have contributed to the development of different cultural processes. In fact, the phenomena recorded on the Ionian coast could have acted, consciously or unconsciously, as the background for the spread of the colonization in the last decades of the century.