West slope ware from metropolis

ABSTRACT Upto present "west slope" ware from the Metropolitan excavations in western Anatolia were not considered in a comprehensive study in detail. The goals of this present study can be summarized as follows: the characteristic features of the Metropolitan "west slope" ware, ite similarities with other Hellenistic find spots, typology, identification and differences at their decoration corpus, as well as their chronology. During this study each piece of a 307 sherd collection were illustrated, photographed and catalogued individually. Dominantly 252 of these 307 pieces were recovered at the excavations of Metropolitan Acropolis. The most common typologies known at Metropolis are "decoration exterior cup", "ksm^mroi", and "decoration interior cup". Most popular decoration patterns are as follows: "ivy and olive garlands" and "the spearhead necklace"; other motifs are rather rare. At Metropolitan excavations two archaeological sections are stratigraphicaily of great importance: sondages at the so-called "Hellenistic structure", dated to the 325-275 B.C., as well as a further Hellenistic sequence at the Northern Stoa from the second quarter of the third century B.C. After the detailed investigations one came to the conclusion that the consumption of "west slope" ware at Metropolis started right after the first appearance of this pottery (i.e. third century B.C.), and it continued being a common vessel type of Metropolitan household until the end of second century B.C.. We also determined that Ephesian "west slope" ware fabric resembles to their Metropoliten parallels at most The archaeometrical analyses show that the Metropolitan "west slope" ware consists of a hard-fired yellowish- reddish colored and micaceous fabric. With these analyses we can assur local factory of "west slope" style ware at Metropolis.