Viktor Linusson

Borsista di archeologia classica

My project investigates the ceramic production in southern Calabria in the context of early processes of urbanisation between the 10th–4th centuries BCE. Its aim is to present new hypotheses on how changes in local economies were related to the development and re-organisation of urban areas in this part of Italy. The project focusses on the Plain of Gioia Tauro, a former wetlands area whose role in regional exchange networks is becoming increasingly prominent, not least in the export of locally produced wine amphorae, recent scholarship indicates. With new ceramic data from field surveys, the study extends the current knowledge on local production to a broader range of ceramic shapes and wares between the Early Iron Age and the Hellenistic period; many intended for a variety of uses and distributed on different scales. In a final phase, the results contextualise the urban development seen in the polis-like foundations of Medma and Hipponion and their hinterlands.

My period as a fellow at the Swedish Institute coincides with my second year of being a joint PhD student at the University of Melbourne and The University of Bonn. The stay in Rome will be indispensable for my research not least in accessing research literature at the specialised libraries in the city, but also to remain within reasonable distance to the museum archives in Calabria, where the ceramic artefacts are stored. An exciting milestone for my project this spring will also be to measure the geochemical components of potsherds using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, an analytical technology which allows pinpointing possible provenances of the ceramics under study.