Ceramic Production Center

kilnsLike its neighbor Sant’Angelo Vecchio, Pantanello was not only the site of a Greek sanctuary, but also a center of ceramic production. When Pantanello revived in the 2nd century BC under new management, and for the next three centuries, it was exclusively a factory, a major producer of amphorae and the grey ware pottery that replaced black gloss as the fine pottery of this world.

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The structure and its kilns rank as one of the largest and best-preserved ceramic production centers in the south of Italy, and its enormous deposit of “wasters” and other discards documents as no other site the evolution of pottery production from the Late Hellenistic to the Early Imperial period. Mixed with the pottery were the bones of some of the largest horses and cattle in the Greek and Roman world. The chora was, as Pindar knew it, truly hippótrophos, nourisher of horses.