Athenian figure-decorated pottery for whom? A view from Eastern Andalucía (Spain)

Journal article

Athenian pottery started to arrive in the Iberian Peninsula in significant numbers in the fifth century BCE, with a peak in the fourth century. Both black-gloss and figured-decorated pots were exported, being the first largely more popular in all the Iberian regions but one: Eastern Andalucía. Earlier scholarship has explained the preference of the native communities of that area for vases with images as a case of interpretatio iberica whereby some repetitive Athenian images were particularly favoured because they could be assimilated with concepts known in Iberian society. I now propose to look further into this question and assess whether there are any distinctive patterns in the distribution/deposition of red-figure and black-gloss pots within that region and whether the theory of prestige signalling works in contexts where red-figure pottery outnumbers black-gloss. Taking as case studies the necropoleis of Galera and Baza, in Granada, and Castellones de Céal, in Jaén, I place the “Andalusian exception” within the larger context of the consumption of Athenian pottery in Iberia and within its own local context, revealing a world fascinated with images that served the socio-political and ritual needs of the Iberians of this region in the momentous passage from life to death.

Authors: Rodríguez Pérez, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Archaeological Institute of America
• Journal: American Journal of Archaeology
• Volume: 130
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 219-252
• Publication date: 2026-04-01
• Acceptance date: 2025-11-27
• DOI: 10.1086/739849
• EISSN: 1939-828X
• ISSN: 0002-9114
• Language: English