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The ‘double stoking tunnel’ of Greek kilns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

R. M. Cook
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Extract

It has been and still is widely supposed that some Greek kilns had a stoking tunnel that was divided lengthwise into two parts. The evidence is the representation of a kiln on the Corinthian clay plaque illustrated on Plate 7b. It is of the second quarter of the sixth century B.C. and was found in 1879 in the deposit at Penteskouphia near Corinth. This representation is interpreted usually as a horizontal plan; at one end, misplaced for clarity, is the chimney, which should rightly be on the top, and at the other end is the stoking tunnel, divided down its length by a wall. Recently M. Bimson has protested that the view on the plaque is a vertical section across the chamber of the kiln, and that the support below the floor is a wall that does not extend into the tunnel. That the plaque gives a section is true, but it is a section along the kiln and the support is a pier, probably circular. This was presumably so evident to Furtwängler, who first published the plaque, that he did not argue the interpretation; but it seems that after all argument is needed.

Many of the plaques from Penteskouphia are decorated on both sides and ours is one of them. The side opposite that with the kiln is illustrated on Plate 7a. It shows a man and the hind part of a boar. Since the right edge is broken and it is very rarely that any of these plaques shows an incomplete figure, it can be calculated that we have less than half of the original scene. The same must be true also of the side with the kiln and, since very few of the plaques combine two scenes on one side, there must be a considerable extension of this scene to the left. An examination of the other published plaques with kilns leaves little doubt of what that extension was. The regular view of a kiln is from the side, usually an elevation, but in two instances a partial section (Plate 7c–d). Often there is a workman busy at the stoke-hole or the chimney. In the two sectional views just mentioned faggots can be seen in the stoking tunnel and embers or other small pieces are spilling into the near part of the lower chamber.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 56 , November 1961 , pp. 64 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1961

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References

1 Richter, G. M. A., The Craft of Athenian Pottery (1923) 76.Google ScholarHussong, L., Zur Technik der attischen Gefässkeramik (1928) 28–29, fig. 9.Google ScholarNeugebauer, K. A., Führer durch das Antiquarium II; Vasen (1932) 27.Google ScholarSchumann, T., Berichte der deutschen keramischen Gesellschaft 1942, 423–5.Google ScholarLane, A., Greek Pottery (1948) 6Google Scholar. Winter, A., Keramische Zeitschrift 1957, 14–16.Google Scholar

2 Berlin, Ehemals Staatliche Museen, F. 893. Ht. 9·8 cm. AD i, pl. 8. 19b. For the photograph published here I am indebted to Dr. A. Greifenhagen.

3 Fragments of about 700 plaques showed intelligible traces of decoration or inscriptions. Most went to Berlin (now in the Ehemals Staatliche Museen) and were described by Furtwängler, A. in Beschreibung der Vasensammlung im Antiquarium i (1885) 47–105Google Scholar, with illustrations later in AD i, pls. 7–8; ii, pls. 23–24, 29–30, 39–40. Pernice, E. made some additions and corrections in JdI 1897, 9–48.Google Scholar Some other plaques went to the Louvre (Rayet, O., Gazette archéologique 1880, 101–7Google Scholar; Collignon, M., Monuments grecs xi–xiii. 23–32Google Scholar; Villard, F. and Vallet, G., Mél. 1953, pl. 2Google Scholar).

4 AJ 1956, 202–3 and the caption to pl. XIVa. Her use of ‘wall’ shows that she is thinking of a section across the kiln.

5 Beschreibung 99 (F. 893). He does not say explicitly whether the section is across or along the kiln, but he mentions that the scene is incomplete on the left. Later students do not seem to have noticed this.

6 AD i, pl. 8. 19a. For the photograph published here I am indebted to Professor C. Blümel.

7 Berlin F. 783 (AD i, pl. 8. 24).

8 AD i, pl. 8. 1, 4, 12, 15, 21, 22, 26; ii, pl. 23. 7a; pl. 24, 19; pl. 30, 15; pl. 39, 12, 13, 17; pl. 40, 9, 21: JdI 1897, 19, fig. 9, 37, fig. 28. 38, fig. 32: Mél. 1953, pl. 2. 1–2. Furtwängler, (Beschreibung 70)Google Scholar inclined to the view of A. Milchhöfer that except for the one under discussion these structures were not potters' kilns but metal foundries. His arguments are insufficient.

9 Ehemals Staatliche Museen, F. 611 (AD i, pl. 8. 26); F. 616 (AD i, pl. 8. 12). For the photographs published here I am indebted again to Dr. A. Greifenhagen.

10 Where a man is shown standing on the stoking tunnel, he is probably to be understood as on the ground behind it: the tunnel would, I suppose, be too hot to stand on in bare feet. Ancient kilns seem usually to have been sunk in the ground to near the top of the stoking tunnel, and there was a pit for the stoker.

11 Unless, as Furtwängler suggested in his description, it is a flame: it is coloured red, but there is red also on the necks of the pots above.

12 e.g. Mingazzini, P., Atti e Memorie Soc.M.Gr. N.s. i (1954) 33–38Google Scholar; Richter, G. M. A., Attic Red-Figured Vases 2 (1958) 33.Google Scholar I append a list of kilns in Greece that are known to me: it is not likely to be complete.

13 I owe this information to Dr. D. Theochares. As he says, this kiln (or oven) must be later than the Neolithic structures among which it is built.

14 A late Geometric kiln near the chapel of Panayitsa, Ay. at Argos is mentioned in Archaeological Reports for 1958, 6Google Scholar: but according to BCH 1959, 755 it is not certain that a kiln was found. Cf. also the ovens of houses at Delphi, probably of the second half of the 8th cent. B.C. (BCH 1950, 321, fig. 9, and 328, fig. 49; 1951, 139; 1957, 708, fig. 3).

15 This kiln may, of course, be much earlier than Archaic.

16 Said to be especially like the best preserved of G. 15–20 (Ol.B. iii. 34).

17 Remains of other kilns are mentioned between the South Hall and the Bouleuterion.

18 It contained lamps which at the time of the excavation (1872–3) were considered to be of the fourth century A.D.; but anyhow from its position this kiln should be later than A.D. 267.