Guide of Eastern Macedonia & Thrace

On the north coast of Samothrace, between the settlements of Kato Kariotes and Therma, at the site of Keramidaria and about 5 km east of Palaiopolis, two pottery workshops for the production of Hellenistic amphorae were revealed coming belonging to an extensive pottery workshop complex. Research has been carried out on a large, rectangular workshop that was used in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Many black-figure vessels, amphorae and clay figurines were uncovered at the area, thus demonstrating that ceramic art and pottery flourished in the island of Samothrace since the antiquity. An interest vessel dating to 500-490 BC was also revealed that depicts scenes of a grape-pressing vat and wine tasting, probably elaborated by the Eucharides Painter.

The neighbouring waste pottery deposit from an earlier workshop is important. Numerous stamped amphorae handles were unearthed in the site with at least 70 types of different stamps dating to the second half of the 4th and the 3rd centuries. The stamp bears the emblem of the workshop’s manufacturer (caduceus, ram head, hat, star, dolphin, etc), and sometimes the name of an annual ruler, or Eponymous archon. The flourishing of the Samotracian trade and the wine exportation has been confirmed by several Samotracian amphorae found in the coastal cities of Thrace, the northern Aegean, the Black Sea and the Balkan hinterland.

Three ceramic kilns were also found that had previously formed part of a larger kiln complex dating to the imperial times. They belong to the type of vertical kilns consisting of one firing chamber in rectangular shape, props with a central corridor and a supporting pillar on the rear wall.