Ambracia and the West during the Classical period. The evidence of the local red-figure pottery from the city’s cemeteries

Abstract

Ambracia was founded in c. 625 BC by Corinthian colonists on the north shore of the Ambracian Gulf and followed
a thriving course until its abandonment in the late 1st century BC, when its inhabitants were forced to relocate to
Nicopolis. After the foundation of the colony, two cemeteries extended beyond the walls along the southwestern and
eastern outskirts of the city, which were in use throughout the city’s long historical course. The burials in the cemeteries
were furnished mainly with clay vases, the study of which allows us to follow the evolution of the local pottery production
workshops. Especially during the 4th century BC in Ambracia was producing, alongside with the black-glazed,
red-figure pottery with features that show influences from the workshops of South Italy and Sicily. The relations of the
pottery production of Ambracia with that of southern Italy should reflect commercial and cultural relations between
the two regions, as the southern Adriatic and Ionian seas seem to have been a unifying rather than dividing element.