Handmade pottery was used as everyday household utensils by the inhabitants of ancient Thrace, in the southeastern Balkans. The same type of pots was produced and used in the region continuously for almost 1,600 years, from the 12th century BC to the 4th century AD. Yet this pottery was long regarded simply as ordinary ware of little significance. A new interdisciplinary study, however, shows that these seemingly unremarkable vessels provide a unique source of information about everyday life, production, trade, and dietary practices in the region during the Roman period.
The study on the handmade pottery was carried out as part of the project Transfer of Technology: Exploring Pottery Manufacture and Trade in Roman Thrace using the Yurta-Stroyno Case, led by Dr Petra Tušlová of the Institute of Classical Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and supported by the prestigious MSCA Fellowships CZ programme. The project focuses on local pottery production in Roman Thrace, a region where previous research has largely concentrated on imported pottery from other parts of the Roman Empire. The project instead seeks to understand local production, which in fact supplied most of the everyday needs of the population at the time.
The research team, comprising Czech and international specialists, combined archaeology with modern scientific methods. These included petrographic and chemical analyses, X-ray computed microtomography, and organic residue analysis. It was precisely the combination of these methods, that made it possible to determine the origin of the vessels, identify their production technologies, reconstruct patterns of distribution, and shed light on their actual function.
Archaeological evidence showed that only one type of handmade vessel was used in rural settlements: simple pots. The combined analysis revealed that approximately half of them were produced locally in the vicinity of individual settlements, while the other half were imported from the same area, located up to 40 kilometres away. Each site therefore received pottery from two different production centres. At the same time, regardless of their place of origin, the vessels were manufactured using the same forming technique, pointing to an exceptionally stable ceramic tradition that was maintained and transmitted by local Thracian communities over many centuries, surviving well into the Roman period.
The greatest surprise came, however, from the analysis of organic residues. The vessels were not used solely for cooking, as had long been assumed, but primarily for storing meat and animal fats. The vessel walls were evenly saturated with fat lipids, suggesting that the pots were used for the long-term storage of meat and/or fat.
These findings help explain a question that has so far remained unresolved: why were some vessels imported when local potters were able to produce vessels that were virtually identical in appearance, and even made using the same techniques? The study suggests that it was not necessarily the vessel itself that mattered most, but rather its contents. The pots may have functioned as a kind of ancient “canned food”, allowing foodstuffs to be distributed between settlements. Alongside local production and consumption, there therefore appears to have been a regional food-distribution network that had previously remained invisible to archaeologists.
The results demonstrate that even an apparently ordinary ceramic pot can tell a surprisingly complex story about technology, economy, and the everyday lives of people almost two thousand years ago. It also illustrates how modern analytical methods can transform our understanding of archaeological finds, revealing information that would otherwise remain hidden from us.
The research represents a broader outcome of Dr Petra Tušlová’s project, which seeks to develop a deeper understanding of local pottery production in Roman Thrace. Using archaeometric methods, the project investigates the natural resources exploited by potters, production technologies, the function of individual vessel types, and the movement of pottery within the region. The knowledge gained will also contribute to the study of pottery across the wider area of southeastern Balkans during the 2nd to 4th centuries AD.
Tušlová, P., Amicone, S., Brychová, V., Thér, R., Noémi S. Müller, Králová, K., Kohoutková, K., Kiriatzi, E. (2026) Hidden in the clay. Unveiling the tradition of handmade pottery in Roman Thrace through an integrated analytical approach. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 18, 190. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-026-02543-0
The study was conducted in collaboration between the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and the following institutions abroad:
- Fitch Laboratory, The British School at Athens, Greece
- Archaeometry Research Group, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany
- Laboratory for Archaeometry, Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), Germany
and in Czech Republic:
- Department of Archaeology, University of Hradec Králové
- Department of Radiation Dosimetry, Institute of Nuclear Physics, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
- Department of Dairy, Fat and Cosmetics, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague
- Department of Glass and Ceramics, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague
- Central Laboratories, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague
