Handmade Burnished Pottery in the Palace of Ayios Vasileios, Laconia (Southern Greece) .

The handmade burnished pottery appears in the late 13th and early 12th centuries BCE at many palatial centres of the Greek mainland and is particularly frequent in the Argolid. In the southeastern Peloponnese, Ayios Vasileios is, next to the Menelaion, the second site where this peculiar pottery class was found. The ongoing excavation in the newly found palatial centre may add valuable information for the interpretation of handmade pottery of the early 12th century BCE. The handmade pottery from Ayios Vasileios reflects shapes and decoration of Italian impasto pottery traditions that were common in many other sites of the Greek mainland and on Crete. The new finds seem to support the hypothesis of a foreign – in this case most probably Italian – population segment present in major centres, especially during the period that followed the severe destruction of the palaces in the Argolid. In the light of the typological connections between the Laconian and the Argolidan handmade burnished ware, especially from Tiryns, we suggest a movement of small groups of people from the Argolid to the south.