La Produzione della ceramica a Pantelleria e la sua circolazione in età tardo antica

This research concerning the cooking pottery production in late roman time in the Island of Pantelleria, located in the Sicily Channel.This coarse ware consisted in pans, pots, casseroles and lids and large jars, useful to cook food and other raw materials as bitumen and pitch. This high refractoriness is given to the ceramic mixture by the vulcanic minerals peculiars form the clay of the island. The archaeological excavations conducted until now, discovered a large settlement in the Scauri Bay placed in the S-W coast of the island, datable from the second half of the IV to the end of the V century. The village based its economical activity on the cooking pottery production and its export, as evidenced by the shipwreck in the harbor of Scauri. The pottery materials found in the site and in the shipwreck, come from reliable contexts and it has been helpful to a thorough tipological and chronological study of this local ware production. The analysis of the attestations in the Central and Western Mediterranean, through the bibliography and some unpublished datas from Sicily, led to create some circulation maps across the centuries. This has allowed me to make some considerations and conclusions. It has been possible to realize a diachronic study, to distinguish forms and types from the III cent. B.C. to the V cent. A.D.. The pottery had a wide circulation in the Mediterranean, mostly from the second half of the IV to the beginning of the VI century.