eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

There is also some debate as to how well known pottery of the period is. Forsen (2003, p.)
has blamed the relative scarcity of G pottery materialising during survey on the lack of
familiarity with pottery of this period, especially local coarse wares. However, this is a
situation that can be rectified. For instance, Voyatzis (2005) has begun qualitative and
quantitative analysis of the local G pottery from Tegea (Cracolici 2005, p.125), a process that
could be extended across other regions of Arkadia.
2.5 Conclusions
Until very recently the history of archaeological research in other areas of Greece has been
much fuller than that of Arkadia. Other regions and temporal/cultural periods have been the
focus of greater in-depth study, and for longer. Examples are Athens and Corinth in the
Classical and Roman periods, excavated from the 1930’s onwards. This is true not only in the
present but also in the past (e.g. Herodotus, Thucydides for histories focusing on the larger
city-states; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, for tragedians and philosophers
from and living in predominantly Classical Athens). There are some exceptions to this, for
example, the description of Arkadia by Pausanias (Book 8) is a full and invaluable source and
other regions, such as Lokris and Elis, apparently receive even less attention in the ancient
literature and subsequently modern studies (Nielsen & Roy 1999, p.8). The ancient literary
record has of course played a great role in determining where scholars have focused their
efforts and although Arkadia does have a significant role particularly in the bucolic poetry of
Virgil’s Eclogues, perhaps fame as an idealised landscape has cushioned the area from
consideration as a real place to be investigated archaeologically. There is also the nature of
the physical landscape itself and how this may have limited research in a practical sense or at
least confirmed the ideal of a peaceful, pastoral landscape, retarded from development by its
geography and therefore not worth investigating (e.g. Petronotis 1985-6, p.393).
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