Hellenistic Pottery and Terracottas

Book excerpt: The articles collected and reprinted here appeared originally in the pages of Hesperia. "Two Centuries of Hellenistic Pottery," by Homer A. Thompson, presented in 1934 some of the pottery found in the early excavations of the American School in the Athenian Agora. The series titled "Three Centuries of Hellenistic Terracottas," by Dorothy B. Thompson, includes ten articles that were published between 1952 and 1966. The working chronology that the authors established has made these studies basic references for investigations of Attic pottery and terracottas of the Hellenistic period, wherever found. In recognition of subsequent discoveries, the Thompsons' work has now been augmented by a preface with bibliography for each, prepared by Susan I. Rotroff, which comments particularly on the changes in chronology resulting from the continuing excavations in the Agora and elsewhere. In "Afterthoughts" Dorothy Thompson has made new observations concerning certain terracottas.