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The article offers a large-scope assessment of archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research on foodways within the core Mediterranean heartlands of the Ottoman Empire. It integrates evidence from a range of historical and archaeological sources, both terrestrial and underwater. After presenting an overview of 30 years of scholarship on the subject, it introduces the Ottoman manner of eating, cooking, and dining with the help of glazed tablewares and unglazed coarse wares from archaeological contexts. Furthermore, it shows the means of transportation and the trade routes for foodstuffs, as well as the ways in which they were cooked and consumed, from the sultan’s court to country folk in rural villages.

The beginning of the Turkish period in western Anatolia saw the arrival of new ceramic types in the local pottery repertoire, related to the ‘Islamic’ world. To study this evolution from Byzantine to Turkish times, we have focused in this paper on one of these types, moulded wares, and two sites, Miletus and Ephesus. At both sites, we were able to define or redefine chemical reference groups based on evidence of local production using wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF). The identification of the origin of the finds or their attribution to as yet unlocated workshops, and the study of the distribution of wares manufactured in these workshops, provides the basis for discussing the introduction of moulded wares in western Anatolia. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses have also provided some preliminary insights into the emergence and development of new ceramic techniques in the region, whose ‘end-products’ are represented by the well-known Iznik Ware. This paper presents results from initial research carried out within the framework of the POMEDOR project (People, Pottery and Food in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean).

We present a review of the post Bronze Age material excavated by Coldstream and Huxley at Kastri on Kythera, as part of the ongoing Kythera Island Project. In particular we refer to material not published in Coldstream and Huxley 1972. Greek material is largely confined to one deposit and dates to the period c.500 to 380 bc. From the Roman period material is more plentiful; the two relevant strata are third and late sixth to seventh centuries, with some earlier Julio-Claudian pieces. While later Medieval pottery also is largely from one deposit, the entirety of it is presented, and a mis en scènewith respect to Kytheran modern history is offered.

The Epirote port of Butrint (now in Albania) features significantly in the neo-Latin epic, the Carlias, by the Florentine Ugolino Verino (1438–1516). This poem was recast on the occasion of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France, to encourage the young king to imitate his ancestor, Charlemagne, and undertake a crusade. This essay focuses upon the poetic description of Butrint in the light of recent excavations. It reconstructs the run-down character of this fortified Venetian town, as well as the material living conditions of its occupants in 1493. The essay considers how Verino's narrative was shaped by literary sources, rather than the actual circumstances of the port.