Archaeological and Archaeometric Analysis of Cypriot Pottery from Alalakh (original) (raw)
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Archaeometry 60, 2018
White Slip ware, both White Slip I and II, and Monochrome ware are Middle to Late Bronze Age Cypriot pottery types found across a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean region. A vast quantity of these wares has also been uncovered in Tell Atchana/ancient Alalakh in Hatay in southern Anatolia. We analysed a total of 56 White Slip (n = 36) and Monochrome potsherds (n = 20) from Tell Atchana using XRF, ICP-MS and petrographic thin-section methods. The main aim of the study was to explore the compositional characteristics of the wares and to determine whether they are local imitations of the Cypriot White Slip and Monochrome wares or represent Cypriot exports to this region. The analytical results proved that White Slip I and II were produced from raw clay of mafic and ultramafic source rocks exposed in the Troodos Massif, available in the Limassol area of southern Cyprus and traded to Tell Atchana. Examples of Monochrome ware excavated in Tell Atchana were also imported to the region, most probably from east/north-east Cyprus. These results demonstrate a close trading connection between Tell Atchana/Alalakh and southern Cyprus during the Middle to Late Bronze Age.
Levant, 2021
Excavations at Tel Dor, a Phoenician site on the northern coast of Israel, produced one of the most varied and best-stratified assemblages of Cypriot Iron Age ceramics ever found outside Cyprus. A long-term investigation of the nature of socio-economic liaisons between Dor and Cyprus, inter alia, by identifying through ceramic typology and petrography the specific Cypriot production centres that sent their products to Dor is currently in progress. This paper focuses on the analytical identification of production centres first suggested by macroscopic observations; temporal trajectories and cultural implications are addressed only preliminarily. The results indicate that the Cypriot vessels that reached Dor were only produced at Salamis, Kition, Amathus and Paphos, and that the vista of imports at Dor keeps changing throughout the period under consideration. This is the most comprehensive analytical study of Cypriot Iron Age ceramic fabrics to date. It has the potential to build a foundation for provenance studies of Cypriot Iron Age ceramic fabrics and the interconnections they embody. It is constrained, however, by the fact it was mainly production centres represented at Dor that were studied.
Tel Aviv University , 2022
Area Q yielded a considerable quantity of Cypriot Iron Age ceramics. This material is comparable to the published corpus of such imports from the Iron II strata of Megiddo (for a summary, see Arie 2013: 722–729). Yet, most items of the Area Q assemblage were recovered in a fragmentary state.
Second Thoughts on Cypriot Pottery and First Appearances.
I. Forstner-Müller – N. Moeller (eds.). The Hyksaos Ruler Khyan and the Early Second Intermediate Period in Egypt: Problems and Priorities of Current Research. Proceedings, Workshop, Austrian Archaeological Inst. and the Oriental Institute University of Chicago, Vienna, 2014. ErghÖJH 17. 125 – 142., 2018
Cypriot Ceramics - Late Bronze Age - Middle Bronze Age - Eastern Mediterranean connections - eastern Levant - Middle Cypriot ceramics - late Cypriot ceramics in Egypt - Tell el Daba - Ezbet Helmi - Eastern Nile Delta - Cypriot imports in Egypt - chronology - chronological appearance of pottery - Middle Cypriot wares: White Painted Cross Line (WPCL), White Painted Pendent Line (WPPL), Red on Black (RoB), Red Polished (RP), WP V (White Painted V), Plain White Hand-made (PWHM), Proto White Slip (PWS) and White Painted VI (WP VI). Late Cypriote (LC) wares - the Lustrous wares - Black Lustrous Wheel-made ware (BLWmW), Red Lustrous Wheel-made ware (RLWmW) and White Lustrous Wheel-made ware (WLWmW); MOC (Monochrome ware), White Slip I (WS I) and White Slip II (WS II), Base Ring I ware (BR I) and Base Ring II ware (BR II), and Plain White Wheel-made ware (PWW), and also the Bichrome Wheel-made ware (BICWmW), as well as Bichrome Hand-made ware (BICHmW)
The Source Provenance of Bronze Age and Roman pottery from Cyprus
Archaeometry, 2002
Archaeological interpretations of ancient economies have been strengthened by chemical analyses of ceramics, which provide the clearest evidence for economic activity, and comprise both the objects of exchange and its means. Pottery is often manufactured from local materials, but its compositional diversity typically prevents significant patterns of resource utilization from being identified. Centrally located and positioned on traditional shipping routes, Cyprus maintained ties with and supplied a variety of distinctive ceramic products to the major commercial centres in the eastern Mediterranean throughout Antiquity. We analysed two Cypriot fine wares and a variety of utilitarian pottery, as well as samples of extant Cypriot clays to determine source provenance. These chemical analyses provide an objective indication of the origins of ancient (Bronze Age and Roman) ceramics manufactured on Cyprus. The distribution of the probable clay sources and the links between pottery style and the material environment also afford a perspective on the spatial organization of large-scale pottery production on the island. Compositional analysis provides the means to assemble geographies of pottery production and to unravel the interregional system of exchange that operated in Antiquity, but the ability to accomplish these tasks is predicated on systematic analyses of ceramic products and raw materials that are found far beyond the bounds of individual archaeological sites.
Journal of Archaeological Science 39.5: 1380–1387, 2012
Portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis of several hundred samples of Early and Middle Bronze Age Cypriot pottery from four widely separated sites identifies both local and non-local products at each. A series of analyses of subsets of the data highlights differences in the clays used at each site and for some distinctive types and wares. When assessed in the context of general typological, technological and stylistic factors these variations provide the basis for considering patterns of local production and inter-regional relationships across the island. Although the great majority of pots were locally made, particular wares and shapes were brought in from elsewhere. For some sites imports are generally finer, more highly decorated vessels, but at others both simpler and more complex vessels were made of the same clays. While small juglets or flasks may have been containers for transporting small quantities of rare substances, larger vessels could have held far larger amounts of less precious material. Open vessels, especially small bowls – some of which are plain, utilitarian items – represent another aspect of social behaviour and inter-regional relationships.