Yu. B. Tsetlin. POTTERY KILN AT TELL HAZNA I AND ITS POSITION IN KILN EVOLUTION. THE CERAMICS FROM THE KILN (original) (raw)
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The discovery ofseveral pottery workshops, updraft kilns, potters tools, wasters and unfired vessel fragments at the site of Tell Sabi Abyad offered the opportunity for a detai/ed study of pottery production organization. 1 Studies ofproduction organization and workshops or kilns are rare in Near Eastern arehaeology. Unfired vessel fragments are even less often reported, and ifthey are published, they are never discussed in detai/. However, at Sabi Abyad these remnants ofvessels and waste from the shaping process proved valuable for the reconstruction ofdiffèrent aspects ofthe production cycle, including clay preparation, shaping and spatial organization in the workshop. LeidenJournal ofPottery Studies 23,2007: 21-40.
Tell Feres al-Sharqi offers clear evidence of intensive local ceramic production in level 10 (Late Ubaid) and 8 (the LC1 period). Various potters' kilns have been identified: their comparison indicates the coexistence of different modalities of firing. This discussion focuses on the different modes of management of fire in a productive context between Late Ubaid and post-Ubaid times. The physical, architectural, thermal and dimensional characteristics of the kilns are taken into account in order to evaluate the technical system (between environmental constraints and cultural arbitrary choices) and to point out some evolutionary tendencies in post-Ubaid times. The archaeology of a physical but elusive thing like fire deals with material traces and modalities of management, use and control of this element, able to change the shape and the molecular structure of objects and substances but devoid of form and easily sizable characters. Amongst the archaeological remains testifying to the different practices that deal with fire, potters' kilns occupy a very special place. Ceramics, as one of the first synthetic products in human history, summarize all the previous pyrotechnological developments and contain the seeds of later ones. Additionally, potters' kilns are the place where clay irreversibly becomes waterproof and fire-resistant ceramic (Rye 1981: 24-25, 105-110). Architecturally, kilns are structures with varying degrees of complexity. At the same time, they are installations intended for the transformation of clay materials. In this sense, from the point of view of physics, they are strictly definable as machines: the energy generated by the alteration of some elements (the fuel) is partially dispersed and partially used to modify other elements (the clay that becomes pottery). Tell Feres al-Sharqi, the site presented as a case-study, is a little mound, close to Tell Brak, in the central area of the Khabur basin (Fig. 1). Extensively excavated since 2006 by a French-Syrian archaeological mission, Tell Feres revealed an uninterrupted sequence between the first half of the 5 th and the last centuries of the 4 th millennia BC. Concerning fire installations, two potters' workshops have been excavated in levels 10 and 8, dated to between the Late Ubaid and LC1 phases.
Ben-Shlomo et al_Safi pottery technology_JAS 36_2009
The development of pottery production during the Bronze and Iron Ages at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, is examined based on the analysis of 224 pottery vessels representing most periods within this ca. 1700 years time frame. The main tools employed were visual examination of manufacturing techniques and petrographic thin section analysis, all of which was conducted on the entire group. This was combined with a chronological, functional, typological, and cultural characterization of the samples. The results indicate a tendency of a diachronic shift from the use of calcareous-based clays to non-calcareous clays, from the Bronze Age towards the late Iron Age, although the primary shaping techniques do not change. Intentional tempering, when relevant, is mostly type-or function-dependent. It is suggested that this trend, possibly evident at other sites in the southern Levant as well, may be related to the employment of higher firing temperatures by the potters. This phenomenon may also be related to the decrease in the relative amount of decorated pottery that is seen during the late Iron Age.