Appendix IV: Potmarks (original) (raw)
Related papers
Non-scribal Communication Media in the Bronze Age Aegean and Surrounding Areas The semantics of a-literate and proto-literate media (seals, potmarks, mason’s marks, seal-impressed pottery, ideograms and logograms, and related systems), 2017
Marks incised or painted on Eastern Mediterranean pottery from the Late Bronze Age – generically known as «potmarks» – have been extensively studied in the past two decades. Incised markings have also appeared on ingots and other metallic supports, although these have arguably received less attention. It has long been clear that some of these marks consist of signs drawn from existing writing systems, with Cypro-Minoan playing a special role, and this has contributed to scholars’ research on the relationship between marks and script. However, many unknowns remain. An old and significant problem relates to difficulties in assessing which marks can be securely identified with Cypro-Minoan signs, stemming from the lack of a detailed palaeographical study of the script’s signary. Recent advances in our knowledge of Cypro-Minoan, especially with regards to the palaeographic variation and identity of its signs, now enable us to better understand which marks are extracted from that writing system and which are not. With a special focus on ingot- and potmarks from the Eastern Mediterranean and Sardinia, this article discusses methods for distinguishing Cypro-Minoan marks from non-Cypro-Minoan marks. It is argued that a greater number of marks can now be securely identified with signs of the Cypro-Minoan script. In a second stage, findings are compared with other parameters, such as vessel shapes and functions, find-spots and places of import, and methods (incised or painted) and timings (before or after firing or casting) of the marks. This re-evaluation reveals no significant distribution patterns, suggesting that many different marking systems might have been in use or that the choice of Cypro-Minoan signs used as marks was not very systematic. In our conclusions, we discuss the implications of these results for our knowledge of the dynamics of Bronze Age Cypriot society.
Marks on Pots: Patterns of Use in the Archaeological Record at Enkomi
2002
II�. arks scratched or painted on the Late Bronze Age (LBA) pottery of the t�, � eastern Mediterranean are often highly visible elements of the ceramic V assemblage because of their bold rendering and prominent placement (fig. I). Nevertheless, often they have been overlooked. In those instances where they have been noted, interest in them has been primarily epigraph ical. Certainly some of the potmarks are connected somehow with contem porary writing systems. But all of them, signs of script or not, have some reason(s) fo r being painted or incised on certain vases. This paper begins the process of looking systematically fo r those reasons. Potmarks may be applied in the process of manufacture, exchange, use, or deposition of a vase, and they may identify potter, workshop, merchant, owner, quality or quantity of contents, price, batch, point of origin, destina tion, or other information. The potmarks studied in this paper are single signs whose fo rms give no indication of the value or meaning of the marks. Therefore, a contextual approach is adopted: the marks are examined in terms of the containers on which they appear and the types of deposits in which they were fo und in order to try to identify patterns of occurrence. Those patterns fo rm the basis fo r interpreting the significance of the signs boldly painted (fig. 2) or incised (figs. 1, 3, and 4) especially on the pottery fo und in LBA Cyprus. Even a subject so seemingly confined as the study of potmarks fr om LBA Cypriot contexts becomes Immense on closer inspection. This paper
Cypriote Antiquities. Monumenta Antiquitatis extra Fines Hungariae Reperta. Vol. 6.
Introduction; Abbreviations; Chronological Table; I. Bronze Age Pottery: Red Polished Ware; Red Slip and Black Slip Wares; White Painted Ware; White Slip Ware; Base Ring Ware; II. Levanto-Mycenaean Clay Objects; II. Iron Age Pottery: White Painted Ware; Bichrome Ware; Black-on-Red Ware; Hellenistic and Roman Vases; IV. Iron Age Terracottas; V. Stone Sculpture; VI. Alabaster Vase; VII. Copper Alloy Tools; Jewellery; Concordance I; Concordance II; Plates.
Cypriots to the West? The Evidence of Their Potmarks
2001
Three amphora handles (Fig. 1), of Mycenaean type, bear the only possible traces of Cypriot writing found in Bronze Age Italy, and they are the only known possible direct traces of Cypriot participation in trade with the western Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age. In this paper, I proceed first with a brief description of the marked handles and their provenience; second, I illustrate their Cypriot associations; and finally I discuss possible implications of this identification. All three marked handles were found at Cannatello, a site on the southern coast of Italy. They have been published by the excavator, Professor Ernesto de Miro, in the context of a corpus of Mycenaean pottery found at the site (De Miro 1996, 999, 1004, 1007-1008, 1010-1011, pl. VII). The three handles are only fragmentarily preserved, and it is difficult to be certain whether in fact they really belong to amphorae. Their round sections and their fairly substantial dimensions do indicate that they belonged to closed shapes, medium to large in size. It is not absolutely clear from the published illustrations that these are vertical handles, but this is a reasonable surmise, substantiated by the painted decoration preserved on two of the handles.
Images and symbols of 12th century BC pictorial pottery from Cyprus.
Archaeology of Symbols ICAS 1. Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Archaeology of Symbols, edited by G. Guarducci, N. Laneri and St. Valentini, 205-228. Oxford: Oxbow books., 2024
This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasises the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology. Symbols must not be conceived only as allegory but also, and perhaps mainly, as reason (raison d'être) and meaning (culture). They may be considered key elements leading to interpretation, not only in their physical manifestation but by being infused with the gestures, beliefs and intentions of their creators, created in a specifi c context and with a specifi c chaîne opératoire. In this volume a variety of case studies is offered, representing disparate ancient cultures in the Mediterranean and central Europe and the Near East. The thread that connects them revolves around the prominence of symbols and allegorical aspects in archaeology, whether they are considered as expressions of iconographic evidence, material culture or ritual ceremonies, seen from a multicultural perspective. This (and subsequent ICAS) volumes, therefore, aims to embrace all the different aspects pertaining to symbols in archaeology in a specific 'place', allowing the reader to deepen their knowledge of such a fascinating and multifaceted topic, by looking at it from a multicultural perspective.
Early Iron Age Cypriots expressed their piety and gratitude to their gods through the dedication of large numbers of votives of various types, sizes, materials and values, the most common being stone and terracotta male and female figurines. The scale and longevity of the production of Cypriot terracottas in particular are astonishing, as are their quality and originality. It comes as no surprise that the high artistic quality and sophisticated technology of these artefacts were highly appreciated not only by Cypriot votaries, but also by those from the Aegean and other areas of the Mediterranean: a large number of Cypro-Archaic terracottas, dating from the middle of the 7 th to the middle of the 6 th century BC has been recovered in many places around the Eastern Mediterranean, from the Levant to the Aegean and as far west as Naukratis. The products of the Cypriot coroplasts of the Archaic period seem to have been greatly esteemed by Eastern Greeks, particularly those who visited the Heraion on Samos and the sanctuary of Athena Lindia on Rhodes.
The Cypro-Minoan Inscription from Erimi-Kafkalla T.2/2
Hirschfeld, N. E. and J. S. Smith 2012 “The Cypro-Minoan Inscription from Erimi-Kafkalla T.2/2,” pp. 293–296 in “Appendix IV: The Potmarks,” by N. Hirschfeld in V. Karageorghis and Y. Violaris, Tombs of the Late Bronze Age in the Limassol Area, Cyprus (17th–13th Centuries BC). Nicosia: Municipality of Limassol.