Social dimensions of the technology of ceramic production in Southeast Bulgaria in the 6th - 2nd mill BC Interim report (original) (raw)
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Praehistorische Zeitschrift, 2019
40 potsherds and five other fired clay fragments from the prehistoric site of Nova Nadezhda in Bulgarian Thrace were analysed by archaeometric techniques. Twenty sherds and a daub fragment were analysed in thin section by optical microscopy; these thin sections, and thick sections of a further 24 sherds were also analysed by SEM-EDX. Results were used to describe the Early Neolithic chaîne opératoire at Nova Nadezhda, which was then compared to pottery production in roughly contemporaneous Starčevo-Criş communities in the central Balkans, to shed light on the Neolithisation process that took place in the 6th millennium BC. A variety of ceramic recipes was used to make different vessel shapes. Analyses of surface coatings were particularly enlightening in terms of provenance and the organisation of pottery production.
Characteristic Features of the Bronze Age Pottery from a Site Near the Village of Panayot Volovo, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Oltenia, in V. Diaconu, A. Gafincu (eds.), The Bronze Age in south-eastern Europe. Multidisciplinary Studies. Piatra Neamț-Brăila, 2023
The main purpose of this article is to present the pottery from the Late Bronze Age settlement of Site No. 1 near the village of Panayot Volovo, northeastern Bulgaria, with an emphasis on ceramic diversity, technology, and use of vessels. For this purpose, a database was created, through which direct observation was carried out, which provides information about the preparation of the clay, the methods of forming the vessels, the surface treatment and the characteristics of the moulding and firing technique. The analysis of ceramic fragments, alongside with the study of typology and classification, provide information on various aspects of the settlement's daily life. The research shows that the pottery of this period consist of serving, cooking and storage vessels. The classification pattern presents the presence of the following forms used in the settlement from Site No. 1: cups, jugs, plates, bowls, kantharos-like vessels, amphora-like vessels, cooking pots, storage vessels and vessels with internal handles. The above-mentioned types of ceramic vessels are most often conical, with S-profiles, or spherical in shape; the treatment of the surface was carried out by means of not very precise smoothing; decoration is registered on few fragments and vessels. Relief applied bands predominate, often in combination with handles or knobs. The most often decorated forms are the pots and the cups.
Minerals, 2022
Several pottery sherds from the Svilengrad-Brantiite site, Bulgaria, were mineralogically and petrographically analyzed. The aim was to add information to the very scarce material data available for Early Bronze Age pottery in the southeastern Thrace plain, Bulgaria, in order to examine a possible raw-material source of the pottery. The characterization techniques applied were optical microscopy (OM), petrographic microscopy (PM), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, and Xray diffraction (XRD). The pottery samples consisted of two typological groups: a local-made type and a cord-impressed decoration type influenced by foreign cultures. All of the samples were produced from fine clay pastes that had a quite similar composition, with abundant mineral grains of similar mineral composition and fragments of metamorphic and granitic rocks. The chemical compositions of each mineral in the grains and fragments were almost identical, and consistent with those from metamorphic and granitic rocks from the Sakar-Strandja Mountains near the study site. The clay paste compositions corresponded to those of illite/smectite mixed-layer clay minerals or mixtures of illite and smectite, and the clay-mineral species were consistent with those in Miocene-Pleistocene or Holocene sediments surrounding the site.
The main purpose of this article is to present Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age pottery of the not so known Upper Thracian Plain, Tundzha Valley and the Burgas Lowland in Bulgaria, with an emphasis on ceramic diversity, technology, distribution, and use of vessels in archaeological contexts. The investigation shows that the ceramic of both periods consists of wares for serving, cooking, storage, and transportation. The classes of cups, jugs, plates, bowls, kantharoi-like vessels, amphora-like vessels, jars, storage vessels, and pyraunoi had been in widespread use until the 8 th century BC, when a new pottery class-pithoi with a 'wide stamp'-was added. The general transformations, which occurred during the beginning of the Early Iron Age, included modification of the above-mentioned pottery classes to a flattened spherical form; the treatment of the surface through burnishing with the effect of polishing; decoration with a combination of flutes and knobs and firing in reduced atmosphere with control of the process to achieve the desired uniform dark colour. However, absence of major changes in the morphology of Early Iron Age ceramics probably illustrate permanently established eating habits. According to ethnographic models, each change in the pottery production which included a stylistic variation of the vessels realized without marked changes in energy investment on the part of the craftsman, such as the introduction of new decorative motifs, new ways of arranging existing motifs and even some small changes in vessel forms, points to a horizontal differentiation of the society and increased numbers of equivalently ranked groups in a given society-a change that occurred in our study area in the Early Iron Age.
Encrusted Pottery Culture ceramic imports in northwest Bulgaria
Encrusted Pottery Culture ceramic imports in northwest Bulgaria, 2023
This paper discusses the Encrusted Pottery Culture ceramics discovered outside the Danube River strip in northwest Bulgaria. These imports, coming from 15 sites, cover the whole spectrum of the ceramic production: pottery, figurines, small finds, etc. Geographically, they are spread across the entire territory of northwest Bulgaria, reaching a distance of 40 km south of the Danube River. The imports appear in both settlements (dwellings, pits) and cemeteries. Chronologically, these finds date to the second half of the fifteenth-thirteenth century cal. BC period that corresponds to the Orsoya/Baley phase of the Encrusted Pottery Culture. Similar material north of the Danube is discussed as well. While in northwest Bulgaria, the Encrusted Pottery Culture 'imports' appear in Gamzigrad-Gramada or Zimnicea-Plovdiv milieu, north of the river they are related to Late Verbicioara sites. The nature of these intensive contacts between the 'Danubian' Encrusted Pottery Culture and 'inland' communities is also considered.
GEOMORPHOLOGICAL RESEARCHES ON THE NORTH TANGENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE IN SOFIA, BULGARIA
Physical Geography; Cartography; Geographic Information System and Spatial Planing, 2016
The archaeological site is located in the northeastern part of the Sofia kettle, Southwestern Bulgaria. There were found two archaeological structures during the construction of site № 3 along the North Tangent in Sofia. The conducted studies showed that the cultural layers are in the alluvial deposits of Perlovska river (a left tributary of Iskar river). This gave a reason for performing complex descriptions, sampling and analysis on field. There were made archaeological excavations in an area of 160 m length and a width of 22 m. Geomorphological observations are marked in five key points. The samples were processed in a sedimentological laboratory and put through morphoscopic and grain-size analysis. INTRUDUCTION The study area is located in 120-150 cm depth of present topographic surface near the Perlovska river bed. Archaeological data The archaeological site 3A is part of larger site № 3 in the route between 8+ 400 km to 9+ 030 km (Fig. 1), which is conditionally numbered with the letter "A". In the section between 8+ km 400 to km 8+ 560 boreholes were made with a width of 1 m, total length of 430 m and a depth from 0,90 m to 1,20 m. By means of the boreholes there are registered two archaeological structures. One of them is a platform with 5 clay pots placed on it, which are made of rough clay with impurities. Three of them are cups with two handles and two are pots (Fig. 2a). There is no signs of pit. It is possible it was destroyed with the removal of the humus layer. The morphology of the pottery, the texture and the clay color, the impurities, the method of firing, they clearly prove that the pottery belong to the cultural layer of the final phase of the Early Bronze Age.
Bulgarian e-Journal of Archeology, 2022
In the course of rescue archaeological excavations of site 1/1000 at Baba Velika locality, located at the foot of Vrashka chuka in Northwest Bulgaria, the remains of an Early Iron Age site were encountered. This paper is focused on the pottery assemblage found during the rescue archaeological excavations at Vrashka chuka. The study presents the main characteristic of the Early Iron Age pottery found in the features and the general characteristics of the pottery found in the Early Iron Age cultural layer. It also discusses the recognizable shapes and decorative motifs and points out synchronous parallels. The study of the pottery assemblage from Vrashka chuka provided us with the opportunity to shed a new light on the development of the Early Iron Age in Northwest Bulgaria, and especially the district of the modern city of Vidin. The intensive archaeological excavations in recent years have opened a new page in the studies of the Early Iron Age in this part of Bulgaria, which so far was not studied in details.
SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF TECHNOLOGY OF CERAMIC PRODUCTION IN SOUTHEAST BULGARIA IN 6 th -2 nd mill. BC 1
Interdisciplinary Studies Vol. 26 , 2019
The article presents activities and data obtained during the first year of the project. The research area encompasses Southeastern Bulgaria with nine main sites included. Object of instrumental research and archeological characteristic are the samples, which are divided into the following groups: denudated rocks, and used for inorganic temper; clays-tectonic and alluvial; ceramics-pottery fragments and burnt remains of stationary equipment; organic fillers, pigments and substances for painting and incrustation, organic residues and impressions of mats and baskets on the pottery bases.. Different methods and analyzes have been applied to solve the problems posed: cartographic analysis and description of the landscape, morphological and typological analysis, dating, instrumental methods, chemical analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), petrographic analysis etc. СОЦИАЛНИ ИЗМЕРЕНИЯ НА ТЕХНОЛОГИЯТА НА КЕРАМИЧНОТО ПРОИЗВОДСТВО В ЮГОИЗТОЧНА БЪЛГАРИЯ ПРЕЗ VI-II ХИЛ. ПР.ХР. РЕЗЮМЕ В тази статия са представени дейности и данни, получени през първата година от проекта. Цел на проекта е изследването на технологията на керамичното производство през праисторията чрез прилагане на различни инструментални методи и опит за характеристика на социалните аспекти на това производство. Изследователският район обхваща Югоизточна България с включени девет основни обекта. Предмет на това инструментално изследване са образци от глини, керамика, отпечатъци от органични останки върху керамика, пигменти за рисуване, оцветяване и инкрустация, отпечатъци от рогозки и кошници. За разрешаването на поставените проблеми са приложени различни методи и анализи: картографски анализ и описание на ландшафта, морфологичен и типологичен анализ, датиране; инструментални методи; химичният състав на пробите, сканираща електронна микроскопия (SEM), петрографският анализ и др.
Sideris A. & Tonkova M., Pottery of the Classical Period from Halka Bunar, Central Southern Bulgaria
Classical Pottery from the Northern Aegean and its Periph (480-323/300 BC). Thessaloniki , 2019
Based on the grey pottery from the site of Halka Bunar, municipality Bratya Daskalovi in the south-eastern Bulgaria, the present paper intends a general overview of this class of pottery in inner Thrace, known already since the Archaic period and with documented relations with the Aeolid and the area of the North Aegean Sea. In Halka Bunar the grey ware of the Classical period, as in many other neighbouring sites, it has been found within ritual or domestic pits, and it seems to develop in continuity with that of the Archaic period. The shape repertory includes bowls, cups and mugs, strainers and jugs, lekanae with vertical or horizontal handles, craters, table amphorae and possibly hydriae. The distribution of the grey ware, the dating of which is often based on contextual finds imported from the Greek world, spreads from the shores fo the Black Sea to the western parts of the Maritsa/Evros Valley, and even to the regions on the north of this valley. It is undoubtedly the product of local workshops, which continued, even though with a more restricted shape repertory, during the early Hellenistic period as well.