Pottery Studies: July 8-12, 2007

Early Iron Age Pottery Studies

As the excavations on the Iron Age/Classical site of Tepe Düzen (H. Vanhaverbeke) continue, this year's ceramic study is mainly focused on further determining and identifying the fabric variation at the site, as part of the doctoral dissertation of Dennis Braekmans (Center for Archaeological Sciences, K.U. Leuven). Petrographic analysis yielded a wide spectrum of different fabric pastes. Apart from some non-(Sagalassos)-territorial related fabrics, a large group of sherds seem to originate from more local or regional raw materials. The extensive small variation, both macroscopically and petrographically observable within this group, is likely related to the use of several fairly small clay deposits instead of large-scale exploitation (for example, Sagalassos Red Slip Ware). In order to solve the provenance issue, the extensive clay survey of territory (B. Neyt, P. Degryse, J. Elsen, D. Braekmans, and J. Schneider) can shed light on this problem.

The last weeks of the 2007 campaign will be reserved for further macroscopic definition of the fabrics of several (mainly) pre-Roman ceramic assemblages found on the (Sagalassos) territory in order to establish an initial, petrographically and geochemically verified "Pisidian Fabric Reference Collection" (this year material from Hacilar, Kepez Kalesi and the material collected within the Aglasun valley by H. Vanhaverbeke), roughly encompassing the first millennium B.C., so including both the Early Iron Age, the Archaic, the Classical, and Post-Classical, and finally the Hellenistic periods. The reference collection can be extended to the Roman Fabric 4 produced in the region and by adding the clay mineralogy for studying the provenance (Ph.D. research of B. Neyt). The case-study of Pisidia and more particularly the territory of Sagalassos can be a platform on which a concept of a regional production can be defined despite the very fragmented ceramic assemblages. Also an initial typological framework will be concluded regarding the site of Tepe Düzen. From a typological/functional point of view, a significant amount of cooking vessels was attested at Tepe Düzen. The chronological framework is still pending; however, some specific sherds can already be dated between the sixth and fourth century B.C., and perhaps even mostly to the latter part of this period (J. Poblome). Adding thermoluminiscence analysis on some key sherds should provide further absolute dating ranges for seriation and thus in combination with typology and fabric analysis add to the understanding of the artisanal production within the studied region, including Tepe Düzen.