Ancient Pottery for Beginners: Why Archaeologists Study Ceramics

James Osborne of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago outlines why archaeologists study ancient ceramics, grouping the subject under chronology, spatial distribution, and social organization, before showing vessels and sherds from the museum's storage.

Two parts of the lecture concern Cypriot pottery. In the section on spatial distribution and trade, Osborne examines Iron Age pottery excavated in the 1930s in the Amuq Valley, territory of the kingdom of Patina (c. 950–700 BCE). Among roughly 4,000 early first-millennium BCE sherds in the Chicago collections from the capital at Tell Tayinat, the second-tier town of Chatal Höyük, and the village of Tell Judeideh, about 150 belong to Bichrome ware of the Cypro-Geometric and Cypro-Archaic periods. Using neutron activation analysis on sherds from the three sites (77 from Tell Tayinat, 19 from Chatal Höyük, and 15 from Tell Judeideh) and comparing them with local Amuq clays and clay samples from Cyprus, Osborne and his colleague identified two chemical groups: Group Alpha, originating on Cyprus, and Group Beta, made of local Amuq Valley clay. Contrary to Osborne's expectation that the small village of Tell Judeideh would produce cheap local copies, the Cypriot-style imitations occurred at the capital, Tell Tayinat, where he suggests demand for Cypriot vessels exceeded the imported supply.

During the object handling session at the end, Osborne shows a Late Bronze Age Cypriot bilbil juglet (c. 1400–1300 BCE). He notes the older hypothesis that such juglets carried opium because the inverted vessel resembles a poppy head, and explains that organic residue analysis has shown they instead held oils, perfumes, and unguents.