Ceramic Production and the Introduction of the Potter's Wheel in Bronze Age Cyprus

Delivered as part of the CraftCY Workshop at CAARI, this session combines an archaeological lecture on Cypriot ceramics with an outdoor practical demonstration alongside potters Michalis Pappas and Maria Alonetou. The speaker, a postdoctoral fellow at CAARI and a practising potter, begins with the chaîne opératoire of pottery production, from clay extraction and processing to forming, surface treatment and firing.

To illustrate these steps, the talk compares the two main traditional potting centres of Cyprus: Kornos in the Troodos foothills and Lapithos on the northern slopes of the Pentadaktylos range. Kornos potters combined red earth and sandy clay, switching after the mid-twentieth century to clay from Stavrovouni, and built vessels by coiling on a turntable before firing them in updraft kilns at around 800 degrees Celsius. At Lapithos, potters levigated naturally fine clays, threw vessels on the kick wheel and fired them twice at higher temperatures for glazing; after the displacement of 1974, Lapithos potters such as Panayiotis Pappas sourced new clays around Aglantzia in Nicosia.

The second half traces technological change from the Chalcolithic through the Bronze Age, following the tripartite chronology of Einar Gjerstad. After the appearance of the Philia phase and Red Polished ware in the Early Bronze Age, potters in the Middle Bronze Age adopted clay levigation, thicker slips (as seen at Maroni and Alambra) and higher firing temperatures, while still working without rotational devices. In the Late Bronze Age, new handmade wares emerged alongside the potter's wheel: Base Ring ware, which used a turntable for secondary thinning and smoothing, and White Slip ware, fired above 1,000 degrees Celsius from specialised white clays. Unlike on Crete, the wheel in Cyprus was applied immediately to utilitarian wares such as Plain White ware and Red and Black Slip as well as fine wares, often through combination techniques like wheel-coiling.

The speaker concludes with doctoral and postdoctoral research on everyday wares from Enkomi and Ayios Sozomenos, combining ceramic petrography, local clay sampling and experimental reproduction on turntables and kick wheels. At Enkomi, multiple workshops shared a clay recipe tempered with igneous sand and microfossils while favouring wheel-coiling. At Ayios Sozomenos, where a Late Bronze Age kiln was found, potters used coarse Troodos-derived clays, imported some vessels from the east, and relied far more on hand-building with rotational finishing. The video closes with footage of the outdoor wheel and turntable demonstrations.