scholarly journals The Introduction of the Potter’s Wheel to Ancient Sudan

2021 ◽  
Vol XII (2) ◽  
pp. 299-309
Author(s):  
Sarah K. Doherty ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
River Nile ◽  
Pottery Industry ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Manufacturing Techniques ◽  
Wheel Throwing

Doherty (2015) has previously investigated the origins of the potter’s wheel in Egypt in depth. However, how the potter’s wheel came to be used in Sudan has not yet been properly analysed. This paper will present the author’s initial investigations into the pottery industry of Sudan and the manufacturing techniques employed by Sudanese potters. Evidence seems to suggest that rather than being an indigenous invention, the potter’s wheel came to Sudan as part of the colonisation of Sudan by Egypt during the Middle-Late Bronze Age. Throughout this period, various Egyptian towns were founded along the river Nile. One such town was Amara West (inhabited c. 1306–1290 BC). By the Middle Bronze Age, Sudanese potters had well-developed pottery techniques, principally coil- and slab-building. Amara West and other Egyptian colonies used the by then well-established wheel-throwing and coiling techniques (RKE) to manufacture their pottery, principally imported from Egypt. However, these colony towns contained both Sudanese and Egyptian vessels, sometimes in the same contexts, and occasionally with blended manufacture techniques and decoration. This paper will endeavour to postulate upon the effect and legacy of the imposed technology of the potter’s wheel on the Sudanese pottery industry.

scholarly journals Identifying Wheel-Thrown Vases in Middle Minoan Crete? Preliminary Analysis of Experimental Replicas of Plain Handleless Conical Cups from Protopalatial Phaistos

2021 ◽  
Vol XII (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216
Author(s):  
Ilaria Caloi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ceramic Material ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Experimental Work ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Minoan Crete ◽  
Technological Study ◽  
Wheel Throwing

Recent work in Middle Bronze Age Crete has revealed that most Protopalatial or First Palace period pottery is produced through the use of a combination of coil-building and the wheel, i.e., wheelcoiling. Experimental work conducted on pottery from Minoan sites of Northern and Eastern Crete (e.g., Knossos, Myrtos Pyrgos, Palaikastro) has indeed determined that Minoan potters did not develop the skills required to adopt the wheel-throwing technique. However, my recent technological study of Protopalatial ceramic material from Middle Minoan IIA (19th century BC) deposits from the First Palace at Phaistos, in Southern Crete, has revealed that though pottery was produced by the wheelcoiling techniques, yet other forming techniques were practised too. In this paper I present a preliminary analysis of experimental replicas of MM IIA Phaistian plain handleless conical cups, manufactured on the potter’s wheel using three different forming techniques: wheel-pinching, wheel-coiling, and throwing-off-the-hump. This analysis will proffer answers to several questions on the use of the potter’s wheel in Middle Bronze Age Crete and opens the possibility that at MM IIA Phaistos there co-existed potters who had developed skills to employ different forming techniques on the wheel, including possibly that of throwing-off-the-hump.

Toward the Reconstruction of a Sacred Landscape of the Judean Highlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Aaron A. Burke
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Sacred Landscape ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Divine Name

Abstract At least a dozen biblical toponyms for sites and landscape features in ancient Judah’s highlands bear divine name elements that were most common during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. In light of archaeological evidence from many of these sites, it is suggested that they were first settled as part of a settlement influx in the highlands during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1550 BCE), following a reemergence of urbanism and a return of economic development that occurred under Amorite aegis. The cultic orientation of these sites may be suggested by reference to ritual traditions at Mari during the Middle Bronze Age but especially Ugarit during the Late Bronze Age. Such evidence may also serve to elucidate the various enduring cultic associations that persisted in connection with these locations during the Iron Age, as preserved in various biblical traditions.

Second Thoughts on ‘Mycenaean’ Pottery in Ithaca

1949 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 307-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Benton
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Nearest Neighbours ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Determining Factor

When I wrote my report on the excavation of Polis, Ithaca, the leader of the expedition had suggested that in Ithaca, Early Bronze Age pottery had persisted till the closing phases of the Late Bronze Age, which meant that Ithaca was a backward little place well away from the broad stream of contemporary culture. I thought it possible that there was another lag after the Late Bronze Age, and I called certain vases ‘Mycenaean,’ taking fabric to be the determining factor. My paper was written in 1932, but not published till 1942, and long before then I was sure that we were both wrong. Mr. Heurtley wished to account for the presence of fifty Mycenaean sherds in an Early Bronze Age Settlement at Pilikata. It is true that no Middle Bronze Age settlement has yet been found in Ithaca. That may be our bad fortune, or the island may have been uninhabited in the centuries before 1500 B.C., as it was in the sixteenth century A.D. It seems simpler to admit disturbance by any later diggers of foundations or seekers of wells, than to postulate an iron curtain between Ithaca and both its nearest neighbours, Kephallenia and Leukas, in the Middle Bronze Age. After all, Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Age sherds were found together in Area VI at Pilikata, and no house plans have resulted; some disturbance seems inevitable.

The Later Bronze Age in Ireland in the light of recent research

1964 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 268-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Eogan
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Early Late ◽  
The Bronze Age

The term ‘Later Bronze Age’ is being used in this paper to cover that period of the Bronze Age in Ireland that started around 1200 B.C. and continued on until supplanted by iron-using cultures during the second half of the first millennium B.C. This term provides a means of escaping from the nomenclature that is applied to the period covering the last two centuries of the second millennium B.C. and the beginning of the first millennium B.C., a phase considered by some as a late Middle Bronze Age and by others as an early Late Bronze Age. Here both terms are being avoided and the period is called the ‘Bishopsland Phase’. This is followed by the ‘Roscommon Phase’ of roughly the 9th and a large part of the 8th centuries B.C. Finally comes the ‘Dowris Phase’. It is hoped that this new terminology will allow the Irish material to be more readily incorporated in any future overall scheme for the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. The Middle Bronze Age in Ireland is here restricted to cover approximately the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.

Cairnpapple Revisited: 1948–1998

1999 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 17-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon J. Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Phase 1 ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Phase 2 ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Phase 3 ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

It is 50 years since Stuart Piggott excavated the prehistoric complex at Cairnpapple. At that time there were few excavated parallels in Scotland, and interpretation inevitably relied heavily on sites excavated in southern Britain. Much more locally relevant data are now available and the sequence at Cairnpapple can now be reassessed its regional context.Piggott identified five Periods, commencing with a stone setting, ‘cove’ and cremation cemetery of ‘Late Neolithic date’ around ‘c. 2500 B.C.’. Period II was a henge monument, consisting of a ‘circle’ of standing stones with ceremonial burials in association, and an encircling ditch with external bank – ‘Of Beaker date, probably c. 1700 B.C.’ Period III comprised the primary cairn, containing two cist-burials ‘Of Middle Bronze Age date, probably c. 1500 B.C.’ Period IV involved the doubling of the size of the cairn, with two cremated burials in inverted cinerary urns. ‘Of final Middle Bronze Age or native Late Bronze Age date, probably c. 1000 B.C.’ Period V comprised four graves ‘possibly Early Iron Age within the first couple of centuries A.D.’The present paper, using comparable material from elsewhere in Scotland, argues for a revised phasing: Phase 1, comprises the deposition of earlier Neolithic plain bowl sherds and axehead fragments with a series of hearths. This is comparable to ‘structured deposition’ noted on other sites of this period. Phase 2 involved the construction of the henge – a setting of 24 uprights – probably of timber rather than stone, probably followed by the encircling henge ditch and bank. The ‘cove’ is discussed in the context of comparable features in Scotland. Phase 3 saw the construction of a series of graves, including the monumental ‘North Grave’, which was probably encased in a cairn. Piggott's ‘Period III’ cairn was then built, followed by the ‘Period IV’ cairn. The urn burials seem likely to have been inserted into the surface of this mound, which may have covered a burial (since disturbed) on the top of the Period III mound, or may have been a deliberate monumentalising of it. The four graves identified as Iron Age by Piggott seem more likely to be from the early Christian period.The reassessment of Piggott's report emphasises the value of the writing of a clear, and sufficiently detailed account. While no report can be wholly objective it can be seen that Piggott's striving for objectivity led him to write a paper that is of lasting value.

scholarly journals Bronze Age and Iron Age Archaeology at Thainstone Business Park, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire

2021 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Sue McGalliard ◽  
Donald Wilson ◽  
Laura Bailey ◽  
H E M Cool ◽  
Gemma Cruickshanks ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Excavation ◽  
Commercial Development ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Age Structures

Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd was commissioned by Axiom Project Services to undertake an archaeological excavation in advance of a commercial development at Thainstone Business Park, Aberdeenshire. Excavation identified the remains of a Middle Bronze Age roundhouse and a contemporary urned cremation cemetery. Evidence of Late Bronze Age cremation practices was also identified. A large roundhouse and souterrain dominated the site in the 1st or 2nd century ad. Material culture associated with the Iron Age structures suggested a degree of status to the occupation there.

On the Chemical composition of prehistoric Greek copper-based artefacts from Crete

1998 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 91-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Mangou ◽  
Panayiotis V. Ioannou
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Absorption Spectrometry ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Equal Frequency ◽  
Metallographic Examination ◽  
Chemical Content ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Arsenical Copper ◽  
The Bronze Age

110 copper-based objects from various sites on Crete, covering the whole of the Bronze Age, were analysed for their chemical content (12 elements) by Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. The results indicate that during the Early Bronze Age arsenical copper was mainly used while in the Middle Bronze Age copper, arsenical copper, and arsenical bronze were in use with about equal frequency. During the Late Bronze Age normal bronze was used when required. The copper technology in each era was the same at all of the sites examined. Metallographic examination of four triangular daggers of the Early Bronze Age showed that they had been cast. In the case of three Late Bronze Age hydriae, the component sheets had been hammered and annealed.

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