Internet Archaeol. 9. Knappett. 1

1. Introduction

It is relatively well understood that during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) many different sorts of commodity were circulating over long distances throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region. Yet whilst objects from any given site may be identified as 'exotic', it can sometimes be rather more difficult ascertaining the actual origin of such objects. This is precisely the problem with the class of pottery that forms the focus of this article. The ware in question has been given many names over the course of the past 100 years, but the term 'Red Lustrous Wheel-made ware' (RLWm ware) will be used here (cf. Eriksson 1991; 1993, for numerous references). It comes in a range of very particular shapes, most notably libation arms, spindle bottles and pilgrim flasks, has a distinctive pink-red fabric, and a high burnish. It is found over an extraordinarily wide area, from sites in north-central Anatolia, including the Hittite capital of Bogazköy, to southern Anatolia (Cilicia), Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Cyprus, and even occasionally on Crete and Rhodes. The source of this very distinctive class of pottery is, however, contentious - north-west Syria and southern Anatolia are two areas that have been suggested, but the most recent major work on the subject comes down in favour of Cyprus (Eriksson 1991; 1993). The aim of the current paper is to examine this hypothesis further, working primarily from typological and petrological analysis of the Late Bronze Age pottery very recently excavated from the site of Kilise Tepe in south-central Anatolia (Cilicia), where significant quantities of RLWm ware have been recovered.

In working on the pottery from this site I have been most fortunate to receive the full and generous collaboration of the project director, Professor Nicholas Postgate. I am also very grateful to Ms. Connie Hansen, responsible for publishing the Kilise Tepe LBA pottery. The programme of chemical analysis recently initiated with Dr Vassilis Kilikoglou promises much, and I am grateful to him for some of the preliminary results mentioned below. The technological and petrological analysis conducted by the author could not have happened without the support given to the Kilise Tepe project by the British Academy, the McDonald Institute, and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. The author expresses his gratitude to Christ's College, Cambridge, not least for contributing to the costs of thin section preparation.