Producing Pottery in a Province of the Hittite Empire

Summary

The Hittite Empire seized control of Cilicia, corresponding with the present-day states of Mersin and Adana in the Republic of Turkey, in the latter half of the second millennium BCE. While this region was under imperial rule, Hittite-style pottery became the most common ceramic type. Geochemical analysis of the pottery from Tarsus-Gözlükule, an urban center within Hittite Cilicia, indicates that the Hittite-style pottery was locally produced. At the same time, alternative ceramic types are found alongside the Hittite-style pottery. These alternative types developed from Cilician traditions pre-dating the Hittite conquest and were made using the same raw materials as the Hittite-style pottery. The aim of this paper is to explore how pottery production was organized within the community of Tarsus-Gözlükule and to examine what this organization can say about the relationship that developed between imperial and provincial actors. Ultimately, this paper will use the production of pottery as a means of speaking to the complex, inter-societal nature of empire.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Imperial Craft: Comparative Perspectives on Production and Society in Empires

Keywords

Spatial Coverage