Red Lustrous Wheel-made Ware from Cilicia and the Amuq valley (South Anatolia): Archaeological and Archaeometrical Investigations of the Provenance of a characteristic Late Bronze Age Pottery

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The aim of this project is to localize the production place of the Red Lustrous Wheel-made Ware (RL-Ware) using archaeometric methods and to obtain information on the socio-cultural relations of the Hittites to the neighbor societies in the eastern Mediterranean. RL-Ware is one of the most characteristic Late Bronze Age ceramic types uncovered in a large area in the eastern Mediterranean. Geographical distribution of the RL-Ware stretches from Central and Southern Anatolia, Cyprus, the Levant to Egypt. The distribution pattern of the ware within Anatolia is related to the Hittite heartland and Cilicia. The high quality of the ware found within the distribution area makes RL-Ware different from the other luxury goods exchanged between the regions. In this sense, it is comparable to the Mycenaean and Cypriote ware. RL-Ware, like the Mycenaean and cypriote ware, demonstrates interregional cultural contacts in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. But the distribution pattern of RL-Ware is clearly different from the Mycenaean and Cypriote ceramics.RL-Ware was subject of several archaeological and also archaeometric studies, however there are some questions which are still not answered, particularly its provenance. This makes its interpretation in the archaeological context difficult. Therefore, the main objective of the project is to determine the provenance of the RL-Ware using archaeometric methods. The focus of the project is RL-Ware materials from Alalakh, Bogazköy/Hattusa and Kilise Tepe and clay samples from Central-Anatolien, South Anatolia and North Cyprus. Currently, they are being analyzed using archaeometric methods in ongoing project. New publications on RL-Ware as well as preliminary results of this project yield results that should be verified by further archaeometric analysis of local clay samples from South-Anatolia as well as clay samples from Western Cyprus.