Cypro-cilician painted pottery of Tarsus-Gözlükule :|understanding local ceramic production technology during the iron age

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand the development of Cypro-Cilician painted pottery of Tarsus-Gözlükule. It discusses how this pottery type developed and what the changes and continuities in its production are during the Iron Age. Cypro-Cilician painted pottery appeared in the beginning of the Iron Age in Cilicia, Cyprus, and Levant. Thus, to understand how Cypro-Cilician painted pottery developed, three regions in the Eastern Mediterranean were investigated in a larger context. All three regions had an impact on the formation of this pottery type through the intercultural relations in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this study twenty-one samples were selected from the Tarsus-Gözlükule corpus to be analyzed macroscopically and petrographically in diachronical study to understand the development of this pottery. The results of these analyses indicate that there was one main local source that had been used through the Iron Age. While there were also changes in the production techniques, it is observed that the quality of local pottery improves over time especially during the Late Iron Age. After all, with conducted analyses and evaluation of the Eastern Mediterranean context, this thesis discusses changes and developments of Cypro-Cilician painted pottery with the impacts of intercultural relations during the Iron Age.