Between Cilician Taurus and Tigris - Glazed Pottery of the 8th to the 15th Century as Indicator of Cultural Changes?

• Applicant: Dr. Eva Strothenke-Koch
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies ; Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies ; Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405947605

The project pursues two goals: The first one is a comprehensive study of the glazed pottery of the thus far neglected region between the Cilician Taurus and the Tigris. By including unpublished material from Sirkeli Höyük, Yilankale, Tepebağ (province of Adana), Doliche (province of Gaziantep), Lidar Höyük and Harran (province of Sanliurfa) the spectrum of glazed pottery is going to be presented systematically and comprehensively. Archaeometric analyses (LA-ICP-MX, XRD and SEM/EDX) will be used to corroborate the results concerning production-techniques, provenience and distribution of glazed pottery established by archaeological methods. Representative samples are already available for analyses to be analyzed at the cooperating German institutes. The export of further fragments of glazed pottery has been guaranteed by the ›Gaziantep Restorasyon ve Konservasyon Bölge Laboratuvarı Müdürlüğü‹. This institute at Gaziatep is responsible for the material from find spots situated in the region in Turkey on which the focus of this project lies. These efforts will culminate in a study on glazed pottery of the 8th to 15th century AD of find spots between the Cilician Taurus and the Tigris. It will form the urgently needed basis for further research on chronology and significance for cultural and economical processes of find material from this area and related regions. In doing so, the project not only fills an academic void but also places its focus on a region that constituted a contact zone between Byzantine and Islamic spheres of influence.These aspects lead directly to the second, broader goal of this project. The chosen subject of investigation stands out because of the great quantities in which these objects have been discovered at all find spots of the Byzantine and Islamic times. Furthermore, it is ideally suited for such enquiries because of its independent production centres in the Byzantine or Islamic domains. It is essential to ascertain if the region in question can actually be understood as a “bridge” between the areas influenced by Byzantine and Islamic culture. It is going to become clear in which way glazed pottery might have connected the more thoroughly researched regions of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East and how export, trading relations and cultural transfers were affected by continuously changing historical conditions. The reciprocal influences between the Byzantine and Islamic glazed pottery-productions will be of an especially high interest with regards to their geographical and historical circumstances.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants