The TEmporality of the craftmanship in the diaCHroNic and synchronic production and circulation of cEramics in second millennium BCE Mesopotamia

Objective

TECHNE questions how the dynamics of changes of pottery circulation and production relate to economic and political dynamics of 2nd millennium BCE Mesopotamia, from the Amorite collective identity in the Middle Bronze Age to the Kassite and Assyrian cultural-political systems in the Late Bronze Age. To ensure its feasibility and not harming its completeness, the project focuses on table vessels (plates, carinated bowls, shouldered beakers, tall-necked beakers) and storage containers (jars with band rim), selected on the base of their diffusion in Mesopotamia and their occurrence in funerary and administrative contexts, of primary importance to assess specific cultural traits and traditions in the use of ceramics. The selected material has been retrieved in northern and southern Mesopotamia in four selected sites, mentioned as case-studies, and from ISAC and Penn museums’ collections. The project challenges when the aforementioned ceramic types spread, why they were widely attested, what their cultural and economic meaning was, how they were adopted in local traditions. TECHNE aims at bringing together the available fragmentary evidence and the analyzing data synchronically and diachronically by means of an interdisciplinary method combining anthropological approaches, natural sciences (petrography), and Digital Humanities analytical tools (Geographic Information System). The host institution, UP1– UMR ArScAn, will provide training in GIS mapping, microscope observation and material culture anthropology. Research collaborations with top-ranking scholars in the lab and in other institutions will provide me with a broadening of my skillset and of my network for further collaborations. In the project's last quarter, I will organize a workshop involving prominent scholars researching the project’s topics. TECHNE will be disseminated in scientific conferences and publications, as well as in the local communities in Iraq and Europe.