Bottle Shaped Vessels in Anatolia and the Syrian Bottle

Year 2018, Issue: 21, 56 - 75, 20.12.2018

Esra Alp

Abstract

3rd millennium BC is a very important period in which relations
between Anatolia and Syria-Mesopotamia intensified and impacted the development
of civilizations directly. With these relations, trade activities increased and
new pottery vessel types resulting from intercultural interaction appeared. One
of these vessel types consists of 'Bottle' shaped vessels used for keeping and
transporting liquid materials. In this period Syrian Bottles, which are
distinguished from these vessel types by their form and labeling, have been a
noteworthy group and in this context the issue of their import from N. Syria to
Anatolia and why they were labeled as such has often been discussed.

However, what is essentially thought-provoking about the
Anatolian bottle shape repertoire is that relevant publications discuss these
vessels using general definitions such as 'Bottle', 'Syrian bottle' or 'Alabastron'
without establishing a typology within the group; that is, whether Anatolia had
a bottle form of its own.

A secondary question about these vessel
forms that are generally considered to be imported is whether Anatolia was
familiar with bottle shaped vessels before Syrian bottles, or whether it also
had original forms within its own vessel repertoire that were used together
with the aforementioned imported forms.

Keywords

Anatolia, Syria, Bottle, Syrian Bottle

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