Late Bronze Age Painted Pottery Traditions at the Margins of the Hittite State

Late Bronze Age Painted Pottery Traditions at the Margins of the Hittite State is the result of a workshop organized by the editors at the 11th ICAANE held in Munich in 2018 with additional contributions presented by renowned scholars working on this topic. The Late Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East is generally marked by a massive decline in the occurrence of painted pottery and a clear dominance of plain ceramics. This is especially evident when looking at Anatolia. Here, the presence of simple undecorated ceramics is considered as the main distinguishing trait of the dominance of the Hittite State and its material culture. Nevertheless, at the margins of the empire, especially in Southern and South-Eastern as well as Northern Anatolia, painted ceramics are frequently attested and, during recent years, new findings have come to light from a number of excavations. However, a comprehensive analysis of this material has not yet been accomplished. The intent of this volume is to break through the boundaries usually imposed by the study of 2nd millennium BC pottery production in Anatolia and to reconstruct a comprehensive scenario concerning the appearance, evolution, and related historical meanings of these painted pottery traditions. To this end, 12 papers of leading specialists working on relevant material have been collected in this book offering, for the first time, the possibility of a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of painted pottery in the 2nd millennium BC.