Cooking fabric recipes: an interdisciplinary study of Cypriot cooking pots of the Late Bronze Age

Abstract

This paper discusses the first results of an interdisciplinary research project on ancient cooking pots from Cyprus contextualising this ceramic corpus within its social and historical milieu. Late Bronze Age cooking pots from the urban centre of Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, and the contemporary, short-lived settlements of Pyla-Kokkinokremos and Maa-Palaeokastro were examined through typological classifications, fabric composition and the technology of their production, to determine technological and socioeconomic change. Ceramic petrography was employed for the mineralogical and technological characterisation of the samples.The inter-type and inter-site compositional and technological variability were assessed with regard to regional geology, the production and distribution of cooking pots, the character of the settlements, possible links among these settlements and other regional centres, and the historical and social processes at the final stages of the Late Bronze Age.