Cosmopolitanism, communality and the appropriation of Mycenaean pottery in western Anatolia

Abstract

AbstractThe presence of imported and locally produced Mycenaean pottery in western Anatolia has long caught the attention of scholars, and various explanatory models have been proposed to explain the apparent attractiveness of the pottery. In most cases, however, emphasis is placed on the (stylistic) differences between Mycenaean pottery and the various local plain wares, and it is assumed that these differences were actively recognised by local communities and exploited in the formation of social identities. This paper, however, pilots a different approach that focuses not on the stylistic differences between Mycenaean pottery and the various Anatolian wares but on the (perceived) common ground(s) between them and argues that the attractiveness of Mycenaean, and previously Minoan pottery, lay not so much in its cultural origins or its ‘foreignness’ as in its potential to fit in with existing local material assemblages and enhance a sense of communality among cosmopolitan communities.