Working on the potter’s wheel: technological insights into Mycenaean pottery production

Abstract

The present paper deals with the wheelbased manufacturing technology employed for the production of pottery in central Laconia and the Argolid during the Mycenaean palatial period (roughly 1450–1200 BCE). The main set of data comes from the combined macroscopic and X-Ray analyses on pottery discovered at the palace of Ayios Vasileios in Laconia. Additional material of Argive/NE Peloponnesian provenance was examined as well for comparative reasons. The latter comes from Tiryns and Tall Zirā‘a, Jordan. Although growing evidence suggests that wheelforming techniques can be more variable than one would have traditionally thought, very few studies have examined the use of the potter’s wheel during the Mycenaean period and the underlying craft behaviours. Our study suggests that the knowledge of this tool in the Argolid and central Laconia was not associated with the wheel-throwing technique but the so-called wheel-coiling, and was based on similar levels of expertise. However, we can also observe variations between these two regions, especially in the ways of mastering the rotary device within the forming process. The manufacture of the wheelmade pottery in Mycenaean Greece implies thus a complex technological phenomenon that involved different potting communities participating in the social and economic organization of palatial pottery production.