Cilician LB-Iron Age Red Slip Ware
Turkey/Eastern Mediterranean
ca. 12th to 7th century BCE
Iron Age I, Iron Age II
General Information
Red Slip Ware is common among the decorated wares of Iron Age Cilicia. Vessels are characteristically coated with a red slip.
During the Middle Iron Age, the Red Slip Ware is closely related to the Black-on-Red Variety of Cypro-Cilician Painted Wares and Fluted Ware as they share some bowl-shapes and seemingly the production technique of the red slip.
As vessels with a red slip had been common throughout the Bronze Age of Cilicia, the local development of the ware as opposed to contacts with Anatolian, Syrian, Cypriot or Levantine Red Slip wares cannot be estimated yet.
The most common color of the red slip is 10R 5/6. The thickness of the slip is varying. The surface of the slip can be burnished.
The color of the slip can cary to a dark brown or grey due to a different firing atmosphere. As these vessels are rather common, the variation might have been intentional. But as all other technical characteristics are shared with the red slip ware the two variations shall be trated as one for the time being.
The predominant vessel shape is a shallow rounded bowl with unaccentuated rounded or flattened rim. The bowl can have a horizontal handle or double-handle attached to the rim. Less common are small jugs with one or two handles.
Vessels are wheel-made from a medium local fabric with mixed medium-fine mineral inclusions.
In the later phases, i.e. 8th-7th century, more small, thin-walled vessels are being produced from a fine, un...
Sirkeli Höyük (Turkey/Eastern Mediterranean)
