General Information

Fluted Ware vessels occur regularly in the Iron Age assemblages of the Middle Iron Age in Cilicia, though they are not as common as other decorated wares like Red Slip or Cypro-Cilician Painted Wares. They are characterized by a decorative pattern of parallel vertical or slightly diagonal incisions or grooves on the lower body of the vessel.

Fluted wares were part of the Late Bronze Age ceramics repertoire of Cilicia but those examples differ in quality/precision and cease in the LBA-IA transitional period. The Iron Age Fluted Ware seems to be part of the Eastern Mediterranean pottery koiné that also influenced the painted wares.

The characteristic decoration is a set of parallel vertical or slightly diagonal incisions or grooves that runs around the lower body of the vessel. The upper end of this group is typically bordered by one or more horizontal incision(s) or groove(s).

The most common shapes are (1.) a small jug with one handle  (2.) a rounded bowl with unaccentuated, flattened rim. The rounded bowl is a shared vessel shape with Red Slip Ware.

All vessels are wheel-made and can be coated with a thin black or a thick dark brown to red slip. Two groups seem to have been manufactured differently but shall be treated as one ware family for the common, very distinct decorative characteristic.

• The group with a thick red or brown slip has the same appearance as Red Slip Ware. They show similar temper (mixed medium-fine mineral inclusions) and firing colors (tan, dark brown, brown-reddish) as the common local  plain, painted and red slipped wares and are thus probably also made from the Cilicia/Ceyhan plain calcareous Petrofabric.
  
  
  
  • Some examples without a slip were fired to a dark red, brown or grey color and often burnished for a lustrous surface.
  
  
  
  


• The examples with a thin black slip show a sandy, yellow-whiteish matrix and no mineral inclusions. This technology seems to have been applied mainly to closed vessel shapes. (This ware is similar to Cypriot Matt Black (Iron Age) and the examples from Cilicia might have been imported from the island.

Bucchero Ware

Black Slip Ware

Sirkeli Höyük (Turkey/Eastern Mediterranean)