1993/11/01 by A. Leonard, Michael Hughes, Andrew Middleton +1 · 27 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Ancient Egypt and Archaeology #Ancient Near East History #Ancient history #Archaeology #Archaeology and Historical Studies #Bronze #Bronze Age #Geography #History #Mainland #Stirrup
paper · doi:10.1017/s0068245400015902
published in The Annual of the British School at Athens 88, 105-123 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1993/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This paper presents the results of a project designed to investigate the techniques used to make late bronze age Aegean stirrup-jars and to determine whether the identified techniques were influenced by regional-cultural factors. The project was initiated by the need to address the question of whether 12th-cent. BC stirrup-jars from Tell es-Sa'idiyeh in the Jordan valley, apparently of local clay, were made by local potters or by immigrant Mycenaeans. The stirrup-jars studied comprised examples from Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, Gezer, the Greek mainland, Aegina, Rhodes, Cyprus, Caria, and Egypt. Xeroradiography was used to elucidate variations in construction techniques, and the findings were tested by practical experimentation. The observations indicate that there is a degree of linkage between the techniques of manufacture and cultural background. In order to make the discussion of production techniques more secure, neutron activation analyses were also carried out; these provided information on the place of manufacture as opposed to the find-spot, and have also thrown some interesting light on patterns of trade in the Mediterranean area towards the end of the Late Bronze Age.