American Academy in Rome - Fautores Abstract

LOCAL POTTERY PRODUCTION IN PESSINUS (TURKEY)

Hugo Thoen

Pessinus was known in Antiquity as the oldest cult-center of the Phrygian goddess Cybele. The antique city-center is now located near and under the Turkish village of Ballihisar, some 140 km SW of Ankara.
Excavations undertaken by a Belgian team of Ghent University from 1967 onwards revealed an important religious site in the heart of the Hellenistic/Roman city and contemporary monumental cemeteries on the surrounding hills and plateau's. One of these, erected on the so-called 'Acropolis' site near the northern suburbs, was later transformed into a Byzantine fortress.
Apart from textile industry known from literary tradition, archaeological research brought to light important pottery activities. Evolution can be traced from closed find-complexes, dating from the Late Phrygian period (ca 400 B.C.) onwards till the Early Byzantine era (ca 600 A.D.). In this contribution we will present some marked steps in thousand years of local pottery production in Pessinus:

The oldest traditions were revealed from research of the temple area in the inner city:
1° Late Phrygian complex from ca 400 B.C.
2° Late Hellenistic building activities around 100 B.C.
3° The Roman imperial temple complex built under Tiberius (ca 30-35 A.D.)

The more recent finds derive from the 'Acropolis' excavations
4° Late Hellenistic to Early Roman cemetery (ca 100 B.C. to 100 A.D.)
5° Late Roman cemetery (ca 300-500 A.D.)
6° Early Byzantine fortress (ca. 500-600/700 A.D.).

Production includes a wide variety of earthenware forms such as luxury wares (color-coated, sigillata imitations, red slip), different kinds of common wares (a.o. pithoi), lamps, brick and tile etc. Local origin of the raw material was proved by mineralogical analysis of the clay. Sediments of sandy silt containing typical mineralogical assemblage have been found recently in a boring situated at the mouth of the Tolagil river, about 2.5 km SW of the ancient city-center.