Since the season at Polis ended, I have been thinking a lot about the Cypriot Red Slip (CRS) forms we analyzed this year. Bill Caraher reflected a bit on this last week in his blog. The number of CRS sherds we discovered was pretty amazing, and has provided us a large corpus of data that offers several different avenues of research. What was especially intriguing was the number of large vessels we saw, particularly large basins with an unusual rim (Form 11). I have been reading various articles and site reports to see if I can find parallels. There is a lot of debate going on about CRS with scholars trying to modify the dating of the ware (both earlier and later), and trying to determine the location of the manufacturing location. Recent work in Turkey has located several manufacturing centers, but these locations manufactured dishes and bowls – not basins. As Brandon Olson remarked at dinner one night, the larger vessels would not travel well and were probably manufactured locally. The problem is that a kiln for the manufacture of CRS has not been found on Cyprus yet, much less near Polis. There has not been a large-scale archaeological survey conducted recently in the larger Polis region, and it raises questions as to what might be found if one was conducted.
RSM
Ancient History Ramblings 