Part 10 (1/2)

Pottery.

All wheel-made but rough: light red or buff faced of reddish clay: decoration rare and only in simple zigzags or waves in reddish-brown pigment: long-stemmed vases of 'champagne-gla.s.s' form are common (VIII, Fig. 4): rarely a creamy slip is applied to the red clay.

(b) Later period.

Cist-graves apart from houses, in cemeteries.

Implements.

Long narrow celts often riveted: spear-heads, leaf-shaped or triangular (IX, Figs. 3, 6, 10): axe-heads with socket, swelling blade and curved cutting edge: pins both 'toggle' and unpierced, straight and bent over.

Pottery.

Wheel-made, well potted, and commonly _ring-burnished_, the process beginning at the base of a vase and climbing spirally: little painted decoration: face usually dusky brown over pinkish body clay, but red and yellow-white faced wares also found: shapes, mostly bowls, open and half closed: ring feet, but no handles to vases: only occasionally lug-ears (IX, Figs. 1,2,3,5,6). Rims well turned over belong to the latest period, in which elaborate ring-burnis.h.i.+ng is common.

Beads, &c.

Diamond-shaped, with incised decoration, in clay or stone, common.

Pendants, &c., of sh.e.l.l, lapis lazuli, cornelian, crystal. Cylinders, of rude design like Babylonian First Dynasty, in stone and bone.

Spindle-whorls in steat.i.te and clay.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION VIII: SYRIAN POTTERY]

III. Iron Age (Late Hitt.i.te).

To this belong the ma.s.s of 'Hitt.i.te' remains in Syria. Graves are unlined pits, with urn burials, the corpse having been cremated.

Cylinders, &c., showing traces of fire, will belong to this Age.

Implements and weapons.

Arrow-heads of bronze: spear-heads of bronze and iron: axes, knives, and picks of iron (miniature models occur in graves): daggers of iron. _Fibulae_, of bronze, semicircular and triangular (as in Asia Minor) (IX, Figs. 4, 9, 11): plain armlets of bronze: pins, spatulae, &c., of bronze: thin applique ornaments. Bronze bowls (gilt) with gadroon or lotus ornament (moulded) in later period. Steat.i.te censers, in form of a cup held by a human hand, are not uncommon (IX, Fig. 7).

Pottery.

Tall narrow-mouthed urns, bath-shaped vessels, and bell-kraters common (VIII, Fig. 10): trefoil-mouth _oenochoae_ and _hydriae_; also _amphorae_ (VIII, Fig. 7).

In earlier period, white or drab slipped surface with geometric patterns (rarely rude birds) in black. In later period, pinkish glaze with geometric patterns in black-brown, concentric circles being a common motive. Tripod bowls in unslipped 'kitchen' ware (VIII, Fig.

8). Blue or greenish glazed albarelli, with white, brown, or yellow bands, occur (as in Rhodes).

Figurines.

Drab clay, painted with red or black bands and details. Two types: (a) Hors.e.m.e.n; (b) G.o.ddesses of columnar shape, often with flower headdresses, and sometimes carrying a child.

Seals, &c.

Scarabs with designs of Egyptian appearance: cylinders, steat.i.te or (more commonly) glazed paste, lightly and often scratchily engraved: hard stone seals finely engraved: flattened spheroids in steat.i.te with Hitt.i.te symbols on both faces, inscriptions being often garbled.

Inscriptions.

Most of those in Hitt.i.te script, both relieved and incised, found in Syria, are of this Age, but chiefly of the earlier part of it (cf.

Ill.u.s.tration VI). Those in Semitic characters begin in this Age; and to its later part (8th-7th cents.) belong important Aramaic inscriptions, e.g. the Bar-Rekub monuments of Sinjerli (Shamal). See tables of letter-forms appended to Palestine section, Ill.u.s.trations X & XI.