Assyrian pottery kilns

A remarkable find concerns the remnants of five pottery ovens. The ovens were used between 1230 and 1190 BC. So far, few pottery ovens are known from that period.

The ovens were built of mud bricks and consisted of two chambers: one underground chamber in which the fire burnt and one above ground where the pottery that was to be fired was placed. Between the chambers a floor was constructed which rested on two or three mud-brick arches, depending on the size of the oven. The floor had round holes in regular distances to let the heat through. The pottery was stacked onto the floor. The ovens easily reached firing temperatures up to 850-100 degrees Celsius.

The ovens have different dimensions. The largest oven is 3 m long and 2.5 m wide. The underground fire chamber is more than 2 m deep. One or two narrow, half-round openings give access to the fire chamber. Through these openings fuel could be brought in and the ashes could be removed afterwards. The openings also provided sufficient oxygen during the process of firing, necessary to keep the fire going.

For safety reasons most ovens were placed within enclosures made of mud-brick walls. Around the ovens there were also a number of small buildings that undoubtedly functioned as potters’ workshops. In one of the workshops we found dozens of small bowls on the floor.

We also found unfired bowls and jars in the workshops, ready to be placed into the oven. There were also a number of wasters, including one large completely misshapen jar. With this kind of waster a whole lot of things may have went wrong during the manufacturing process. Maybe the pots were stacked in the oven in a wrong manner, or the vessels began sliding.

Usually wasters are discarded. Who would want to have them? In the case of the large misshapen jar it seems as if a useful function was found after all. The jar was standing against a wall on the floor of the workshop, among the masses of small bowls and other vessels.

In one of the workshops we also found two stone wheels, each approximately 30 cm in diameter. The potter used the wheels for throwing the pottery. We already found a similar potters’ wheel at Tell Sabi Abyad in an earlier season of excavation.

On the whole it is obvious that 3000 years ago people were quite busy making pottery at Tell Sabi Abyad. Pottery had become a real industry by then. The potters were true professionals, manufacturing pottery day in, day out. The potters appear to have travelled as well, from one settlement to the other. In an earlier season of excavation we found a cuneiform text with an urgent request to send the potter, as ‘there aren’t any vessels left to serve our guests with”.

   Tell Sabi Abyad in the late Neolithic, ca. 6600-6000 BC
   Tell Sabi Abyad at about 6000-5900 BC
   Tell Sabi Abyad in the Middle-Assyrian period, ca. 1230-1180 BC
   Assyrian pottery kilns
   Assyrian cylinder seals
   Assyrian burials
   Assyrian cuneiform texts