KURDISTAN, IRAQ—Two kilns have been unearthed at a well-preserved pottery workshop within the Dinka Settlement Complex in northern Iraq, according to a statement released by the University of Tübingen. The workshop has been dated to between 1200 and 800 B.C. Silvia Amicone of the University of Tübingen and her colleagues found raw clay, finished pottery, kiln linings, kiln fill, and traces of fuel used to heat the kilns during firing. They also spotted other possible pottery workshops in the surrounding settlement using geophysical analysis. “This uniformity in manufacturing not only suggests a shared tradition and a strong collective production identity, but also indicates a degree of coordination that may reflect highly organized workflows and institutional oversight in the management of resources, labor, and technical knowledge, demonstrating a level of complexity that was unexpected for the region at the time,” Amicone concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in the Journal of Archaeological Science. For more on ceramic analysis, go to "Tyrrhenian Traders."
