Van Hellenistische tafelwaar tot Romeins keizerlijke en vroeg-Byzantijnse Sagalassos Red Slip Ware: een diachronische studie naar fijn aardewerk uit Sagalassos (ZW-Anatolië) door middel van een archeometrische en experimentele benadering

This thesis presents a diachronic examination of tableware production at the site of Sagalassos (SW Anatolia), from Hellenistic to Early Byzantine times. Located on the slopes of the Western Taurus Mountain range, Sagalassos was involved in a long tradition of ceramic production going back to late Achaemenid times and thus offers the opportunity to examine local tableware production in a longue durée perspective. Building upon previous research on ceramics from Sagalassos, this thesis reconstructs the local ceramic technologies over time shedding light on different aspects of their chaînes opératoires, ranging from the procurement of clay raw materials to slip preparation. This long-term examination involved the archaeometric study of a large number of samples (n=172) of table wares dating to the different chronological phases of the site's occupational history and belonging to the characteristic wares of each period. Τhin section ceramic petrography and bulk geochemical analysis using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) were employed for the characterisation of the ceramic bodies of the samples. Their associated slip layers were examined in terms of microstructure and chemical composition using Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (SEM-EDS). In addition, an experimental approach using clays from the territory of Sagalassos was also employed offering new insights into clay refinement processes and slip preparation techniques for the production of Sagalassos Red Slip Ware (SRSW). The results demonstrate a high degree of continuity of the potting tradition of Sagalassos over time, at least concerning some aspects of the chaîne opératoire, and reflect the presence of a long-lasting, established ceramic tradition at the site which is based on the potters' technological and empirical knowledge of the properties of the locally available raw materials. SRSW appears as a continuation of the pre-existing Hellenistic tradition in slipped pottery following similar technological choices in terms of the clay raw materials used. For over a millennium of local production and despite changes in the location of the ceramic workshops over time, the potters of Sagalassos consistently selected the clays from the Çanaklı valley for the ceramic body of tableware and a different type of clay for slip production, possibly deriving from the weathering of the ophiolitic bedrock at the site. Although locally produced tableware followed the general trends in pottery style of the Eastern Mediterranean during the different chronological periods into question forming part of a ceramic koine, the technology of their production appears as a continuation of a long-lasting potting tradition. At the same time, the identification of additional fabrics in the material under study which are made using different raw materials than the mass-produced SRSW, albeit their macroscopic similarity to SRSW, suggests the possible presence of other eastern sigillata workshops in accordance with the concept of ceramic koine. Using the site of Sagalassos as a case-study, this research has shown the importance of the analytical examination of pottery in a longue durée perspective in order to reconstruct ceramic technologies over time and obtain a more comprehensive understanding of aspects of ceramic production during changing sociopolitical contexts.