Coloured Ceramics of the Caliphs: A new look at the Abbasid pottery finds from the old Gözlükule excavations at Tarsus

Abstract

The large body of Abbasid ceramics (c. mid 8th – mid 10th

century) that this research has examined was found on the multi-period

settlement hill (Gözlükule) in Tarsus (southern Turkey) during the 1935-1948

excavations directed by Prof. Hetty Goldman (Princeton Institute of Advanced Study, USA). In early Islamic times, Tarsus was one of the most important garrison cities on the militarized Arab-Byzantine frontier, from where the Muslims raided into Byzantium. By focusing on the early Islamic phase of the Gözlükule mound through the pottery evidence from this period, this study has sought to trace archaeologically the impact of the Arab occupation in this site. The key question of this thesis was how and to what extent the ceramics of the old Gözlükule excavations could be compared with the production, distribution and consumption of similar pottery finds from other sites of the Abbasid period. Being the first full archaeological discussion of this ceramic corpus, this study has not only shown substantial improvement on previous work but it has also covered an important gap for Islamic archaeology in southern Turkey.