EBA Pottery from Rhodes

Excavations at Asomatos on Rhodes provided a rich repertory of pottery, which shows a complexity in correlation between shapes, wares, and decorative models. All the vases come from the five spaces/rooms of a megaroid building. Their location in situ allowed us an explanation of their use inside, as well as outside the house. Therefore the most prominent and fine of the pottery such as table ware-jugs, duck-vases askoi, wide mouthed pithoid amphorae, tea-pots and samples of pyxides were located in the middle room of three continuous spaces at the north side of the building, though closed vessels, both jugs and amphorae for storing mostly liquids, were kept in the small room at the north-western corner of the building. Most of the table-ware open shapes were found fallen along the south wall of the large main room; a large cooking pot was found fallen and badly broken near the hearth of the same room.

Comprehensive study of Asomatos ceramics elucidates not only many aspects of every-day life within the settlement and society, but it also concerns the intra-site organization. Moreover this pottery consists of a well defined assemblage closely associated with other activities and concerning social patterns and exchange with neighbouring areas. Recently discovered EB pottery from Asomatos is culturally related to the relevant pottery from Seraglio on Kos, Vathy on Kalymnos and Heraion on Samos, Neverthless the role of this culture in the wider context of the Aegean, Anatolia and Greek mainland is so far unknown. The currently available data from Asomatos allow us to define a picture of the changes that have taken place at the end of the Early Bronze Age suggesting an alternative explanation for the appearance of Anatolian elements in the Aegean.