Nothing is straight forward! Cultural Encounters at the Center of the East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface in the Late Bronze Age
Abstract
The concept of an East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface, introduced 20 years ago by Penelope Mountjoy, has stood the test of time and proved to be a good basis for discussion of not only the decorated Mycenaean pottery in the area but also of the local ceramic traditions. The Interface, stretching from Troy to Rhodes, was subdivided into Upper and Lower regions by Mountjoy, who recognized the existence of a distinctive Central region only at the very end of the Late Bronze Age.
In the present lecture, I explore the possibility that a Central region existed throughout the Late Bronze Age. In so doing, I describe what a Central region of the Interface potentially means geographically as well as materially.
Discussed will be the islands of Psara and Chios, where concentration will be on a new evaluation of the Late Bronze Age sequence at the site of Emporio. This sequence will then be compared with those of sites on the adjacent Anatolian coast, most prominently the sites around the Izmir Bay and Çeşme-Bağlararası on the Karaburun Peninsula.
All of this will be placed in a broader context of developments in the Aegean and along the West Anatolian coast.