Chipped stone: obsidian

Chipped stone tools become a much less important part of the archaeological study from the 3rd millennium onwards compared to earlier periods, although in fact they continued to be used extensively in many regions, and our poor knowledge about them is in many instances a result of a lack of investigation rather than a lack of evidence. Most chipped stone appears to have been sourced locally, however, so, whilst a detailed study of form types and selected materials might reveal networks at the micro-scale, it is only really obsidian, known to have been transported over much larger distances, which is potentially relevant for the discussion of macro-scale routes of interaction and exchange.

Obsidian is a volcanic glass ranging in colour from opaque black to almost transparent grey, with, depending on the particular source and therefore chemical impurities, slight greenish or reddish tints. Sources of obsidian are fairly restricted in distribution and these sources can be characterized by various scientific techniques (see e.g. Gratuze 1999). Major or well-known sources of obsidian include those in Cappadocia (e.g. Acıgöl, Nenezi Dağ, Hasan Dağ, Göllü Dağ), eastern Anatolia (Bingöl, Nemrut Dağı⁴⁵, Süpheli Dağ), various locales in Transcaucasia (see Badalyan, Chataigner and Kohl 2004; Cauvin et al. 1998) and Melos and Giali in the Aegean (see Figure 4.9). The most intensive use of obsidian belongs primarily to earlier periods (especially the Neolithic and Chalcolithic) during which this material travelled considerable distances. The high extent to which obsidian may be characterized and its widespread use offer many insights into long-distance exchange of materials in these early periods (Cann and Renfrew 1964; Williams-Thorpe 1995). It also has provided evidence for the configuration of regional social networks (e.g. Healey 2007). While there are certain zones in which obsidian from particular sources tends to dominate the obsidian repertoire (cf. Figure 4.9), individual pieces of obsidian from different sources turn up in different zones, suggesting a complex pattern of exchange during the Neolithic (A. Sherratt 2005).

Obsidian continues to be used into the 4th, 3rd and 2nd millennia for blades, microliths, beads and even vessels⁴⁶ in certain regions. In Mesopotamia, obsidian was counted amongst the most important precious stones for beads to accompany gold: the others were lapis lazuli, carnelian and calcite/alabaster (Moorey 1999, 70).

Unfortunately, the obsidian objects from these later periods have received much less investigation, so our understanding of the circulation of this material is less than clear. It also remains unclear whether obsidian continued to be transported

45 The volcanic Nemrut Dağı that is next to Tatvan, by Lake Van, not the identically named mountain with which it is frequently confused that lies between Malatya and Adıyaman and has the massive artificial tumulus-like funerary for Antiochus I Theos of Commagene.

46 Including, famously, the obsidian-marble ‘chalice’ from Tell Brak dating to the early 4th millennium (Oates et al. 2007); a bowl from the Puabi’s grave, from Royal Cemetery of Ur (Figure 4.10) – now in the British Museum (ME 121690); with later examples of obsidian vessels or fragments from Tell Malyan, Iran and including at Acemhöyük and Kültepe in central Anatolia (dating the early second millennium BC) (Moorey 1999, 70).

over long distances as a high value item, as it appears to have done during previous periods, or whether by the 3rd and 2nd millennia it has simply become one of a number of different local resources (valued simply like other chipped stone), as its technological and social functions were increasingly subsumed by other materials, particularly metals. The apparent rising trend of using obsidian to make vessels (see, for example, Figure 4.10), especially during the 2nd millennium BC hints at a change in the perceived social and functional emphasis of the material through time (Coqueuegniot 1998).

4.5.1 Obsidian use in eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia

In eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus, obsidian represents an important material for stone-based tools into the Bronze Age, despite the presumed emergence of a wide-ranging metal toolkit (see Section 5.3.1). Analysis of samples of obsidian from Late Chalcolithic levels of Arslantepe (91% of which were arrowheads), dating to the late 4th millennium has shown them to be predominantly sourced from a variety of eastern Anatolian sources, though with some from Cappadocian sources (Taddeucci et al. 1975). The obsidian blades from Early Bronze Age levels at Sos Höyük (Sagona et al. 1996, 38, 47-48, 49) do not seem to have particularly distinctive forms (being characterized by a wide variety of rough shapes and microliths) and there is no obvious functional differentiation (Figure 4.11).

Nearby sites like Karaz, Pulur and Güzelova contain similar assemblages. Sagona suggests the obsidian from Sos Höyük comes from alluvial pebbles in the local

Figure 4.9. Distribution of some major obsidian sources across Near East with broad zones, served predominantly by these sources during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (cf. Frahm 2010).

See Appendix D.1.1 for list of obsidian sources. These zones represent very broad generalizations of a much more complex dataset. Sites relevant to obsidian use in the 3rd millennium BC and mentioned in the text are also marked.

Pasinler region, rather than having been procured from distant major obsidian sources. If this is true, it suggests that obsidian is simply a local resource, and perhaps not considered a high-value traded commodity.

The evidence from Tell Mozan (ancient Urkesh) confirms that the use of obsidian is not restricted to the highland regions (Frahm 2010; Frahm and Feinberg 2013a; 2013b). Here a substantial corpus of obsidian blades has been identified in layers dating to the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. The provenance analysis undertaken by Frahm and Feinberg on this corpus reveals a relatively complex mixture of sources, with the majority of the material apparently from eastern Anatolian sources, dominately particularly by sources at Nemrut Dağ and Bingöl, but small numbers of examples from other sources including 3 samples from Cappadocia (Göllü Dağ) suggesting a wide network (Frahm 2010, 658)⁴⁷. Whilst this work shows obsidian continuing to be used in a North Syrian urban

47 Of course we cannot say for sure how long these distant obsidian pieces were in circulation, or what the biography of their travels really were:- for example, it is possible that obsidian cores or flakes were sourced from Cappadocian centuries or millennia earlier than their final use and deposit at Tell Mozan.

Figure 4.10. Obsidian bowl from the grave of Queen Puabi, Royal Cemetery of Ur, Early Dynastic period, about 2600-2400 BC (photo:

© Trustees of the British Museum, #AN32556001).

Figure 4.11. Examples of obsidian artefacts from 3rd millennium levels at Sos Höyük (Sagona, Sagona and Özkorucuklu 1995, 209, fig.

12).

This image is not available in the e-book version for licencing reasons; see the British Museum online photo catalogue for images.

context, it is difficult to know how representative this is of wider Syrian and Mesopotamian contexts, in the absence of other investigations (cf. work in the east Mediterranean and Aegean, e.g. Carter 2008). It should perhaps be remembered that Tell Mozan has often been claimed to have had a special relationship with the eastern Anatolian highlands, for example in the presence of small amounts of Kura-Arax ware, a presumed role in the metals trade from the north and portable andirons which bear similarities to the Early Transcaucasian types (Kelly-Buccellati 2004; though cf. wide distribution of different types of andirons or ‘fire stands’ in 3rd millennium Rahmstorf 2011, 273-277). The presence of so much obsidian may therefore relate to Tell Mozan’s particular location near to highland communities. Whilst this relationship has often been tied up, unhelpfully, with the identity and origins of the Hurrians, who according to contemporary texts become a powerful group in the Mitanni and Hittite cultural spheres during the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, it is clear that northern connections are very important, and it least suggests that obsidian was still valuable enough to be worth sourcing from several hundred kilometres by some members of the Mozan urban community.

One nebulous thread of evidence hints that obsidian may have continued to play a symbolic aesthetic role in Chalcolithic and Early Bronze societies in Transcaucasia and eastern Anatolia. The region is characterized in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia by Arax or Early Transcaucasian pottery. The later Kura-Arax pottery is defined by red-black burnished aesthetic, with incised decoration, which could be compared to a metallic aesthetic, perhaps indicating metal (copper and/or silver) skeuomorphism (see Section 5.6.5). However, this dual red-black colouring appears to have developed later than the earliest Kura-Arax vessels in the southern Caucasus – the dominance of red-black colour combinations is a later trend, apparently a result of interaction with central or eastern Anatolian pottery traditions (Palumbi 2008b, 205, 311, passim). The earliest vessels are instead mostly black-burnished or very dark brown. It is possible that the aesthetic of a dark or black-burnished colour for this pottery (and indeed for the new material of metal) may have been derived from earlier aesthetic colour schemes, for which obsidian offers the obvious model⁴⁸. Whilst this is difficult to prove, there is one possible piece of evidence that could promote this interpretation further: namely the presence of obsidian as one constituent inclusion in Kura-Arax pottery from at least two Transcaucasian sites (Iserlis et al. 2010, 254-255)⁴⁹. Of course, this may simply be related to the local geology in Transcaucasia, where obsidian fragments are a common constituent of sand matrices, rather than intentional addition of crushed volcanic glass; and obsidian was not found in the paste of the equivalent Khirbet Kerak ware ceramics from Bet Yerah⁵⁰ (instead basalt was present, also

48 Both metals and pottery can, after all, take on a variety of colours depending on their production or treatment. The black-burnished pottery may be a direct reference to obsidian, or filtered through black-coloured metal objects.

49 Iserlis et al., by contrast, compare the intense attention to detail given to surface treatment on Kura-Arax and Khirbet Kerak wares to a ‘skin’ (see more explicit theoretical discussion in Iserlis 2009, 191-192) – and it is tempting to take their observation literally and speculate whether the Kura-Arax aesthetic may relate to leather (another skin with intense surface treatment) rather than obsidian or metal.

50 The site whose alternative name, Khirbet Kerak, provided the type assemblage for this ware. Note other alternative spellings and names: Beth Yerah, Al-Sinnabra.

black, but not shiny). However, the possibility deserves further investigation with more technological studies following Iserlis et al.

4.5.2 The lack of obsidian in central Asia

In contrast to Caucasian early farming sites, obsidian forms either none or only a very small fraction of the stone tool repertoire even during the local Neolithic in western Central Asia (Korobkova 1981). Obsidian blades have been found in certain zones of the site of Tepe Sang-e Caxmaq (Masuda 1974), for example, though the material has not been fully analysed or published. But Djeitun stone tools are characterized only by flint, sandstone, schist and diorite (Berezkin et al.

1993, 335). Obsidian is likewise absent at Anau (Hiebert and Kurbansakhatov 2003, 89-93). The exchange networks that supplied a wide area of the western Near East during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic from highland sources in Transcaucasia and Anatolia, thus do not seem to have extended into Central Asia.

This is despite the fact that the assemblage of domesticates of the early farming Djeitun culture, appear to come directly from southwest Asia (i.e. the ‘Fertile Crescent’), rather than via south Asia (Berezkin et al. 1993).

This negative evidence is mentioned here to highlight the changing nature of interconnections between Central Asia and the communities to the west and south from the 6th to the 3rd millennia BC. Whilst domesticates must have been imported (perhaps through a slow ‘wave-of-advance’ process), a favourite material with both practical and symbolic value (i.e. obsidian) was not, and local materials were used. This suggests a very low-level of interaction between Central Asia and the west. Instead, sometime in the 4th millennium, stones with social functions of adornment rather than manipulation (i.e. lapis lazuli, carnelian and turquoise) began to travel in the opposite direction (from Central Asia and Afghanistan to the west) – but as yet, we do not know for what material they were being exchanged.

In this context it is also interesting to note that the pottery repertoire of Central Asia almost never includes black or dark burnished surfaces, though black painted lines are not uncommon. The early part of the Namazga sequence include mostly reds and whites, with various painted patterns, perhaps related to textiles (see Section 6.6.3), and the plain wares of Namazga V and VI, which appear to have been inspired by metal prototypes (see Section 5.6.4), are light-coloured creams, reds and beiges. Whilst this could simply be a technical aspect of the clay, it could also suggest that the shiny black of obsidian never played a role in the social-colour symbolism/value system of Central Asian communities. This difference between eastern Anatolian (and a much wider area of the western part of the Near East) and Central Asia hints at long-lived traditions of colour preferences which survive through many other social transformations and manifest themselves in different materials.