Special Volume 2 (2012), pp. 97–123
Maria Bianca D’Anna
Between Inclusion and Exclusion: Feasting and
Redistribution of Meals at Late Chalcolithic
Arslantepe (Malatya, Turkey)
in Susan Pollock (ed.), Between Feasts and Daily Meals:
Toward an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces
Edited by Gerd Graßhoff and Michael Meyer,
Excellence Cluster Topoi, Berlin
eTopoi ISSN 2192-2608
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Maria Bianca D’Anna
Between Inclusion and Exclusion: Feasting and
Redistribution of Meals at Late Chalcolithic
Arslantepe (Malatya, Turkey)
The redistribution of meals and feasting practices in the early centralized society of
Arslantepe VI A in south-eastern Anatolia (Late Chalcolithic 5 – 3300/3000 cal. BCE)
are presented in this paper as examples of commensal politics. Within the framework of
Mesopotamian early state formation, this period represents a stimulating case because of
the evidence of economic centralization, the significant amount of materials found in in
situ contexts, and the presence of functionally distinct architecture. Food and beverages
were the economic base of the power of elites; yet it is not only through feasting activities
that food enters Late Chalcolithic gastro-politics, but also through the meals disbursed in
exchange for labor.
Near Eastern Archaeology; Late Chalcolithic; Arslantepe; state formation; commensal
politics; redistribution of meals; feasting.
In diesem Beitrag werden die Redistribution von Mahlzeiten sowie Praktiken des Festefeierns
in der frühen zentralisierten Gesellschaft von Arslantepe VI A in Südostanatolien
(Spätes Chalkolithikum 5 – 3300-3000 cal. BCE) dargestellt. Diese sind Beispiele für
die Politisierung der Kommensalität. Im Rahmen der frühen Staatenbildung in Mesopotamien
stellt Arslantepe, wo wirtschaftliche Zentralisierung nachgewiesen ist und wo
erhebliche Mengen an in situ gefundenen Materialien sowie funktional unterschiedliche
Architektur zutage kamen, einen bemerkenswerten Fall dar. Essen und Trinken bildeten
die ökonomische Basis der Macht von Eliten; jedoch waren Lebensmittel nicht nur im
Rahmen von Festen Aspekte der spätchalkolitischen „gastro-politics“, sondern auch bei
Mahlzeiten, die im Austausch für Arbeitskraft ausgeteilt wurden.
Vorderasiatische Archäologie; Spätes Chalkolithikum; Arslantepe; Staatenbildung;
Gastro-politics; Redistribution von Mahlzeiten; Feste.
1 Introductory Remarks
One of the main tasks of archaeologists is to recover, analyze, and convey in discourse the
traces left by the past activities related to production, consumption, or intentional and
The commensality workshop held in Berlin was an inspiring occasion for sharing ideas and discussing
many issues from different points of view. Being invited to take part has been of great significance for
me. I would like to thank all the people who asked questions and planted the fruitful seed of doubts, in
particular Tamara Bray, Paul Halstead, Jason Kennedy, and Walther Sallaberger. To Francesca Balossi,
my thanks also go for the long lasting friendship based on reciprocal criticism and help. Most of all,
I am grateful to Susan Pollock not only for her invitation to the workshop but for the inspiring care
she addresses to my work. I thank Marcella Frangipane, who gave me the possibility of working on
Arslantepe materials, for teaching always with passion and scientific rigor. Sarah Wolferstan and Dan
Lawrence have patiently read drafts of this work, correcting my English. Paolo Guarino, Julie Randall,
Andrea Ricci and Manfred Tonch gave personal and scientific help. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Maresi
Starzmann, for her crucial and patient advice, and to the anonymous reviewer, for the effectiveness of
his/her comments. Mistakes and inaccuracies remain, of course, my own responsibility.
For the following images all rights are reserved, in contrast to eTopoi’s Creative Commons licence usage:
Figs. 1–11.
98 Maria Bianca D’Anna
unintentional discard of materials. Food preparation and consumption are both activities
that are fundamental to life, and it is thus unsurprising that their presence in the archaeological
record is ubiquitous. The conservation, processing, and consumption of food often
involve the use of ceramic containers and stone tools. Hence, along with unprocessed
foodstuffs or remains of consumed meals, archaeologists also analyze pottery and lithic assemblages
in order to assess food-related practices. The relationship between food management
strategies and social as well as cultural identities is also crucial in understanding how
a complex society is established and structured. In particular, to approach themes such as
social identity and the rise of complex society in terms of commensality gives researchers
the opportunity to integrate different analyses of diverse data sets. This approach is very
productive when studying early complex societies such as those in Mesopotamia during
the 4th millennium BCE, where food was the main economic basis of elite power.1
How,
where and among whom food was controlled and shared are all issues that have already
shown strong heuristic potential in this regard.2
The redistribution of meals and feasting
practices in the early centralized society of Arslantepe at the end of the 4th millennium
BCE, contemporary to the Late Uruk culture in Mesopotamia, are presented in this paper
as examples of commensal politics.3
For many decades, the profound interaction with the disciplines of anthropology and
sociology has led archaeologists to focus on social and cultural processes or practices
rather than on an idealistic reconstruction of the past. This is particularly true for the
burgeoning field of consumption studies. Consumption is not a passive act, rather it
implies choices and modes that shape economies and social relations: “To a rationalized,
expansionist and at the same time centralized, clamorous, and spectacular production corresponds
another production, called ‘consumption.’ The latter is devious [...], because
it [...] manifests itself [...] by its ways of using the products imposed by a dominant
economic order.”4
A vertical approach that on a theoretical level integrates the analyses
of systems of consumption with those of provision5
may also combine on an analytical
level these complex and interconnected social, economic, and cultural spheres. Moreover,
consumption as “the social process by which people construct the symbolically laden
material worlds they inhabit and which, reciprocally, act back upon them in complex
ways”6
is “an important arena of agentive social action, symbolic discourse, and cultural
transformation.”7
In particular, food and drink in the form of meals are in this perspective
“embodied material culture,”8
and they define social and cultural identities.
The anthropological and ethnographic literature on food and eating is vast,9
and
studies on food systems in ancient cultures are equally numerous, also because:
Looking at food [...] involves looking at the everyday as well as the exotic, the
special as well as the mundane. It involves us in a varying level of analysis, from
the individual, through the household, to the community (however defined) right
up to the world economic system.10
1 Frangipane 1996; Frangipane 2010b; Pollock 1999.
2 Bernbeck and Pollock 2002; Helwing 2003; Pollock 2003.
3 Dietler 2001; Bray 2003.
4 Certeau 1984, xii–xiii.
5 Fine and Leopold 1993.
6 Dietler 2010, 210.
7 Dietler 2010, 210.
8 Dietler 2006, 232.
9 See Messer 1984: it is interesting to note that while the various views expressed on food systems are
based on the analysis of their material, socio-cultural, and medical dimensions, ‘eating events’ are part of
research concerning cuisine tradition and ethnicity. Mintz and Du Bois updated Messer’s overview and
proposed a catalogue raisonné of ethnographic and anthropological works concerning food consumption
in contemporary societies. They particularly refer to “classic food ethnographies; single commodities
and substances; food and social change; food insecurity; eating and ritual; eating and identities; and
instructional materials” (Mintz and Du Bois 2002,101).
10 Caplan 1994, 5.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 99
Surely, “Food is not only a metaphor or vehicle of communication; a meal is a physical
event. [...] Food may be symbolic, but it is also as efficacious for feeding as roofs are for
shelter, as powerful for including as gates and doors.”11
People eat, but what, how, when,
and with whom are all cultural choices: the social and cultural milieu of food-related
activities is what marks these differences. In fact, all these activities are linked and depend
on social relations, constituting at the same time the occasion to substantiate, challenge,
and negotiate one’s self identity. In particular through feasts, as ritualized events in which
food and drinks are shared, food is a means of marking and reproducing social identities
and, potentially, inequality.
Commensality has been defined as simply a set of social interchanges that take place
between persons during meals, thus mainly focusing on how eating partners are chosen or
excluded.12
We can surely agree that commensality is based on the co-presence of people
who share food and drink at a certain time, space, and circumstance. But commensality
also implies a psychological and social interaction as well as a certain degree of emotional
impact and gratification; often it is based on more or less reciprocal hospitality; and
involves a sequence of actions that are more or less repetitively followed and which shape
people’s everyday life.13
Both ordinary and extraordinary commensal events appear to be
based on a certain degree of routine, while the presence of guests and the preparation of
special meals consumed in an out-of-the-ordinary setting or using special tableware may
distinguish extraordinary commensal occasions from everyday ones. Moreover, feasts
may involve a higher degree of performance, which is an important means to reinforce
the emotive involvement. During these events, food acts as a language and becomes also
“a way of communicating with our fellow human beings or even our deities.”14
The
routinized, structured, and highly symbolic dimensions of commensal practices place
them very close to rituals. Operating both at a cognitive and emotional level, rituals and
commensal practices may also have a strong homogenizing potential.
In a cultural universe that sets considerable store by a host of heterogeneous
persons, groups, forces, and powers, food [...] always raises the possibility of
homogenizing the actors linked by it, whether they are husband or wife, servant
or master, worshiper or deity.15
The context to which Appadurai refers is that of a contemporary Tamil Brahmin community
in southern India, where—he remarks—the complex system of rules concerning food
access and sharing may counteract the homogenizing power of food. Generally speaking,
these processes of homogenization may be real or unreal. In the latter case, asymmetrical
hospitality or public feasts may reproduce and reinforce social and economic inequality
through egalitarianism that is only apparent.
2 Mesopotamia in the Late Chalcolithic Period
Simplifying what is a hotly debated topic in Near Eastern archaeology, during the 4th
millennium BCE the plain of southern Mesopotamia witnessed the emergence of the
first cities and state societies, characterized by a hierarchically organized political system,
monumental architecture, new technological achievements, highly standardized pottery,
bureaucracy, and writing. In other, less euphemistic words, a highly unequal economic
and political system established itself in southern Mesopotamia and Susiana and a significant
number of sites dispersed over northern Mesopotamia, southeastern Anatolia,
11 Douglas 1984, 11.
12 Sobal 2000.
13 Certeau 1984.
14 Caplan 1994, 5.
15 Appadurai 1981, 507.
100 Maria Bianca D’Anna
and western Iran echoed the exceptional relevance of the southern Uruk culture. Due
to the political situation in Iraq over the last twenty years, archaeological research has
become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to undertake in the core of Mesopotamia,
leading to an increase in the number and intensity of projects conducted in other Near
Eastern countries, especially in Syria and Turkey. This has meant that there is an increasing
abundance of data concerning the regions commonly referred to as the periphery
of the Late Uruk world. This situation has also influenced the theoretical discussions
taking place, which converged mainly on the nature of the relationship between northern
and southern Mesopotamia from the Ubaid koinv  onwards, as well as on the originality
and dependency of the so-called northern Uruk phenomenon. Studies concerning the
social and political interactions in northern Mesopotamia between local Late Chalcolithic
communities and southern Mesopotamian newcomers have focused on the relationship
between material culture and social identities,16
and also on food-related practices, such
as butchering techniques and customs17
as well as on different ways of cooking that may
allow us to identify ethnic and cultural identities.18
In particular, Pearce considers the ensemble
of all activities concerning food and drink preparation, storing, and consumption
as highly routinized domestic behaviors deeply linked to social and ethnic identity.
The historiographical analyses of the Uruk period frequently turn to themes that are
central not only to Near Eastern archaeologists. The phenomenon of state formation
in Mesopotamia is the pristine case that has shaped the very concept of urban revolution
in archaeology.19
The debate has centered on, and still involves, several key topics:
how economic and social stratification became structured and established; what was the
prevailing mode of production; where the elite based its economic power (with staple
finance as opposed to wealth finance); how elites controlled large sectors of the population
and craft production; the level of independence of households; the role of ideology in
the formation and maintenance of social inequality and that of trade as a driving and
structuring force for the elite.
The main economic characteristic of the Mesopotamian Uruk state system has been
identified in the centralization of economic surplus and its redistribution in the form
of rations. Thus it is not only the control over production that structurally characterizes
the Late Uruk economy, but rather the control of labor—which becomes the alienation of
labor—that is the most significant outcome of a long process.20
Rations “sind regelmässige
Verabreichungen von Nahrung zum primären Lebensbedarf. Sie müssen scharf von Lohn
unterschieden werden, der auch oft in Form von Gerste ausbezahlt wurde.”21
A ration
represents a standardization of the basic needs of a person given in exchange for his or
her work. In his diachronic study of Near Eastern food ration systems Milano suggested
that rations originated in the Late Uruk period and that “questa straordinaria persistenza
istituzionale ha orientato gli studi piuttosto sugli aspetti strutturali del sistema che non
sui suoi aspetti evolutivi.”22
Thus, it may be more appropriate to refer to redistributive
economies and ration systems with a plural that would take into account not only geographical
and chronological but also structural shifts. At any rate, by the Late Uruk
period the distribution of meals, interpreted as an established ration system, has been
identified in both literary and archaeological sources.23
16 e. g. Helwing 2000; Stein 2000; Frangipane 2002.
17 Stein 1999, 145 and Fig. 7.14.
18 Pearce 1999; Stein 1999, 148–149.
19 Childe 1935; Childe 1950.
20 Frangipane 1996; Frangipane 2001; Bernbeck and Pollock 2002, 194–195.
21 Stol 2007, 264.
22 Milano 1989, 65; emphasis mine.
23 In fact “tanto il termine per ‘razione’ (še-ba, lett. ‘quota d’orzo’), quanto il termine per ‘prezzo’ (nì-sa10:
‘equivalente del valore’) sono infatti presenti fin dai più antichi testi mesopotamici” (Milano 1989, 66).
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 101
If the objectification of the economic redistributive mechanism is the ration system,
the objectification of the Late Uruk ration can be said to be the bevelled-rim bowls:
found in their hundreds, they are coarse, quickly fired, and mould-made containers with
a distinctive rim bevelled toward the exterior with the thumb and with the exterior
surface always left unfinished. Describing the ration system in the Late Uruk period,
different scholars observed that bevelled-rim bowls must have been used to contain and
consume meals rather than to measure or transport them.24
Considering the above, is
it still possible to continue to refer to these meals as ‘rations,’ as proposed by Nissen?25
Indeed prepared foods or drinks were to be distributed in the mass-produced bowls, but
even though Late Chalcolithic meal disbursements did not share important characters
with later rations redistribution (ingredients vs. prepared food; monthly vs. daily rhythm)
and were not a regularly paid wage, neither were they only an occasional remuneration for
irregular work. Pointing to the intrinsically economic nature of this food disbursement
and to the transactions that it implied, food rations have been traditionally analyzed from
a political economic perspective, and most scholars agree that a ration system was established
in Late Uruk Mesopotamia. In fact, the mass production of bowls; their association
with administrative materials; their excavation contexts—either discarded whole or ready
for use and piled up in large numbers—are all factors which may imply that repetitive meal
redistribution and consumption were habitual practices and thus point to the existence
of one or more central authority(ies) with large numbers of personnel involved at various
stages, in turn requiring a level of control over production.
The textual evidence is of great relevance too, as the majority of proto-cuneiform
texts recorded administrative activities that included the disbursement of different kinds
of rations. On the premise that this early form of writing diverged from the spoken
language, Damerow observes: “in contrast to oral language, which is always contextualized
[...], administrative activities decontextualize information and reduce it to a few
relevant dimensions;”26
and a clear example of this mechanism has been found in the
proto-cuneiform sign that represents a bevelled-rim bowl:
Beveled-rim bowls used for the disbursement of rations represented by the sign
GAR which could be used to designate a ration of a certain size or, in a semantically
defined sign combination, an institution. In combination with a man’s head
it formed the sign combination GU7, which later meant ‘to eat’ or, more generally,
‘to consume.’ In proto-cuneiform writing, however, this sign combination
was exclusively used to represent a certain type of administrative activity related
to the disbursement of rations.27
However, a ration system cannot be reduced or minimized to being merely the other
side of centralization nor its epiphenomenon. In fact, the complex structure of unequal
social relations that are no longer uniquely based on kinship can be said to be embodied
in the ration system, which “became a way to create maintain relations of dependency,”28
and in the objects used in transactions: the mass-produced bowls. Another element of
novelty is the advent of depersonalized commensal practice and context, in which the
people who receive the meal do not dine out but simply eat together.29
These people are
socially linked together by the fact that they work and eat together: this is their everyday
24 Liverani 1988, 127; Frangipane 1989, 54; Pollock 2003.
25 Nissen 1970.
26 Damerow 1999 , 8.
27 Damerow 1999 , 8; fig. 3 caption.
28 Pollock 2003, 21.
29 See Finkelstein as quoted in Fine and Leopold 1993, 167; but also Pollock 2003 and Balossi Restelli this
volume.
102 Maria Bianca D’Anna
Fig. 1 | The site of Arslantepe in the Malatya plain, Turkey. Photo M. Benedetti, Archive of the Missione
Archeologica Italiana nell’Anatolia Orientale.
life, or at least an important part of it. This new formal commensalism, as with other
commensal occasions, is “excluded from the repertoire of figural representations in the
late fourth millennium.”30
In her work, Pollock has looked at the ration redistributive
system “within the broader economic context of early Mesopotamian states” also as a
“formal commensal practice,” which “involves the manipulation of meanings associated
with food and beverages through their presentation and consumption in the service of political,
religious, and other social goals.”31
During this period the primary goods, mainly
food and beverages, are the economic base of the elite’s power; yet it is not only through
feasting activities that food enters Late Uruk gastro-politics and embodies the process by
which this society forms its hierarchies. Rather, this can be said to occur through a ration
practice that is not ordinary precisely because it is embedded in formalized contexts, nor
is it extraordinary, as it takes place on a daily basis. Considered from this point of view, a
formal commensal practice such as that of Late Uruk ration-meals system leads us to put
aside the theoretical dichotomy between ‘ordinary-extraordinary’ that, although it might
be heuristically useful in other contexts, cannot be applied in this case.
3 The Case of 4th Millennium Arslantepe: from Period VII to
Period VI A
Moving north to the present-day arid ranges of the Antitaurus Mountains on the Anatolian
highlands, the four hectare höyük of Arslantepe is the main prehistoric mound
in the large plain of Malatya (Fig. 1). Arslantepe is surrounded by numerous springs,
and the natural alluvial soil conditions associated with the abundance of water have
long guaranteed a high level of agricultural productivity without the need for complex
canalization.
In the first half of the 4th millennium, period VII testifies to a local formative process
toward political complexity and a centralized economy.32
Period VII is a long lasting
cultural phase (c. 3800 to 3400 cal BCE) with several architectural levels that have been
excavated in different areas of the Arslantepe mound. During this period, the primary
economy remains traditionally centered on barley and different types of wheat agriculture
and on mixed animal herding,33
while structural changes in craft production constitute
the most significant novelty in the economic sphere in comparison with earlier levels.
30 Bernbeck and Pollock 2002, 191.
31 Pollock 2003, 19.
32 Frangipane 2002; Frangipane 2010a.
33 Bartosiewicz 2010.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 103
The pottery production becomes characterized by a higher degree of standardization, the
pervasive incidence of chaff-tempered fabrics that allow quicker firing, the use of turning
devices, and the mass production of bowls.34
Some of these phenomena begin to appear at
Late Chalcolithic Arslantepe from the end of 5th millennium BCE (period VIII35
). It is,
however, during period VII that similar forms are produced in different ceramic classes;
slow and, later on, fast wheels are used in manufacturing entirely or partially different vessels;
potters’ marks are now commonly incised on vessels, particularly on mass-produced
bowls. In this phase the large scale of coarse bowl production has been interpreted as
a marker for the establishment of a redistributive economy, in which the pottery craft
would have been at least partially integrated. At the end of period VII, these bowls are
found in huge quantities in a monumental and isolated tripartite building (Building XXIX
or Temple C) that occupied the highest point of the settlement (Fig. 2a).36
More than 1100 bowls were scattered on the floors of the large central room and piled
ready to be used in two smaller side rooms, where some clay sealings were also set apart.
Building XXIX contains a large platform with a fireplace at the center of the main room,
which was decorated with niches and wall paintings. It has therefore been interpreted as a
context for large, public commensal events possibly linked to collective work occasions.37
These public events appear to be multi-sided and mutually integrated to a great extent:
in fact, they imply the consumption of meals by large numbers of people, and they
therefore mobilized significant amounts of food eaten with the help of specific objects
(the mass-produced bowls); these meals were consumed together; their disbursement was
under bureaucratic control (as the presence of clay sealings testifies), thus they were an
economic transaction; they have a highly ritual character also displayed by the exceptional
architectural setting. Furthermore “the frequent use of the mass-produced coarse bowls to
redistribute and consume meals in a ceremonial context of public commensality seems to
be evidence for a materialisation of asymmetric relations through an ostensible emphasis
on equality.”38
Equality was reinforced by the high degree of inclusion and proximity
of these commensal events, with large sectors of the population convening in one single
place, attending the same event, and probably participating to the same degree: “The size
of the audience and their proxemics to the performers are important variables in determining
the potential effectiveness of the message(s) being conveyed during performances
and its political implications.”39
3.1 Arslantepe Period VI A: Structural Features and Material
Culture of a Late Uruk Period Site on the Anatolian Highland
In the last three centuries of the 4th millennium BCE, a local early state society developed
at Arslantepe, with its own architecture, pottery, glyptic, and metallurgy, but it
certainly interacted with the Uruk world and other Anatolian communities. Despite
local peculiarities, Arslantepe period VI A shares numerous features with Late Uruk
culture. The centralization and redistribution of primary goods (essentially food) and
the control of the labor force are the critical elements that may allow us to associate, at
an analytical level, Arslantepe with the Late Uruk horizon. However, several features are
peculiar to the Anatolian site as structural (e. g., the formation of a state in absence of real
34 Palmieri 1985.
35 Balossi Restelli 2008.
36 Guarino 2008.
37 D’Anna and Guarino 2010.
38 D’Anna and Guarino 2010, 203.
39 Mills 2007, 211.
104 Maria Bianca D’Anna
a
b
Fig. 2 | (a) Arslantepe Period
VII: Temple C and (b)
mass-produced bowls from
A900. Plan: Frangipane 2010a,
Fig. II-6; photo: R. Ceccacci,
Archive MAIAO.
urbanization as pointed out by Frangipane,40
or the internal organization of architectural
spaces) and symbolic elements (e. g., the figurative repertoire in the glyptic and wall
paintings).
The Period VI A pottery assemblage could be said to symbolize these complex relationships.
A meaningful example: at Arslantepe, Uruk bevelled-rim bowls are rare and
not found in situ, whereas the local wheel-thrown truncated conical bowls are massproduced
(Fig. 3). Moreover, these are the most common open containers in the VI A
period repertoire and appear to be only similar to the so-called “flower pots,” a Late Uruk
wheel-thrown container less commonly attested than the ubiquitous beveled-rim bowls.
40 Frangipane 2009.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 105
Fig. 3 | Period VI A
mass-produced bowls. Photo
R. Ceccacci, Archive MAIAO.
This difference is not merely a matter of form. The mass production of bevelled-rim
bowls may also have involved a manufacturing process in which unskilled potters could
easily have shaped the bowls in a simple mould, such as a hole in the ground,41
while
producing wheel-thrown vessels as simple as the Arslantepe VI A bowls, on a complicated
tool such as the fast wheel, would have required a certain level of skill and experience. This
does not imply that Arslantepe pottery production is more specialized than that at Late
Uruk sites; it does rather suggest that the scale of pottery production and consumption at
the Anatolian site is at a more restricted level: potters could satisfy the demand for massproduced
bowls and there was no need to involve unskilled workers. Most importantly,
the mass production of bowls was not a novelty at Arslantepe; on the contrary, these
objects appear to be part of a long-lasting local tradition, which, as I mentioned above,
began during the previous period VII. However, it is not only a general link with the
widespread mass production of bowls that is characteristic of the Late Ubaid and Late
Chalcolithic communities, especially in the northern areas of Greater Mesopotamia.42
The link between period VII and VI A mass-produced bowls is a cogent and strong one.
In the course of Period VII, these vessels changed, from a round-based flint-scraped, handmade
version to a flat-based bowl, often shaped on a turning device. Their dimensions
also diminished over time. In the context dated to the very end of period VII, there is
a prevalence of smaller, flat-based, wheel-thrown bowls. In period VI A all of the bowls
were made on the fast wheel, they became even smaller, and the shape of the rim was
simple and rounded, whereas in period VII they had a typical interior bevelled lip.
The repertoire of shapes documented at Arslantepe VI A is less varied than at Late
Uruk sites. This is also true when looking at open vessels. The set of bowls at Late
Uruk sites, such as Habuba Kabira43
or Hassek Höyük44
, is much more differentiated
in both form and dimension when compared to the assemblage at Arslantepe where,
besides the mass-produced bowls, there are a few other types of open-shaped vessels that
were possibly used for consuming food and drink. There is a distinction between the
manufacture of these containers in different wares, which may be linked both to the
producers and the actual function of these objects: in the light pinkish, cream-colored
plain simple ware (PSW), which is fine and wheel-made, there are some lipped bowls45
41 Or see Nissen 1970, 139: “Um den Topf besser von der Form lösen zu können, bestreute man die Form
wahrscheinlich mit Sand.”
42 See Kennedy this volume.
43 Sürenhagen 1974/75.
44 Helwing 2002.
45 Frangipane and Palmieri 1983, Fig. 30; from Temple B: Frangipane 1997, Fig. 12.4.
106 Maria Bianca D’Anna
a b
c
Fig. 4 | Period VI A
high-stemmed bowls: (a) and (c)
from A747, (b) from Temple B
(Archive MAIAO).
and beaked bowls that must have had a special function linked to liquid contents.46
Bowls
of different dimensions and profiles, as well as mugs, were also produced in the Red-Black
Burnished Ware (RBBW), which is characterized by shiny bichrome surfaces. They are
not found in large quantities but they represent the main class of vessels realized in this
special kind of hand-made pottery. High-stemmed bowls were produced in both PSW and
RBBW; rarely, the light colored ones are painted with red stripes and/or dots (Fig. 4a).47
Period VI A in the Arslantepe sequence corresponds to a unitary architectonic level
(Figs. 5 and 9). Brought to light in a widely excavated area, the buildings were constructed
at different times and during their lifetime underwent critical changes.48
Nevertheless, in
the final occupational phase, they composed a system of related buildings used as a whole.
This complex was destroyed all at once in a large fire. The sudden depositional process
and the low level of post-depositional disturbance has allowed for a significant level of
preservation of in situ materials.
To date, two areas with period VI A architectural remains have been excavated. In
the area that is at a topographically higher level, a complex of not very well preserved
rooms was found (Fig. 9). It contained no evidence of any administrative activities (such
46 Frangipane and Palmieri 1983, Fig. 28.7 and 9.
47 Very few examples of high-stemmed bowls are found in the public storerooms, whereas they are found
more commonly on the floors of both of the temples and in a large room (A127) next to the weapons
room (A113) that is, unfortunately, only partially preserved. A few high-stemmed bowls were also found
in the residential area, with the significant exception of room A747 (see infra 2.3).
48 Alvaro 2010.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 107
Fig. 5 | The period VI A
public building complex.
C. Alvaro, Archive MAIAO.
as clay sealings) or of the accumulation or redistribution of goods, but indications of
food preparation, small-scale storage, and textile production at a household level were
discovered, and thus this area has been interpreted as a residential zone.
The second well-known excavated architectural complex occupies the slope of the
ancient hill and consists of monumental buildings that contain evidence of the exercise
of power at different scales in separate spaces, such as wealth centralization, distribution
of rations under administrative control, and ritual practices.49
The public buildings are
located on different terraces—and consequently at different heights—along a central axis:
this is a kind of corridor-street that was only partially roofed, sloping down from northwest
to southeast (Fig. 5).
The walls of passageways or those next to doors were frequently decorated with either
impressions in the plaster or painted elements and scenes (Fig. 6). In just two cases the
scenes are very well preserved due to wall or plaster restoration carried out during period
49 Moreover, a unique find comprising a group of weapons of arsenical copper (nine swords and 12 spear
points along with a quadruple spiral plaque) in one of the rooms of the complex (A113) points to a high
level of specialization in metallurgical technology as well as a centralized control over the exercise of
force and a certain degree of violence and conflict which was physically materialized in hand-to-hand
combat (Frangipane and Palmieri 1983, 394–407; Di Nocera 2010).
108 Maria Bianca D’Anna
VI A. One such case is that of the central room (A364) of the storeroom sector, where two
human figures standing behind a short table were painted on both sides of the door that
gave access to the back courtyard (Fig. 10b). When this door was sealed with a thin wall,
the adjacent walls in A364 were plastered and replastered several times over the years with
plain, white layers of plaster covering the original paint. It seems that when the door was
sealed, it was no longer required that the paintings were visible.
3.2 Period VI A Commensal Politics in the Public Buildings
The access to the storeroom sector was from the corridor though the central room A364.
When, as described above, the back door into the courtyard was closed, only the southern
room A340 still had direct access through a small passage to the open space in the back.
In contrast to what was found in the other storerooms, this room contained a few large
storage vessels for dry and semi-liquid foodstuffs, a single bottle, a large quantity of massproduced
bowls, probably some sacks, and a lot of cattle and caprine bones from low and
medium quality meat cuts. Some cooking pots were also present: they were mainly small
in dimensions, but large fragments of a ca. 25 liter capacity pot have been also found on
the floor of the room.50
Numerous clay sealings were found near the vessels and grouped
in one corner of the room.51
All these elements point to an interpretation of A340 as
a redistribution center.52
The direct connection of A340 to the back courtyard appears
to be significant. Open spaces are rare in the public building complex, which was progressively
enlarged by abutting one building directly against the other in an agglutinative
pattern. Although this courtyard or small plaza is located close to Temple B, it actually
occupied a lower terrace. Temple B was in fact built at a notably higher elevation than
the storeroom sector.53
It seems highly probable that some people could enter the public
building complex from the southern gate, turn right after a few meters, then left and gain
access to the redistribution area without really entering the complex, as well as remaining
in an open space (Fig. 6). “For anyone with the necessary power and means, architecture is
a very important way to influence others. People’s movements through space are steered
by the availability of circulation paths within and between buildings.”54
This open area
was the place where distribution of rations from room A340 might have taken place, and
it is highly probable that here people not only received but also ate the identical meal.
Thus this area is perhaps the place where this new formal, impersonal, and even ‘alienated’
commensality might have taken place. In this case, the commensal practice itself and the
use of the mass-produced bowls, more or less the same for everybody, are elements of
homogenization among the people receiving the food. Further, by taking place within the
public complex, this practice underscores a symbolic element of communality between
the non-elite and the elite members. Yet it would seem that this unifying element is more
ideological than real, and the fact that this was only a partial, fake physical inclusion in
those spaces where elites carried out their activities is undoubtedly meaningful.
In strong contrast to period VII, during period VI A the disbursement of rations is
linked to specific places such as room A340 that seem to have only had this economic
50 In a preliminary analysis of the VI A pottery (D’Anna 2010) this vessel was not included in the study.
51 Frangipane 2007.
52 The small dimensions of A340 as well as the absence of fire installations in this room attest that food was
not cooked in here nor could this have been an area for butchering. Food and/or beverages must have
been processed elsewhere within or outside the public compound.
53 In this area, two large pits destroyed the VI A level, hence it is unknown whether there was a stair or
some other way to access the higher terrace or whether access to Temple B and the large building facing
it was possible only from the northeast.
54 Bernbeck and Pollock 2002, 184–185.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 109
6
Fig. 6 | Arslantepe VI A public
buildings: possible passageway
to the meal redistribution area.
The location of painted and
impressed decorations on walls
is indicated in red. Plan after
Alvaro 2010
Fig. 7 | Period VI A: Temple
A. Alvaro 2010, Fig. III 2–5. 7
function.55
The temple structures became mainly spaces for rituals that involved only
a limited number of people, even though administration of goods was also practiced in
these places of worship, as the presence of small numbers of clay sealings shows.56
Temple A’s function is actually difficult to assess, since at the end of the period it
underwent a significant structural change (two walls narrowed the entrance door: Fig. 7);
moreover, so many vessels were lying on the floor of the two entrance rooms that walking
55 D’Anna and Guarino 2010; Frangipane 2010b. A large assemblage of mass-produced bowls has been
found discarded together with more than 5000 fragments of clay sealings in the largest cretulae dump
of period VI A (area A206: Frangipane 2007). The waste materials found in here originated from a
complex economic and administrative sector, which “comprised several different rooms (8) closed using
different systems” of pegs and locks (Frangipane 2007, 455). The co-occurrence of large quantities of
clay sealings and small mass-produced bowls in A206 implies the presence of different storage areas
and redistribution units in the complex of period VI A public buildings, and therefore of “circuits of
circulation of surpluses which are at least partially detached from the ideological-religious and prestige
sphere” (Frangipane 2010b, 290).
56 Frangipane 1997, 63.
110 Maria Bianca D’Anna
Fig. 8 | Period VI A Temple B: plan; access pattern; wall decorations; some of the pots found in A450. Plan
after Alvaro 2010; photo R. Ceccacci, Archive MAIAO
through them may have been impossible. Food preparation and consumption certainly
took place in Temple A, evidenced by the presence of animal bones,57
stone tools with
identifiable use wear traces,58
storage vessels and cooking pots, along with a restricted
amount of large mass-produced bowls and other open vessels (high-stemmed bowls; RedBlack
Burnished bowls, mugs and jugs; beaked bowls).
At the time of its destruction, large storage vessels and bottles were present in the
main room of Temple B (Fig. 8) and six cooking pots would have allowed for the processing
of more than 140 liters of foodstuffs (Tab. 1).59
This indicates that lavish quantities of
food and drinks were stored, processed, cooked, and consumed inside the main room.
No botanical remains have been found in Temple B, but the pattern of the numerous
animal bones left there60
is characterized by remains uncommon elsewhere, such as hare
and mature cattle, which could have been used to prepare sizeable meals. The occurrence
of three of the largest bottles of period VI A in Temple B shows that sharing drinks
played an important role during the feasts that took place there. The assemblage of openshaped
vessels gives some glimpse of the nature of the commensal ritualized events taking
place in Temple B. The majority of vessels for eating or drinking are again the massproduced
bowls. Considering only the main room (A450), there were approximately 20
bowls, which were larger than those found ready to be used or discarded in A340 and in
the main cretulae dump. The use of the same types of vessels as in the practice of ration
distribution suggests that a strong symbolical emphasis was placed in and through these
57 Bartosiewicz 2010.
58 Lemorini 2010.
59 Frangipane 1997; D’Anna 2010.
60 Bartosiewicz 2010.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 111
Tab. 1 | Temple B cooking pot capacity (in liters). W22 is a pithos also used for cooking.
rituals on equality between elite and non-elite people.61
These commensal occasions may
not have involved a large number of people: the temple room is small and contained few
vessels for drinking and eating. The dimensions of the period VI A temple are much
more restricted in comparison not only to the large Temple C of Arslantepe’s previous
period, but also to the contemporary Late Uruk ceremonial edifices in other sites. Access
to the main room was circuitous: from the entrance room it was necessary to turn right,
entering an anteroom, and then left to finally gain access to the main room. Direct communication
between entrance room and main room was made possible by two windows
(Fig. 8). Through these two windows, the ritual must have been visually accessible from
the entrance room that was decorated with impressed concentric rhombuses painted in
red, possibly symbolizing eyes. It is interesting that impressed decorations and pictorial
depictions are located next to places where people passed by rather than inside the rooms,
suggesting that the aesthetic and symbolic significance of these spaces consisted of their
being a threshold, intrinsically denoting a boundary between two different places or
situations.62
A threshold is the physical transition from outside to inside, thus from
exclusion to inclusion. Passageways are liminal zones, where people have the impression
of being already inside, but actually are not. The temple entrance room seems to share
this liminal character.63
The presence of a fireplace in the main room right in front of the
two windows would have created suggestive plays of lights and shadows; the food cooked
in the main room could also produce inviting smells that could have wafted into the
61 D’Anna 2010.
62 Bourdieu 2005, 342–343.
63 D’Anna 2010.
112 Maria Bianca D’Anna
entrance room; and the people standing there possibly received and shared some food, as
testified by the presence of bowls on Temple A window sills and a bottle on the northern
window sill in Temple B. “The variables of performances include lighting and visibility,
sounds, smells, and taste,”64
and all these elements are critical components of the feasting
ritual also as a performance, which reinforce its emotional and cognitive significance.
Once again also in this particular case, inclusion and exclusion are not absolute categories;
rather, they are modulated materially and symbolically with different nuances, which
might be related to different social and political roles in this early complex society.65
Here the messages appear to be multifaceted and the vessels used for eating and drinking
symbolize this apparent contradiction:
The elite and those who worked for them (and in a status of labour alienation)
may have all used the same plates, a coarse and mass-produced ‘Ikea’-like service,
as part of a formal aim of being inclusive rather than exclusive66
. The idea of a
‘fast-food mentality’ which Pollock believes may have promoted a sense of unity,
may have also been used to stress, although perhaps only at a superficial level, a
form of unity between the elite and non-elite.67
Thus, on a symbolic level, the mass-produced bowls embody different forms of formal
commensality and condense diverse homogenizing roles. This also implies a high level of
multivocality for these objects: as proposed by David I. Kertzer, multivocality consists
in, “The fact that the same symbol may be understood by different people in different
ways.”68
and it is of crucial significance “in the use of ritual to build political solidarity
in the absence of consensus.”69
Conversely, a few special vessels70
used in the ritual commensality
in Temple B might have had a high visual performance character,71
and they
could have acted as diacritical devices for some particular acts and their performers.72
I
refer especially to the high-stemmed bowls (Fig. 4a–4c): their shape would have required
completely different gestures by the people who used them. These gestures, along with
the height and color differences of these vessels, demonstrate the presence of all important
visual performance characteristics that—as stressed by Michael B. Schiffer and James M.
Skibo73
—would have easily caught the eye of observers.
64 Mills 2007, 211.
65 We cannot exclude the possibility that other more open and inclusive forms of feasts, which could also
incorporate commensalisms, took place during period VI A. Of particular significance is a ritualized
threshing scene represented on a well-known seal impression uncovered in the main cretulae dump of
A206: it depicts an “oxen-drawn sledge supporting a figure seated under a canopy and surrounded by
retainers” (Pittman 2007, 311). The iconography is borrowed from the Late Uruk imagery of power.
Similar elements (the bovines; the reins terminating in a ring held by the chariot driver; and possibly
a sledge-chariot) recur on the painting found on one of the corridors, but in this case the iconography
is local (Frangipane 2007). These representations might give a glimpse into some ritual activities linked
to agriculture and food production with strong political implications and, probably, a high degree of
inclusiveness.
66 Here the parallel between the widespread diffusion of Uruk material culture and pervasive diffusion of
Ikea products (Lawler 2003) is used merely as a narrative license. In fact, the comparison to Ikea underlies
the concept of modern globalization, which, as with the world system theory, is in my opinion totally
anachronistic and of no heuristic worth.
67 D’Anna 2010, 187–188.
68 Kertzer 1988, 11.
69 Kertzer 1988, 11.
70 One Red-Black Burnished, three light-colored high-stemmed bowls, and one fragment of a painted bowl
of another pedestal vessel lay on the floor of the main room in Temple B. A fully preserved very fine
small lipped bowl was also found. A fragment of a stone vessel was present in A450, but it was reused as
a scraper (Lemorini 2010).
71 Mills 2007.
72 Dietler 2001.
73 Schiffer and Skibo 1997, 30.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 113
Fig. 9 | Period VI A: the northern complex of residential buildings. Plan after Alvaro 2010.
3.3 Ritual Commensality in the Residential Area during Period VI A
In the residential buildings one room, unfortunately not completely preserved, seems to
provide some important evidence of special, ritual commensality in the residential area.
This is room A747, which has been interpreted by Frangipane74
as a small shrine within a
domestic environment. In brief, this room was part of an entire structure, divided into the
typical bipartite module also found in the temples of this period. In this case, however,
the entrance to the building is not through the central side room, but from the room
located in the southern corner, which, most importantly, gives direct access to the large
main room (Fig. 9). Thus, A747 is one of the small side rooms, but—as in the case of
the temples’ main rooms—it was necessary to pass through two other rooms in order to
gain access to it from the outside. Though A747 is not the largest room in the building
to which it belongs, the approach to it is, however, as indirect and complicated as that
observed for the main room in the temples.
Room A747 is exceptionally well furnished with a “square platform with one corner
raised to form a small plastered mud post,”75
situated in the middle of the room and facing
the entrance. This platform consisted of four mud bricks superimposed and replastered
several times. The last layer was white but it covered previous layers that bear traces of
fire, thus it is possible that this structure was used as a fire installation. Three small mud
tables were found on the floor of the room, two by the door and one closer to the eastern
short wall (Fig. 10a). This resembles a similar movable small table found on the floor
of the main room in temple B (A450) between the entrance door and the main group
of vessels in the northwestern corner (Fig. 10c). These are the only examples of such
furnishings found in period VI A buildings so far, and their raised edges resemble those
of the tables depicted in front of the two human figures in room A364 (Fig. 10b). These
objects are therefore possibly linked to peculiar ritual practices and gestures performed
exclusively by distinct persons and must have had a strong symbolic meaning.
74 Frangipane 1994.
75 Frangipane 1994, 215.
114 Maria Bianca D’Anna
a b
c
Fig. 10 | Mud tables in A450
(a) and A747 (c) during
excavation, (b) one of the two
human figures depicted in the
storeroom A364. Photo
R. Ceccacci, Archive MAIAO.
A noteworthy feature of A747 is also the presence of four outstanding vessels: two
light colored high-stemmed bowls painted with red geometrical decorations and two
RBBW high-stemmed bowls (Figs. 4c, 4a; 12f–i). Some mass-produced bowls (at least five)
were also found together with other cups and bowls that stand out as unusual pieces in
the period’s repertoire. Two large basins complete the set of the open shaped vessels; one
of them (Fig. 11) is a chaff-tempered container, whose internal surface shows dispersed
abrasions over multiple contiguous areas. The other basin is finer and does not show any
use wear traces (Fig. 12e). A complete spouted bottle was found in the southern part of the
room (Figs. 11 and 12d). In the northern area of the room, a large fragment of a Red-Black
Burnished jar with an applied decoration, possibly of a stylized caprid (Fig. 12c), was
found together with one cooking pot suitable for cooking liquid or semi-liquid foodstuffs
(Fig. 12a)76
and another three-liter-capacity vessel with no use wear (Fig. 12b).
Some animal bones were also found in the room. The age of the cattle could be
determined for some of the bones (22 out of a total of 46) and these were mainly from
mature individuals (19). A similar pattern has also been found in the case of the cattle
bones from Temple B.77
76 It may be that its biconical profile and the relatively closed mouth were designed to help prevent the
evaporation of its contents. Moreover, its base bears traces of a grayish external sooting, while on the
internal surface a thin grey layer of deposit is visible on the bottom and darker, blackish spots on the
walls under the carination. It seems that the pot was used either only briefly or for processing mainly
liquid or very moist contents.
77 Bartosiewicz 2010. In general, cattle bones are more common both in the ritual and residential buildings
of period VI A than in the redistributive sectors, where sheep and goats prevail (Bartosiewicz 2010).
This latter pattern marks a clear distinction with respect to the previous period VII livestock breeding,
with the VI A elites appearing to have preferred beef both in the ritual feastings and ‘private’ practices
(Palumbi 2010, 154).
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 115
11
12
Fig. 11 | One of the two basins
and the bottle found in A747.
Archive MAIAO.
Fig. 12 | Ceramics from A747.
All A747 features suggest that special commensal practices could have taken place
in the residential units, too. Food could have been cooked on the central platform in
the room or in another adjacent room.78
Although A747 is not the largest space in the
building, it is quite isolated from the outside and the number of people who could enter
was very restricted, as has also been the case for the main room of both temples. As in the
78 The presence of fire traces on the platform may also imply that a fire was built there to light and warm
the room.
116 Maria Bianca D’Anna
‘public’ temples, drinking appears to be an important part of commensal events. Yet there
are no large storage vessels present: only a five-liter-capacity cooking pot with uncommon
use wear traces was found in the room. The dimensions of the open containers are very
wide ranging, possibly implying the consumption of different food and beverages. The
two large basins may have been used either to process some food (Fig. 11, with abrasion
wear on the internal upper walls) or to eat together from the same big vessel (Fig. 12e).
This would imply a strong—not only physical—proximity between the people sharing
the food in A747 and would mark a crucial difference to Temple B, where no containers
for communal food consumption have been found. The presence of high-stemmed bowls
in both contexts suggests that a similar emphasis was given to some special foodstuff or
drink and that similar practices and gestures were performed in the commensal events
taking place in the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres.
3.4 Summarizing the Evidence
During period VI A commensality seems to have played important roles in substantiating
social identities among elite and non-elite members of Arslantepe society. The case of
meal/ration distributions is the more extended, inclusive case of formal commensality,
which is anyhow characterized by a high degree of depersonalization and embodies labor
alienation. On the other extreme, the rituals carried out in Temple B constituted a
restricted form of commensality, in which large amounts of food and possibly special
drinks were shared by a limited number of people. The abundance and, possibly, the
variety of food prepared and consumed in the temples is testified by the large cooking
pots present in A450 and by the incidence of mature individuals among the cattle bones,
as well as by the presence of pig and hare bones in the Temple B assemblage and wild
animals in the Temple A fauna.79
As I have described above, the degree of exclusion from
these feasting practices appears to be quite high, although some of those excluded from
the main performance could have observed the events from the in-between location of
the entrance room.80
Through the windows people could watch the ritual, hear sounds
and voices, smell the scent of food, and even receive foodstuffs and beverages. The high
degree of proximity and intimacy among the restricted number of people who performed
and actively operated in the feasts within the temple’s main room corresponds to a high
degree of exclusiveness of these events, not in the form of an absolute and total exclusion
but rather modulated in different gradations. A high level of exclusiveness as well as the
close proximity among the participants also characterized special commensal events in
the private sphere.
79 Bartosiewicz 2010.
80 D’Anna 2010.
Between Inclusion and Exclusion 117
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Between Inclusion and Exclusion 123
Maria Bianca D’Anna
Study of Near Eastern archaeology and prehistory, University ‘La Sapienza’, Rome;
Graduate Student, Universität Tübingen; dissertation on the Arslantepe period VI A
(LC 5) pottery. Fieldwork: Arslantepe (Malatya - Turkey), Zeytinli Bahçe (Turkey);
Neolithic and Chalcolithic ceramics of Malatya plain survey; Land of Carchemish
Project (Syria); Mil Steppe (Azerbaijan). Research interests: pottery studies, formation
of complex societies in Greater Mesopotamia.
Studium der Vorderasiatischen und Prähistorischen Archäologie, Universität ,La Sapienza’,
Rom. Promotionsstudentin am Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie,
Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen; Dissertation über Keramik aus Arslantepe, Periode
VI A (LC 5). Feldforschung: Arslantepe und Zeytinli Bahçe (Türkei); Studien
zur neolithischen und kupferzeitlichen Keramik aus dem Malatya Survey; Mitarbeit
am Land of Carchemish-Projekt, Syrien; Mil Steppe (Azerbaijan). Forschungsinteressen:
Keramikstudien, Formation komplexer Gesellschaften in Mesopotamien.
Missione Archeologica Italiana in Anatolia Orientale
Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
Università Sapienza di Roma
Via Palestro, 63
00185 Roma, Italy
mbdanna@hotmail.com