Decoration

Brief Overview

In the Mittani period we find the widest variety of designs on the ceramics. Painted designs are the most common type but incised designs and deep ribbing patterns also occur among the Mittani period decoration types. Painted decoration designs can be dark lines on a light background or a dark background, or occasionally a red background, with the design in white or a shade of beige.

Painted designs can include geometric patterns such as alternating black and white rectangles, the so-called checkerboard design, being common. Running triangles filled with a variety of patterns is also a frequent motif. Drip marks in a short line, usually diagonal, can be found on the exterior or interior of jars and deep bowls.

Rims can be covered with solid paint or can have a series of short parallel strokes either all around the rim or arranged in discrete groups; this is a motif started in the Khabur period and continued in Mittani. Simple parallel stripes on the body of vessels, especially jars, from the Khabur period also continue to be used in the Mittani period.

Animal motifs, principally birds in white paint on a dark background are often portrayed in a line going around the vessel. Occasionally a horned animal is depicted and one painted sherd from our excavations even had a fish surrounded by a water pattern (see here).

K4+ K5
M6 + M22
M8+ M13
M19 + M22
M6 + M12 + M22

Urkesh Ceramic Analysis

Shapes by horizon: Mittani / Royal Sanctuary

Brief Overview

Applique

Rope Decoration

Incised

Stamped

Circles

Wheat pattern

Painted

Solid bands

Solid paint

Parallel lines

Dotted circles and half circles

Triangles

Triangles and dotted circles or dots

Half ovals

Cross-hatched bands

Wavy lines

Stripes on rim

Drip marks

Red edge

Animal figures

Spiral

Checkerboard

Other

Combination