ESTRATTO

ISTITUTO ITALIANO PER IL MEDIO ED ESTREMO ORIENTE

ISTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO ORIENT ALEDipartimento di Studi Asiatici

SOUTH ASIAN ARCHAEOLOGY1987

Proceedings of theNinth International Conference' of the Associationof South Asian Archaeologists in Western -Europe,

held in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini,Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

edited byM AUIHZIO TADDEI

with the assistance ofPI ERFRANCESCO C ALLlERI

Part I

r

ROMEI STITUTO ITALlANO PER IL MEDIO EO ESTREMO ORIENT E

1 9 9 Q

7

ROB ERTO CI A RLA

Frag ments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material.Two Case Studies: Fai laka and Sha hr- i Sokhta

In 1985 we had the opport unity to carry ou t a closer scrut iny of thearc ha eological collection s fro m Bron ze Age Failak a sett lements stored inthe Kuwait National Mu seum (KM) fo r determining local indicators o fmanufactures I .

Ou r pr imary task was to identi fy in th e collections find s related to thema nufacturing of soapsto ne vessels in orde r to establish the process of thi sspec ialized craft on the island in the Dilmu n period at the end of the 3rdmillen nium BC.

Not a single to ol or production by-product could be sa tis fac torilyrelated to a local industri al activity among th e 365 item s surveyed in th eKuwait Nati onal Museum collections (Ciar la 1985a: 396-406) . Nevertheless,the original suggestion by T. Howard Carter th at a large part of thosefragments showed traces of manufacturing was not groundless. Unquestion­abl y, the maj ority of the fragments had tr aces o f reuse, while man y ot heritems were undeniabl y produced fro m fragmented stone vessels.

The fragments are , in fact, related to craft ac tivities in the sense thatthe carved steatite vessels had been reworked to produce different typesof a rt ifacts . Recycling, on a very impressive sca le, was then the an swer !We suggest that in a previou s period a very lar ge number of ca rved steatitevessels had been imp orted to the island and were eventually discarded overa relatively short peri od o f time. Lat er , the ir sherds were co llected to beused as a base material in new manufacturing proce sses.

I The learn was composed o f Pro f. M. Tosi , Dr M. Vidale and myself; (he first visit 10Kuwait lasted from A pril 12 to 19, 1985. We gratefully acknowledge the generous assistance of

the Director of the Museum, Mr Ibrahim al- Baghly as well as of Mr J awed al- Najar, Superin­tendent for Archaeo logy and Museum, and Dr Thcresa Ho ward Carter, who made our invitat ionto Kuwait possible.

476 Roberto Ciarla [2J

Such an argument is supported by the evident chronological discrepanc ybetween many of the reused steatite sherds and the context in which theyhave been found , prima rily by the Dani sh Archaeological Expedit ion in1959- 61. While all the carved vessels fall into P. Kohl's ' Intercultu ral Style'(Kohl 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978), commonly dated to ED Il l- Akkadian times,and correspo nding to P . de Miro schedji ' s Serie 'Ancienne ' at Susa(Miroschedj i 1973), the ea rliest sett lement of Tell Said -Tell Sa 'ad in SWFai laka , pertain to the so- called Dilmun Civilization ; thi s latter dated be­tween 2000- 1750 BC, i.e. between Ur III and Old Bab ylonian times (Hoj­lund 1981, 1986; P OllS 1983, n.d.) . For sometime archaeologists have beendating the earliest occupa tion in SW Failaka to EO III essent ially on thebasis o f the "lntercultura l Style' stea tite vessels, while no excava tions pro­duced evidence for an ea rlier occupation. T he extensive recycling in latertimes might have been carried out on discarded materials from another siteon the island , most likely the unexplored compound along the ba y ofal-Khid r in the NW part of the island (Bibb y 1969: 211 -12). Recyclingmigh t provide the explanation for the previous incon gruence between thedati ng of the ca rved stea rire vessels and the rest o f the a rchaeologicalevidence.

Our first impression was later reinforced during a 1986 secondvisit to the Kuwait National Museum. In tha t same occasion Mari o Michelifrom the Istituto Cent ra le del Restauro , in cha rge of samp ling and ana ly­sis of metal art ifacts from F.3 (Tell Sa 'ad) and F.6, discovered thatmos t of the bronze ma terials he was surveying appea red to be a produ ctof ' recycling' .

In the light of observations previously carr ied out on the Shahr- i Sokhtama terials, diffused recycling had been detected throu ghout the ent ire ra ngeof local industries and , particularl y, in sto ne vessels manufactu re (Ciarla1979). On th is basis the tec hnological process of stone vessels recycling atBro nze Age Failak a was reco nstructed stage by stage (Ciarla 1985a: 400).Recycling appears, in fact , as a consta nt indicato r of fast growing industr ialproduction; as in Sha hr-i Sokht a , we suggest it is expl ica ble as a form oflabou r- time saving where wasted base materials are very close to the mainindustr ial act ivity areas. We also suggest that in a context where consump­tion prevails on production , as seems to be the case fo r Failaka, certainsecto rs of the dem and might have been sa tisfied by low cost local prod uctsmanufactured from any kind of locally recovered base material , in our par ­ticular case, soap-sto ne vessels fragments.

[3] Fragments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material 477

F ROM W AST E TO C OMMODITY: R ECYCLI NG AT F A ILAKA

Two discrete pathways of recycling activity can be distinguished amongthe mater ials collected thu s far:

I . Recycling 10 maintain the original function of the artifa ct. Forexa mple a pear - shaped serie 'recente ' cas ket from F3 (KM 59) was re­shaped by polishing a ll along the rim and, pro ba bly, an hemispherical bowlwas (KM 66) partly rewo rked along the rim .

2. Recycling to produce new artifacts completely different f rom theoriginal. When the soapsto ne vessel fragment is simply considered as anamorphous base material to be worked by chipping, saw ing, po lishing anddr illing to produce the fo llowing obj ects:

2.1 Production tools. Mostly ' net - sinkers' and items of unk now n usewhich we presume cou ld fa ll into the present category (cf. Cia rla 1985a :400, figs. 2, 6, 7), and spindle whorls (e.g. KM 1403).

2.2 Beads. Two main types have been recog nized so far :A. Barrel- shap ed;B. Quadran gular - shaped; in this latter case the entire sequence

o f manufacturing stages ha s been docum ent ed; the soapstone vessel frag­ment was, in fact, first rough ly sha ped by chipping along the fracture sur­face , then by polishing a long the chipped surface int o the desired shape(fig . I) and then deco rated mostly with incised criss-cross lines. It isinterestin g to note how the cra ftsma n was entirely unaffected by thepre- existing, when present , 'dot-and-circle' decoratio n of the serie 'recente 'type (fig . 2), probably because it was out of fas hio n or considered inap­propriate to the new kind of objects.

2.3 Pendants. Probably the less known category of soa pstone objectsfrom Failak a , pendant s a re usuall y derived fro m the bod ysherds ofsteatite vessels shaped int o quadra ngular o r tra pezo ida l slides (fig. 3) witha suspension hole on the shorter side usually hori zontally pierced or ,in a single case (KM 1639), with a vertical hole, drilled on the upper faceof the shorte r side an d communicating with the horizonta l one , in orderto faci litate the verti cal hangi ng of the object probably from a neck lace(fig. 4). Usually pend an ts show an incised 'decoration ' on both large faces,more ra rely also the conto ur sur face has been decorated by slanting incisedsegments or by an incised line running along the lateral surface. Thi sdeep ly incised line which could also be a functional device (we a re not able,

478 Roberto Ciarla [4]

Fig . I - Soapstone vessel fragment (KM 1365) shaped into a block lct by chipping a nd pol ishing .

Fig. 2 - Q uadra ngular ' bead s' fro m soa pstone vessel Iragrncn ts: the one on the left (F3 BEE)

sho ws a ha tch ing decora tio n ove r a preexisti ng 'dOIS an d circles' mot if.

at thi s stage of the resear ch , to prov ide an y qu an tification of shap e/dec­or ation type occurre nces). Whil e one of the two faces seems to have beeninvariably decora ted by different kinds of notching lines (fig. 5, D- E), thinlyor deepl y incised, the other face seems to be decorated mostly by figurat­ive motif whose style is clearl y characteristic of the ' Dilmun seals' type.In spite of the close similarity in style between the figur es engraved on thesta mp seals and the ones on the pendants, these latter figures give the im­pr ession of having been engraved (or incised) with much cruder skill (fig.6). In other words, pend ant s and seals could represen t two different levelsof experience during the career of the cra ftman or , the pendan ts could

[5] Fragments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material 479

!

a

b

Fig . 3 - Pol ished soapstone vessel fragments prepared ill the form o f a trape zoida l blockle t

for pendants.

represent some preparatory stage before the manu facturing of the morecomplex seals. Either interpretation seems to be sustained by the presence,amo ng the materials sur veyed so fa r, of fragmented items showing singleor very simple motif incised in a quite ro ugh man ner (fig. 5, E) or showingcuneiform inscript ion s located on quite unu sual surfaces, as in the case ofthe one on a polished side of a steat ite sherd (KM 1649; fig. 7a- b), perhapspa rt of some apprenticeship work .

480

a _

Roberto Ciarlo [6J

c b

Fig. 4 - Hanging trape zoida l pendan t (KM 1639) with incised lines deco ration Oll both face s.

2.4 Seals, of the so-called Dilmun type, are probably the artifacts whichha ve mostly attracted the attention o f scholars in Gulf archaeology, fromthe typological and stylistic point s of view as elements of chronological seria­tion (Buchanan 1965; Kjaerum 1980, 1983; Porada 1971); littl e attentionhas been paid so far to their manufacturing process. Dome-shaped alabasteras well as steatite seals - 'conical or hemispherical seals', Group 11 B inKjaerum typology (1983: 128) ~ were first recognized by Corethia Quall sas locally manufactured on Failaka (Quall s 1985). On the basis of our obser­vations we would add that most. of the hemi spherical seals as well as theentire cat egory of the stamp seals of Dilmun type at Failaka could ha vebeen manufactured by recycling fra gmented stone containers; although stillincomplete, our data seem not to be totally gro undless. According to ourhypothesis, in fact, steatite sherds were treated to obtain rough-outs bytwo different operations:

A.a: the sherd s were chipped along the fracture surface to obtainthe circular rough -out, as seems 10 be the case of a fragment with an

[7] Fragments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material

A

481

OF')"

0 aJp [j·f

I t1/,.~

CB

Fig . 5 - Pendant Manufacturing stages.a , The soapstone vessel fragment is shaped into a trap ezoid a l bloc klet by chipping

and polishing alo ng the fracture surface .b. T he trapczoidal- shaped blocklct isdrill ed on the narr ower side to obt ain a suspen­

sion hole.c. The pend an t is decora ted anew with incised lines forming either simple deco rativemot ifs (D) or integrating a preexistin g decoration {El . (A : FM 233; B: FM 1030, KM

1385: c. KM 1647: D: KM 1640: E: FM 53).

482 Roberto Ciarla [8]

a

.....------------...I bFig. 6 - T rap ezoida! pendant (Klvl 1648) with an incised 'branch moti ve' decoration similar

10 the one o n 'Dilmun type' seals .

Fig . 7 - a . Soap sto ne vesse l fragment (KM 1649) polished on three sides , decorated wit h inci­sed parallel lines on the outer surface andb. Cuneiform iscriprio n incised in one of the three polished sides.

' Intercultura l Sty le' decora tion (KM 24 1?) or o f a handle fragment mostprobably from a serie 'recente' cas ket (KM 1493; figs. 8, 9).

A. b : the sherds were drilled with a large tubu lar drill to ob ta in ,again, the circular rough-rout. T his seco nd operation is still highl y ques­tiona ble, being indicated only indi rectly; it seems, however , the only ex­planation for the num erous sherds bea ring traces of large monopolar drilling,e.g . the un invcntoried item from F.2 show n in fig. 10.

R EC YCLI NG AS A P RODUCTI ON V ARIA BLE

While understand able from a purely technological point of view, interm s o f physica lly self- contained manufactur ing stages, th e ro le o f

[9] Fragments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material 483

a b

Fig. 8 - "ln tercuh ural Style ' vessel fragment (KM 241 ?) po lished along the fractu re sur faceprobably pre pa red (0 make a pendant or a seal.

a b

Fig. 10 - Knob handle (KM 1493) from a serie 'recente' vase probably pre pared to make a pen­dant or a seal.

'Ji

Fig. 9 - Uninveruoricd soapsto ne vessel fragme nt showing ro tat ion ma rks probab ly left by a

tubu la r drill-head .

484 Roberro Ciarla [10]

'waste-recycling' still remains to be evaluated fully in terms of its economicrole within a given commodity production context.

Both at Failaka and Shahr-i Sokhta prestige commodities, such as stonevessels, once their original functio n is lost, or in other words after break­age, tend to recirculate in the system befor e becoming 'undesired' ,'out-of-fashion ' or, mor e simply, discarded in a dump.

At this po int we feel it necessary to draw some ord er in the conceptswe use when speaking of re-cycling .

In a 1972 study by M. Schiffer (1972: 156- 65) he offered a sketch andtermi nology adaptable to illustrate the concepts we are dealing with .Schiffer's wor k - A rchaeological Co ntext and Systemic Contex t - was notintended to illustrat e the archaeological evidence of the recycling processes,rath er Schiffer tries to link ' I...] archaeological context material to be­havioral and organizational hypoth eses about elements in systemic context[.. .]' (1972: 163). In dealing with the cultural aspects of the processes respon­sible for the form ation of an archaeological depo sit , Schi ffer distin guishesbetween 'durable' and 'consumable' the mat erial elements which a givencommunity produces and deposits. Each of these elements is invariably sub­ject to a life cycle lasting into a ' discard process' which led the elemen ts,once ref used, from the systemic co ntext to the arc haeologica l context.Illustrating the life cycles of durable/ consumable elements Schiffer presentstwo ' Flow Models' where , a linear sequence of processes ('procurement ­manufacture/preparation - use/ consumption - discard - refuse') is respon­sible for forming the archaeological record (figs. 11 , 12). He properly point sout the role played by two non-linear processes, namely 'recycling' and' lateral cycling' , in the production of a substantial porti on of any givenarchaeologica l deposit. Within the genera l life-histor y of any material el­ement , recycling and lateral use appears to be, according to Schiffer, respect­ively ' [.. .] the rout ing of an element at the completion of use to the manu­factu re pro cess of the same or a di fferent element [.. .]', and ' I...] the ter­mination of an element 's use I...] in one set of activities and its resumptionin another, often with only maintenance, storage, and transport interven­ing [.. .]'. If we intend to ana lyse the structure and the role of a recyclingpro cess within a genera l pro duction process, then ' recycling' and ' lateralcycling' would correspond to the normative use of goods used in the pro­d uction of other goods , while 'durable/ con sumable' would simply ap pearas the poles of a context- dependent continuum. From this perspecti ve theuntidy occurrence of recycling evidence - often con sidered of secondaryimportance for the general reconstruction of primary production processes- within an archaeological context , reflecting apparent ly separated

[11] Fragments of SIO'he Vessels as a Base M aterial 485

I----. pr ocurement ...

I

recyclrng

lotet'Olr cyc lil'lQ

.. manu f ac ture .. .- us . ..

fmaintenance

SYSTE MIC

CONTEXT

discord 1

I A RC HA EOL O GICA L

CON TEXT

III

I.... re fuse

II

LEGEND

Sys tem und er analy sis

Oppor tuni ty for s loroO'

and /or t ran spor t

Fig. I 1 - Schiffcr' s ' Flow Model' for the cycle of durable elements.

SYSTEMIC

CONTE XTARCHAEOLOGICAL

CONTEX T

I___ procurement ...

10t.raJ

cyc l il'lQ

... prepororion'" .. con su mp lion '"I

discord.. .. refuse

LEGEND

Sys tem \/nde' onol)/. is

Opportunity for s loroO'

and /o r transport

Fig. 12 - Schi ffer 's ' Flow Mo del ' for the cycle o f consu mable element s .

486 Roberro Ciarla [12J

Pr oduction o.ncl Recyc ling Flow Dto. q r-o.n

tRAW'

MATERIAL

BASE

MATERI AL

x x x

/: :\; . \

\

; A B C \

/ I \/ / 0 \

I 0'0 0'0 ® I I

\ lv/O~ /\ ° ® I I\/1 ~ /;\ ° 7 1/

~ ""'0 /I\ I /

\ ,- / Produc t io n Cy c l eCon s u -ip tro n Cyc l eW'o s t eRe cyc l ingExtr-oc t ron CycleDif f er ent t y pe sof COMMo clit iesStoge s o fl"'1o.n ifnctur e

...... .

A 8 C

°Fig . 13 - Productio n and recycl ing now diagram showing the recircula rion of waste in nn

industrial context.

' re- manufacturing' processes in the frame of a given cultural context, resultsclosely linked to the genera l understanding of a given produ ctio n as wellas to the genera l understand ing of the spatial pattern ing of archaeologica lremains. According to such an assumption we propose a ' Flow Mod el' il­lustrating an aggregat ed system of: 'commodity production and recyclingcycle' (CPRC) (fig. 13).

Compared to Schiffe r' s 'F low Model' , the first phase, or procurement ,

[13] Fragments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material 487

is subdivided in two aspects always operat iona lly different iated as follows:1. ' Raw Material' Pr ocurement2. ' Base Mat erial' ProcurementA ' Raw Material' is defined as such only in relat ion to its occurre nce

in natur e. It becomes a 'Base Materia l' only when it physically part icipa tesin a manufacturing cycle. The concept o f ' proc urement ' in Schiffer's workis, in other words, a ' transformation process' perfor med by expenditureof a variable qua ntity of energy between the two poles: a process we defineas an 'Extraction Cycle' .

In his ' Flow Model' , Schiffer distinguished between 'durable' and 'con­sumable' elements, but for our pur poses it seems more useful monitori ngour reasoning, and the consequent logic- formal ordering, toward s P . Sra f­fa 's distinction between 'base commodities' and ' non- base comm od ities'(Sraffa 1960).

As clearly stated by Schiffer, ' Recycling labels the routing of an el­ement at the completion of use to the manu facture process of the same ora di fferent element' (Schiffe r 1972: 158).

Although clea rly a general principle, Schiffer's recycling defi nitiondoesn't offer any economical or ergonomical explanation ; what is recyclingand why is it perform ed? How heavy was the incidence of reuse processeswithin a general production cycle in terms of energy investment? Was itan independent variable in an elastic demand cont ext or , on the contrary,was it determined by a situation of shortage of a critically inelastic demandof goods?

I rea lize that too man y question s have been raised for a class of datausually und erestimated by archaeo logists, and I am not in the pos ition toprovide an answer to all of them at th is stage of the research, but at leasta glance 'along the line of investigation I am currently following can besatisfacto rily offered here.

First let us distinguish what is usually recycled in a pre-industrial pro ­duction context. The answer should be quite easy: what is immediately uselessbut worthy of being reused with a minimum investment of energy (timeplus labour)! Let us call it ' waste' , just to distinguish it from ' refuse' or- accor ding to Schiffer (1972: 159) - wha t is irreversibly discarded anddoesn't participate fur ther in the behavioral system which originally pro­duced it.

According to the observat ions drawn on the Shahr-vi Sok hta stoneindustries' it is necessar y to generate a furt her distinction within the

2 In the last few years our understanding of stone container manufacture at Shahr- i Sokbta

488 Roberto Ciarla [14J

category 'waste', with:I. By - product ofConsumption (Consumption Waste), or items main­

tained in their original function and then reused, and items rework ed tocreate functionally different goo ds.

2. By-product ofProduction (Production Waste), or chunks of BaseMaterial worth y of re- circulation within the same produ ction cycle or shiftedto a different stage of a different production cycle.

Especially in the latter case we want to underline that we are not overem­phasizing widely known commo n concepts. In archaeological contexts, infact , as well as in economical ones we never face a manuf acturing cycleas a whole but its single, physical phases producing specific waste relati veto explicit manufacturing stages. The archaeological and economical distinc­tion of those stage/ waste units is a crucia l one particularly when we realizethat a manu facturing process, for specific needs of economic ra tionality ,often occurs side by side with othe r manu facturing processes].

Going back to our 'Flow' diagram (fig. 13) illustrating a complete Extrac­tio n-Product ion- Co nsumption- Recycling Cycle - as exemplified by thecase of Shahr-i Sokhta alabaster vessels production (Ciarla 1979, 1980)- we can suggest two different rationales which make waste recirculatein the system:

I. In the case of Production Waste (produced during the first and sec­ond pha ses of our 1979 reconstru ction of the manufacturing cycle), twovariables can determine their recirculation as a Base Mat erial: the energy

has develo ped along a rather wmdi ng path and we can present ly add very lit tle 10 the basic picture

of the manufacturing process developed in 1984 (Ciarla 1984). Mo re detailed info rmation has beengathered o n the critical drilling tec hniques used 10 create the hollo wed- o ut cav ity o f the vessels;

a number o f large drill -heads clearly sho wing ro tation ma rks have bee n fo und while revisiting

sample co llec tions fro m the early campaigns at Shahr-i Sokhta and we have sugges ted they co uld

be in so me way related to sto ne vessel manu factu re (Ciarla 1985b : 4 18-25). M. Tosi has kindl y

in formed me that during the first seaso n of exploration at Shahr-f Sokbta, in the Fall of 1967,

surface coll ect ions where carried out across the site ; so me o f the mo st representative finds weredo ne this way, e .g . a Jemdet Nasr stearite sea l (To si 1968 :, 61-62, fig . 107 a-b) was picke d upthe very first day the site was visited by the tea m. A mo ng ot hers, all large sto ne o bjects lying on

the surface we re co llec ted , altho ugh very few cou ld be identified at that ea rly stage. They ended

up in the sample co llectio n, amo ng uninventcried finds. Only the long lasting halt in our fieldwork

and the rest udy revisitati on o f the co llect ions has broug ht them to light.

3 We o bserved , in fac t, and not onl y at Shahr- i So khta , that more init ial is a pr9d uc~ion

stage , the more it tends to occur toge ther with stage s of o ther different manuf actures, rarely shar­

ing the same technological cycle, but very o fte n sharing the 'working time' . As shown by Piperno

& Tosi (1973: 15-23) in the lapis bead manufacture, for example, ini tial stages o f manufactureare those responsible fo r the production o f much abundant waste, o r, in o ther words, Craft Ac­

tivity Indicato rs.

490 Roberto Ciarla

REF ER EN CE S

[16]

Bib by , G . (1969) Loo k ing f or Dilm un. New York .

Buchana n, B. (1965) A Dated"" Persian Gul f" Seal and its Implications . Studies in Honor ofBenno Landsberg on His Seve nty- f ift h Birthday Apri/21, J965, Assyriological Stud ies 16,pp. 204-9. Chicago .

Ciarl a, R. (1979) The Manufactu re of Alaba ster Vessels a t Shahr-i Sokbta and Mun digak in the3rd Millennium BC: A Pr obl em of C ultu ra l Identit y. lranica, ed . G h. Gn ol i & A. V. Rossi,

pp. 319- 35. Napo li.Ciarla , R. (1984) Shah r-i Sok hta Alabaster Vessels: Household or Luxur y Produ ction? Seminario

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Cia rla, R. (1985a) Bronze-Age Cr afts a t Failak a: Some Prelimina ry Observat ions on Stone VaseFragments. EW 35/4, pp . 396-406.

Ciarla, R. (1985b) New Materials in the Study of the Manufacture of Stone Vases at Shahr- i Sokhta .E W 35/4, pp. 4 18~25.

Glassner , J.J . (1984) Cuneifor m Inscriptions from Failaka . Failaka, Fouilles Fruncaises /983, ed .J .F. Salles, GIS Maison de l'O rient (Travaux de La Maison de l'O rient 9), pp . 31-50.

Hojlund, F. (1981) Preliminary Remarks on the Datin g of the Palace at Sa'ad wa Sa'aid on Faila ka(Kuwait). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 11, pp. 37-42.

Hoj lund, P. (1986) The Chronology of Ci ty 1I and I II at Qal' at al Bahrain. Bahrain through theA ges: the Archaeology, ed. Shai kha Haya Ali al-Khalifa & M. Rice, pp. 217-24. London.

Kjaerum , P. (1980) Seals of " Dilmun Type" from Failaka , Kuwait. Proceedings of the Seminarfo r Arabian Stud ies 10, pp. 45-54.

Kjae rum, P. (1983) The Sta mp and Cylinder Seals. FailakalDilmun, The Second MillenniumSettlement , vol. I 1. Ju tland Archaeolo gical Society P ublications, XVII I. Aarh us.

Kohl, P. L. (1974) Seeds of Upheaval: the Production ofCh/orire at Tepe Yahya and an Analysisof Commodity Production and Trade in Southwe st Asia in the Mid-third Millennium, 2vols. (Docto ral Dissertat ion, Dept. of Anthropology, Harvard University, available on Univer­sity Microfilm, Ann Arbor Michigan).

Koh l, P .L. (1975) Carved Chlori te Vessels; a Trade in Finished Commodities in the Mid- thirdMillennium. Expediti on 1811, pp. 18- 31.

Koh l, P.L. (1977) A Note on Ch lor ite Art ifa cts from Shahr-i Sokhta. EW 27/ 1-4, pp . 111- 27.Kohl, P.L. (1978) The Balance of Trade in Southwestern Asia in the Mid-third Millennium BC.

Current Anthropology 1913 , pp. 463-92.Miroschedji, P. de (1973) Vases et objects en steatite susiens du Musee du Louvre. Canters de

la Delegation Archeologique Prancaise en Iran 3, pp . 9-80.Piperno , M. & To si, M . (1973) Lithic Technology behind the Ancient La pis Lazuli Trade. Exp e­

dition IS, pp. 15-23.Po rada, E. (1971) Some Results of the Th ird International Conference on Asian Archaeology in

Bahrain, March 1970. Artibus Asiae 33, pp . 291-338.Potts, D. (1983) Dilmu n: Where and When? Ddmun , Journal of the Bahrain Historical and

Archaeological Society XI, pp. 15-1 9.Potts, D. (n.d .) The Ch ronology of the Archaeologica l Assemb lages from the Head of the Ara ­

bian Gu lf to the Arabian Sea (8000- 1750 BC). Chronologies in Old World Archaeology,ed . R. W. Ehrich. J rd ed ., Chicago .

[17J Fragments of Stone Vessels as a Base Material 491

Quails, C. (1985) Making Dilmu n Seals. Unpublished mater ia ls for the Kuwait National MuseumExhibition Hall, perso nal communica tion .

Schiffer, M. (1972) Archaeological Context and Systemic Context. A merican Antiquity 37/ 2. pp.156- 65.

Sra ffa, P . ( 1960) Produc tion of Commodities by Means of Commodities. Cambridge.Tosi, M. (1968) Excavations a t Shahr- i So khta , a Chalcolithic Sett lement in the Iranian Sisran.

Preliminary Report on the First Campaign, October- December 1967. £ W 18/ 1- 2, pp . 9-66.