Publisher's Synopsis
In this study, the Late-Early Bronze Age pottery finds and the finding of the "great building" of Yassihoyuk (Kirsehir) from the final phase of the 3rd millennium BC in Central Anatolia are presented; specifically: the buildings and the ceramic inventory of Stratum III. The typological evaluations are followed by observations on the function, find context, dating and geographical distribution of the various vessel shapes. While some of the vessel shapes (pithoi, baking dishes, cooking pots) documented in the "large building" of Yassihoyuk already occur in earlier sections of the Early Bronze Age, types such as beaked jugs, pithos beaked jugs, spouted jugs, pots with collars, bowl type 4 ( "bead-rim bowls"), type 1 and 2 cups are important, which first appear in the late part of the Early Bronze Age and are then also characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age ("Karum Period"). The large building of Yassihoyuk allows to analyze the plan disposition and the functions of the individual rooms and to propose an interpretation of the function of the complex as a whole: there may have been representative and private rooms on the first or even the second floor of the "great building" which could justify a designation as "palace". On the other hand, cultic and economic functional areas are tangible on the ground floor. The equipment and routing within the building allow the assumption that a sacred function could have been in the foreground here.
