Beveled-rim bowl

There are, of course, other sites not included here, and a very large number of sites recognized in surface survey and attributed to the Uruk period because of the presence of beveled-rim bowls in particular. For the problems with such attributions, see following. But without being able to attribute these sites to a reworked chronology, or to a kind of occupancy, i.e., local or intrusive, they contribute only to the geographic picture. 

Interestingly, perhaps the first evidence of contact between the south and true north is at Tell Brak, where in level 16 a few beveled-rim bowls were found. Dates for this level vary. David and Joan Oates (1997 287) placed it around 3500 BCE, with which Wright and Rupley concur (2001 101-2). Subsequent work at the site, however, seems to have pushed the date back to before 3600 BCE (it is considered Late Chalcobthic 3 see, for example, Rothman 2002 52, table 2) and perhaps as early as 3700 BCE (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003 fig. 6.3 Oates 2005 18-21). This would correspond to the establishment of Sheikh Hassan around 3680/3600 BCE. A walled site of approximately one hectare. Sheikh Hassan is the first so-called Uruk colony, with the possible exception of Tell Abr. It contains a cell building similar to that of ZeytinU... 

Both sites seem to be lacking a preliminary phase of contact in which beveled-rim bowls only are found. However, since contact in this phase seems to have been very small-scale, it is possible chat it simply has not been found as yet. 

See, for instance, Potts s (2009) notation of eastern sites with beveled-rim bowls. 

Beveled-rim bowls occur with Late Chalcolithic materials in a number of contexts for example, the southeast room of the yellowish brick building in operation 12 (Stein et al. 1997 118) the house in operation 15 where there is a high concentration of Mesopotamian Uruk ceramics in the ash and midden that fill the rooms, and. .. two complete bevel rim bowls in the floor deposit of the southern room (Stein et al. 1997 114-15) and in operation 4, where perhaps the most extensive architecture for phase B2 contains local Late Chalcolithic materials with beveled-rim bowls (Stein et al. 1996 217). Operation 7 is in the area characterized as entirely local Late Chalcolithic, and it too contained pits full of Uruk materials, mostly beveled-rim bowls, with some local wares. 

But whatever the bowls prove to be, each of the explanations clearly shows that they were not just a form, one that might be adopted by anyone because of its utility or technical advantages, but rather were deeply embedded in a cultural locus, so that it seems it must have been the locus itself that was in place wherever there are beveled-rim bowls. Technologically sophisticated they are not. This is their very point they are easily made, easily broken (although remarkable numbers of intact vessels are recovered) domestic objects so frequently found that everyone probably had or used one or more of them therefore they must have been part of something that everyone did all the time. This pertains... 

This issue of mass production is complicated. Although the term seems often enough used as denoting simply a commodity made in large volume, it should be adduced on the grounds both of frequency and standardization and implies the consistent output of a specialist. This would seem inapplicable to the beveled-rim bowls, for all the signs, such as an actual lack of standardization and the varieties of finished product, point to these as objects that may equally be made in a domestic context. 

Potts, however, does not delineate the mechanisms of this transmission, which begs as many questions as it answers. Presumably, in this reconstruction, key centers in the east - identifiable because they contain masses of beveled-rim bowls - were incorporated into the Mesopotamian system, or at least borrowed its basic sociopolitical structure of indentured or corvee labor drawn from the surrounding hinterlands. That labor was paid with bread. Those who experienced this bread would immediately prefer it to the bread they had eaten all their lives and so would choose to make it at home (cf Badler 2002 84) their neighbors, once having had access to it, would also make the switch. 

As widespread as the bowls are, there are still Late Chalcolithic sites contemporaneous with and well within the core zones of their use that do not have them. Any explanation for the function and distribution of beveled-rim bowls must take into account not only how many are found, but also where they are found and, in equal measure, where they are not found. It must account for their extraordinary consistency in form, fabric, and manufacture across a vast geographic and time range, especially as they are locally produced and might therefore vary in at least nuanced ways. In fact, since everyone was making their own, and often in places where there was already an indigenous tradition of mass-produced bowls and plates, it would not be unreasonable to expect... 

At the same time, proponents of the ration-bowl theory note that the cuneiform sign meaning to eat also employs a bowl (with a human head) that looks like our beveled-rim bowl (Nissen 1988 84-5). But of course what food would be more symbolic of eating than bread ... 

While I incline to the bread-mold function for beveled-rim bowls, I suggest a different way of understanding their distribution and interpretative significance. Their introduction constitutes at some sites a sharp demarcation when juxtaposed with local Late ChalcoUthic traditions, a distinction that becomes even more marked when the full Uruk repertoire arrives. At the same time, other local Late Chalcolithic settlements - Arslantepe, Tell Brak, and Susa - have their own parallel and precedent version of this form in play at the time of the beveled-rim bowl encounter. Brak, like the Euphrates site of Arslantepe, represents a strong northern indigenous power that in some way accommodates Urukeans, and, just as at Arslantepe, southern material attributes intervene... 

This local Late Chalcolithic bowl/cup form is understood as provisioning a centrally controlled labor force - that is, as a unit of rationing by Oates (Oates et al. 2007 596 and Frangipane 2002), but this is surely on the basis of the dominant interpretation of the beveled-rim bowl. 

In this reconstruction too, as in current interpretations, the focus of southern presence is turned outwards, away from the settlements in which the southerners themselves are situated. It is directed not so much toward an activity such as trade, however (although the ultimate motive is still economic), as it is to a population, one much larger than the merchants and entrepreneurs posited in other scenarios. This population is not directly visible in the settlements we have recovered nor indeed is it actually there, except on certain occasions. I am reminded of Potts s (2009) observation that there could not possibly have been southern residents, and (contra Goulder 2010) certainly not administrators, at every place where beveled-rim bowls are found, and he is right. But there is one kind of southerner that could certainly, at one time or another, have been making and using beveled-rim bowls everywhere that traces of Uruk materials are recovered mobile pastoralists. 

Abdi, K. 1999. The Beveled-Rim Bowl Function and Distribution (Farsi, English summary). In The Iranian World. Essays on Iranian Art and Archaeolo Presented to Ezat O. Negahban, edited by A. Alizadeh, M. Majidzadeh, and S. Shahmirzadi, 222-3. Tehran Iran University Press. 

Berman,. C. 1989. Neutron Activation Analysis of Beveled Rim Bowls and Other Uruk Ceramics from the Susiana Plain, Southwestern Iran. Paleorient 15/1 289-90. 

Goulder, J. 2010. Administrator s Bread An Experiment-based Re-assessment of the Functional and Cultural Role of the Uruk Bevel-Rim Bowl. Antiquity 84 351-62. 

Millard, A. 1988. The Bevelled-Rim Bowls Their Purpose and Significance. Iraq 50 49-58. 

Nicholas, I. 1987. The Function of Bevelled-Rim Bowls A Case Study at the TUV Mound, Tal-e-Malyan, Iran. Paleorient 13/2 61-72. 

Bevel-Rim Bowls and Bakeries Evidence and Explanations from Iran and the Indo-lranian Borderlands. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 61 1-23. 

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