The handmade pottery of the Kura Araxes culture is unique and easily recognized. The pots are typically black on the outside and red on the inside. The shiny metallic finish was achieve by burnishing the pot with a smooth stone before firing. The earliest pottery is mottled black and brown and lacks decoration.

These pots often incorporate small knobby handles named “Nakhichevan lugs” after the type site in Azerbaijan where they were first identified. Small but thick loop handles are also common. The vessels may incorporate simple geometric designs or enigmatic symbols which defy interpretation. Pots were made with a narrow rounded base so that they could be set in a depression in the ground or on a hearth. Specially made pottery stands are also common.

Characteristics:

• handmade
• black-burnished outside and red-burnished inside
• small loop handle or “Nakhichevan” lug
• incised or raised lines, spirals and enigmatic symbols
• narrow base
• lids
• stands

Red and Black Burnished at Arslantepe

Elements of the Kura Araxes culture have been found beyond the Caucasus, in northern Iran and eastern Anatolia. Most notably, Red and Black Burnished Ware was found at Arslantepe in Stratum VIA. A large administrative building which belongs to this stratum produced archaic accounting tablets, beveled-rim bowls, and cylinder seal impressions typical of the Uruk period. As you may recall, this level also produced “flowerpots” and fenestrated pottery stands. These objects suggest that Arslantepe functioned as a trading post for Urukean merchants. The presence of hand made Red and Black Burnished pottery in the same level points to some overlap between the Uruk period and the Kura Araxes culture.¹Frangipane 1997, 69

Uruk Period (VIA)

Early Dynastic (VIB)

Arslantepe was not insulated from the sudden collapse of the Urukean trade network which marked the end of an era, although perhaps not the end of the Uruk period. The large administrative building which housed the archaic accounting tablets was destroyed and its place taken by smaller, less well constructed buildings. These buildings, some of which had a rounded floor plan, often had hearths while Red and Black Burnished Ware became the predominant pottery type at the site.

The evidence from Arslantepe suggests that the city succumbed to an invasion from the Caucasus. However, since Red and Black Burnished pottery was already present at Arslantepe during the Uruk period, it is difficult to argue that this was an invasion from the Caucasus. The destruction wrought at Arslantepe seems rather to have been the result of a broader phenomenon which saw a great many Uruk period settlements and trading posts destroyed and abandoned. Perhaps Uruk itself was overthrown, leaving its satellite colonies exposed to attack from other quarters. In either case, the culture which produced the Red and Black Burnished pottery became the dominant one at Arslantepe in the period following the Uruk period. In subsequent centuries pottery belonging to this culture will be found as far afield as Alacahoyuk in central Anatolia, the Amuq Valley in Syria, and the Galilee in Israel. It is not entirely clear whether Red and Black Burnished entered into Anatolia from the Caucasus or whether this type of pottery is native to both regions.²Braidwood argued that the Red and Black Burnished which he found at Amuq Valley sites in Syria evolved from an earlier type which he named Black-Faced Ware. He considered Red and Black Burnished to be the product of a regional phenomenon that encompassed both Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus. Its appearance at sites in the Amuq Valley therefore could not construed as evidence for a northern invasion out of the Caucasus, contra Hood and Woolley. See: Braidwood 1960, 519 ff.