ABSTRACT
T h e Uruk period has been conventionally defined by the appearance o f unpainted red-slipped and grey pottery at level —X IV in a test-pit sunk through some 20 m. o f stratified
occupation debris from the court of the prehistoric Limestone Temple ( —V) in the E-anna at Erech.1 These plain dark-faced wares, together with an equally plain drab ware, replace the painted Ubaid fabrics and mark a breach with the old ceramic tradition. At the same level appear cups and jugs with handles (Fig. 62) that look
equally foreign. How far other innovations, such as the use o f the bow, certainly observable in the Uruk period, coincide with the change in pottery cannot be decided from the limited material furnished by a narrow test pit. The new ceramic shapes and techniques suffice to prove a profound foreign influence on the culture o f Sumer, very probably to be explained by an actual infiltration o f a new ethnic element. Since red and grey wares and
handled vases were long popular in North Syria and Palestine, the new impulse most likely came from the west or north-west. If immigrants be postulated, the most likely candidates would be Semites.
