ABSTRACT

Who made it? The question of producer identity is self-evident to any scholar attempting to work from material to culture. Defining ‘who’ as an individual in the Bronze Age Aegean is particularly challenging; attempts to define ‘hands’ have been controversial in light of a variety of challenges, including that of distinguishing a workshop from an individual (e.g. Cherry 1999). Efforts to describe ceramicists (here defined broadly as those who work with clay, regardless of the stage of the process in which they are engaged or of the identity of the product) in terms of their gender, age or social identity have been more widely attempted. For example, within the Aegean, Vitelli (1978) has addressed the gender of Neolithic potters, Nordquist (1995) the identities of Middle Helladic potters and Papadopoulos (1997: 453) has asked about potters in general, from the Neolithic through to the Classical period. Among scholars working on Cyprus, the issue of the gender of ancient potters has excited substantial debate (Hankey 1983; Walz 1985; London 1987; 2002; Clarke 2002), as it has for scholars working around the world (Marshall 1985; Wright 1991; Arnold 1985).