Image Details

Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier

Mycenaean pottery—such as the kylix, or drinking vessel, from Miletus shown here and jars from Troy (see photo of jars from Troy)—has been found at Late Bronze Age sites throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and Black seas. Excavations at Troy have also turned up Canaanite jars, Cypriot pottery and ostrich eggs, all items typically traded in the Late Bronze Age. Strangely, however, no Hittite pottery has been found at Troy, which we would expect if Troy was indeed the Hittite vassal state referred to in Hittite texts as Wilusa. Niemeier suggests that the answer is simple: The Hittites, unlike the Mycenaeans, just didn’t export pottery.