Page 171 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

part two :
the peripheral regions

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Figure 64. Mitannian pottery, from Tell Atchana and Tell Billa

The painted pottery characteristic of Mitanni, which is known under a variety of
names,38 is shown in Figure 64. Two examples come from the extreme east of the king­
dom, from Tell Billa, north-east of Mosul; the others from die west, Alalakh (Tell At­
chana) in the plain of Antioch. It is represented elsewhere, at Nuzi, Assur, Nineveh, Tell
Brak, Hama, Tell Tayanat, and Ras Shamra.39 It appeared about the reign of Shau-
shattar, in the middle of the fifteenth century b.c., and continues at Alalakh, in elaborate
examples of mostly large vessels, into the thirteenth century b.c. The commonest form
is a tall cup, gracefully decorated with white designs on a dark ground. It has been
thought that this pottery shows Aegean influence, for, although the tall cup with the
button foot is common in Mesopotamia and Syria from the beginning of the second
millennium, the white-on-dark designs have no antecedents. But by 1450 b.c. the Cretan
vogue of this technique was long past, and the running spirals were well established in
both Egypt and t^ie Levant.40 Moreover, the birds, guilloches, and other motifs are
thoroughly Asiatic. The complicated baroque designs which include a ‘double axe are

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