How the Uruk Potters Used the Wheel. New Data on Modalities and Conditions of Emergence of the Potter’s Wheel in the Uruk World

(after the toponym of the site in southern Iraq) have traditionally been considered the origin for the
development of the potter’s wheel in the Near East, according to a perspective that associated the
emergence of the potter’s wheel, the “mass” production of the so-called bevelled-rim bowls and first
urbanization. According to recent excavations and ceramic studies it is now clear that this was a narrative
based on a priori convictions. However, even if under very different socio-technical conditions, it
is true that the potter’s wheel made an early appearance in Southern Mesopotamia within the Uruk
cultural sphere, and then developed in a widespread and discontinuous way in the Uruk network.
Based on recent ongoing fieldwork data from Syria (Tell Feres) and Iraqi Kurdistan (Logardan and
Girdi Qala), ceramic analyses have taken into account new criteria to identify the use of the potter’s
wheel. This paper outlines the chronological and socio-technical scenario behind the adoption of the
potter’s wheel in the Uruk world, picturing the peculiarities of this cultural environment, as well as
the parallels with the emergence conditions of the potter’s wheel in northern Mesopotamia and other
areas of the Near East.