Vessels with animal spouts 1,950-1,750 BC
- source Museum of Anatolian
Civilisations, Ankara

A two-handled polychrome urn found at Kultepe in the “Cappadocian Style” was decorated with zig-zag patterns in black and red on a cream ground. Also found there was a fantastic terracotta lion rhyton, highly polished in red/brown monochrome. They also made seals showing gods standing on animals, hunting, fighting and religious scenes. Around 1,850 BC some quite fantastic shaped vessels were produced – dual pouring ones with spouts and handles, other pots had animals mounted on the handles (some quite large such as mounted horses) and animal formed spouts.

Kultepe four handled vessels and horse
shaped rhytons 1,950-1,750 BC - source
Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, Ankara

Other finds at Kultepe are large red burnished four-handled pots with panels of complex geometric decoration and rhytons formed as animals (horses) with a filling hole on the back and nose formed as a spout.

9.38 The Hittite Empire (1,680-1,180 BC)  

The Hittites were Indo-European speaking farmers and traders who probably originated in South Russia/Caucasus and moved into Hurrian territory, but were then driven by them north into Anatolia. They started immigrating in small groups but then in growing numbers around 1,900 BC. They captured city after city and came to dominate the indigenous people, absorbing the Culture of the natives that was by then this mixture of Hatti and Assyrian Semitic. They conquered, razed and cursed the city of Hattusas the capital of the Hatti around 1,800 BC. It was their conquest of Hattusas that gave the invaders the name Hittites. They also absorbed the kingdom of Kanesh and built up the city-states that started to come together firstly as a political union in Central Anatolia and went on to form the Old Hittite Empire from 1,680 to around 1,550 BC. The first king of the Hittites, Labarna (1,680-1,650 BC), rebuilt Hattusas and moved his capital there, ignoring the original curse. It is located north east of Catal Huyuk, 500 miles east of Constantinople (now Istanbul). The Hittites extended their Empire to cover much of Anatolia, obtaining the allegiance of city-states such as Troy on the Mediterranean coast. At this time they used not only cuneiform but also their own version of hieroglyphics.

Syrio-Hittite deity, 2,000 BC
- courtesy Ifergan Collection

Early Hittite pottery included figures of the fertility goddess and other cult figures, which were also made in faience. Vessels were made on a potter’s wheel and they continued to produce beak-spouted jugs, large spouted teapots and tall, pedestalled fruit bowls with multiple handles. The shapes were based on those of the early Bronze Age, and the most beautiful, often red bodied, burnished examples had a very glossy metallic appearance. As with most Empires, art focussed on religion and royalty. Drinking and pouring vessels continued to be made in the forms of bodies of animals such as cattle and lions decorated in brown on cream. Again pouring vessels would have a filling hole on the back with the snout as the pouring hole and Zoomorphic vessels often looked strikingly fierce or had fierce animal heads as handles, spouts or as relief decoration. Generally their painted pottery had black, brown and red geometric patterns on a cream ground.