Archaeologists distinguish craft specializations as ‘‘independent’’ or as ‘‘attached,’’ most often with focus on the New World (Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Costin 1991; Inomata 2001). Independent specialization involves production for an assumed, but amorphous, demand for goods from the general population; attached specialization means production of goods for patrons, with implications of complex society and elite control of media and motifs. Attached specialists generally produce valuable goods, while independent specialists produce utilitarian items (Stein 1996).
For the Ubaid period (about 5800-4000 bce) and Uruk period (about 40003100 bce) in Mesopotamia we have yet to reconstruct the pattern of craft production. Even for the historical periods, with detailed information of who was working for whom and producing what, we often cannot be sure that attached specialists recorded in texts were attached full time or even specialists full time. An Ubaid period potter might create common wares and elaborate painted wares for different clientele, but fire them at the same time in one kiln, blurring the specialization boundaries. Similarly, textile-production might be household-based, although the final products had many destinations.
In the Uruk period, there were surely attached craft specialists who produced cylinder seals, stone vessels, and statues exclusively for the temple or palace and its elite occupants. The ‘‘Professions List’’ points to the existence of potters, weavers, and carpenters who may have been producing for either elite or common demands, or both (Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993: 110-15). Were these individuals fulltime specialists? And is there any link between value of product and status of producer? Attached specialists may be of low status because of their dependence on patrons. But their esoteric knowledge, artistic skill, and access to restricted media and motifs might be socially valuable. While cylinder seals were clearly valuable because of medium, motifs, artistic skill, and use, what about, for instance, the hundreds of clay cones used for public building decoration? This was clearly an attached specialization, since cones were used exclusively by the temple and palace. But the skill level was low and the medium cheap and ubiquitous. Technically, anyone could have decorated his or her house with cone mosaics. The temple and palace control made clay cones absurdly valuable, but was this status passed on to their producers?
Standardization of pottery was present in shape and style from the Pottery Neolithic (after 6500 bce). But in the Uruk period, we see probable mass-production. Decoration dropped to a minimum; volumes as well as forms may have been standardized. Many vessels were made on a fast potter’s wheel, and it is possible that some pottery production moved from the hands of women to those of men, while women were more often found at the weaving loom. But questions persist about pottery’s mode of production.
We cannot agree who was responsible for production of the ubiquitous beveled-rim bowl, nor can we agree on its purpose. Was this a ration bowl, produced under elite management, filled under that management, and distributed by it (Nissen 1970, 2002)? Might it have been produced in less regulated circumstances, within the family or village, but brought to the elite for filling? Or neither? Beveled-rim bowls have also been interpreted as salt containers (Buccellati 1990), bread-molds (Millard 1988; Chazan and Lehner 1990), yoghurt containers (Delougaz 1952), templeoffering bowls (Mallowan 1933; Beale 1978), and vessels used at banquets organized by elites (Forest 1987). The reconstruction of the beveled-rim bowl as ration container is problematic. As any refugee knows, the size of container for receiving rations is irrelevant, a plastic bag or empty tin will do; the sole container for which size is important is that held in the hand issuing rations.
World History
