The Materials and Technology of Glazed Ceramics from the Deh Luran Plain Southwestern Iran: A Study in Innovation

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This study examines the factors that govern technological change by focussing on a single industry: the production of glazed ceramics in Mesopotamia. How does innovation appear in any technological system? What brings change to a particular industry? Since technological change is socially contextualized, we must investigate how innovation appears within a particular technology and how that innovation is replicated and disseminated through social networks. Glazed ceramics recovered during the archaeological survey of the Deh Luran Plain, located in southwestern Iran, here serve as the material basis on which the history of lead-based glaze technology is reconstructed. This large ceramic assemblage is described in detail, and subjected to a full complement of archaeometric techniques, combined with historical analysis and independent dating. The history of the development of lead-based glaze over time is thus examined in light of the von Hippie model of technological innovation and the incorporation of such innovations into productive industry.