Significant Objects and the Biographical Approach: An Inscribed Handle from Misis in Cilicia

In 2016 the fragmentary handle of a plain container in coarse ware bearing incised Cypriot Syllabic signs was collected within the Iron Age II monumental fortress at Misis in Cilicia. A particular segment in the life history of our vessel is reconstructed here through the study of aspects relating to manufacture, consumption, exchange and symbolic value, as well as deposition and discarding. The results of this research shed light on the social mechanisms by which a community of the Eastern Mediterranean forged its social identity in a period of revolutionary social changes. They also help to understand the complex nature, and entangled and transcultural character of Cilician society at the beginning of the first millennium BC.