Introduction - Throwing Some Color on a Plain World

The different but closely related 'Late Bronze Age Painted Pottery Traditions at the Margins of the Hittite State' that are in the focus of the present volume represent a specific phenomenon of cultural history. To achieve deeper insights into this previously neglected topic, it is necessary to look at the cultural-historical conditions in which these pottery traditions developed, as the latter can then be explained as a spatially and temporally limited structure of production. The framework in which this phenomenon appeared is given by the Hittite pottery, the dominating ceramic tradition of Late Bronze Age Anatolia, which profoundly influenced the neighbouring regions especially during the imperial period. Leaving aside the discussions on the different labels applied to this ceramic tradition, it is here important to stress that we are dealing with the pottery connected with the genesis and development of the Hittite State and its society