Decorated Pottery Styles in the Northern Levant during the Early Iron Age and their Relationship with Cyprus and the Aegean Gunnar Lehmann, Beer Sheva The Relative Chronology.................................................................................................. 488 The Absolute Chronology ................................................................................................ 491 The Relevant Sites in the Northern Levant ...................................................................... 494 Late Helladic IIIC Style Pottery (Open Shapes) of the Syrian Iron Age IA .................... 500 Late Helladic IIIC Style Pottery (Open Shapes) of the Syrian Iron Age IB .................... 504 Closed Shapes in Late Helladic IIIC Styles...................................................................... 506 Local Productions influenced by Late Helladic IIIC Styles ............................................. 507 Proto-White Painted ......................................................................................................... 508 Non-Late Helladic IIIC Styles with Relations to Cyprus and the Aegean ....................... 509 The Aegeanizing styles of Cilicia during the early Iron Age ........................................... 510 The Distribution Pattern of the Pottery............................................................................. 513 An Interpretation of the Evidence .................................................................................... 514 Illustrations ....................................................................................................................... 522 Tables................................................................................................................................ 530 Maps ................................................................................................................................. 533 References ........................................................................................................................ 537 The transition from Late Bronze Age to Iron Age in the Levant is often under- stood as the beginning of a “Dark Age” initiated by large scale destructions and characterized by devastating ethnic changes with Sea Peoples and Aramaeans as key factors. The reality may have been less dramatic, more gradual and maybe less determined by ethnic movements. Recent research and excavations in the northern Levant point to a political crisis and to a reduced scale of urbanism with cultural changes such as the abandonment of cuneiform writing. But there is apparently also a relevant degree of continuity (Mazzoni 2000, 31–32). With the exception of the three destroyed centers Ugarit, Alalakh and Emar, most of the larger and smaller towns soon recovered and created new territorial polities. With the old empires gone, their remnants Karkemish, the Neo-Hittite states in southeast Anatolia or Hama and Patasatini in Syria created new political and social systems. This texture of changes and continuities constitutes a major challenge for Levantine archaeology. Among the new elements appearing during the Iron Age in the Levant are decorated ceramics of the Late Helladic IIIC (LH IIIC) tradi- in: Ugarit-Forschungen 39(2007)487-550