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Maja Gori, Tobias Krapf
The Bronze and Iron Age Pottery from Sovjan1
Introduction
Sovjan is located in southeast Albania, on the northwestern side of the approximately 250 km2 large Korça Plain, a wide plateau forming one of the typical inland basins distinctive of the Balkans. Sovjan is a 1.5 ha lakeside settlement, situated on the western shores of what had been Lake Maliq until it was drained during the 1940’ s. It lies some 3.5 km northeast of the modern village of Maliq, whose prehistoric site of the same name was discovered in 1948.2 In 1988, much like Maliq, Sovjan was discovered by chance, during intense agricultural work on the plain. The elliptically shaped site measures 120 m (east to west) x 160 m (north to south) and lies approximately 2 m above the surrounding plain at an altitude of 817.5 m a. s. l.
1 This study has been undertaken in the frame of the “ Mission franco-albanaise du Bassin de Korçë”, directed by P. Lera, G. Touchais and C. Oberweiler. We would like to express our deep
gratitude to the directors of the project for allowing us to study the pottery from Sovjan, and for
their support and help in Korçë. We owe special thanks to Petrika Lera for sharing with us his wide and profound knowledge of the Korçë region. The drawings were made by the authors. M. Bénet made most of the digital re-drawings of plates 7-12. The research has been supported by DAAD, Janggen– Pöhn– Stiftung, Swiss National Science Foundation, and Université francoallemande Deutsch-Französische Hochschule.
2 Prendi (1966).
ILIRIA XXXIX
