Visual Structure of Tall-e Bakun Painted Potteries

Most studies on numerous potteries found in archaeological excavations are aimed at understanding people s mentality and beliefs in that era, in case that these images are externally and naturally roots of our visual art. The recent analytical-historical study will review visual structure of the illustrations in Iran plateau B.C with a formalist approach. The study is based on painted potteries and it is aimed at achieving visual characteristics. Studying vessel forms, elements and visual principle used in images clarifies the dominant visual features and provides context for categorizing samples based on the region’s visual priorities which include density of motifs, compositional structure of illustration and its elements, and type and repetition of motifs. Fars’s Tall-e Bakun is chosen as this study’s case geography because of its geographical extent, plurality of findings and its rich images. Visual samples are gathered by studying excavation reports and observing museum objects. In Tall-e Bakun b’s findings, vessel forms are limited. There’s a density of motifs in image frames, margins, in Tall-e Bakun a’s findings. Variety of motifs outnumbers variety of composition and structure. Visual elements were complementary in most images. However, a few vessels were illustrated only by using them. Visual equality between positive shapes and negative space is the unique feature of many images in this era. Movement and rotation are mostly observed in not band-based structures or animal expressive motifs. After visual analysis and visual criteria determination of motifs, vessels were classified as two major categories of either Fully-Painted or Scattered-Painted. Each category ‘s images were also classified into subgroups based on visual structure, elements of structure, quantity, type and method of motifs’ repetition. More than 90 percent of available vessels specially the scattered ones have band-based structures. Most images are fully painted with a single row or two rows of motifs.