Fire-coloured hybrids. Advances and technological solutions of Protohistoric Iberian Culture (4th-2nd centuries BC) pottery kilns in Catalonia

The hippalectryon (ἱππαλεκτρυών), a mythical hybrid half-horse, half-rooster creature, is not linked to any known myth or legend. It does nonetheless appear as a decorative element on black-figure Attic ware during a specific phase of the Archaic period. As in the case of the hippalectryon, there are also few pottery kilns that shed light on the development of these types of features over time. This paper examines three pottery workshops from the area of the Alt Penedès (Hortes de Cal Pons, Valls de Foix, Font dels Igols) of Catalonia dating from the 4th-3rd centuries BC as well as one from the site of Can Badell (4th and 2nd-1st centuries BC) so as to identify the advances and technological solutions of pottery kilns in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle and Late Iberian period and possibility also single out a hybrid kiln, a sort
of regional hippalectryon.
Keywords: Late Iron Age, Iberian Peninsula, hybrid kilns, pottery workshops, firing technology.