Gucci. McDonald’s. Disney. Apple. All brands known the world over whose names alone seem to be the engine that fuels the self-perpetuating machine of popularity, bordering on idolatry, required for a company to become so popular that they breed legions of ripoffs. There’s one brand that predates them all by centuries that researchers say might be the first recorded instance of a wildly popular “brand” as we know it today. It was a ceramics company from 3,200 years ago.
According to a new study published in PLOS ONE, the operation was based at the Qurayyah oasis in northwestern Arabia and produced what archaeologists call Qurayyah Painted Ware.
Pottery was reportedly visually distinctive, with two-color designs depicting animals and scenes of human activity. It had an inherent uniqueness that made it stand out in the marketplace, and the researchers found evidence that its makers maintained an unusually consistent set of materials and production techniques as they exported their products hundreds of miles beyond the oasis.
This Ancient Pottery Brand Was So Popular People Made Fake Versions of It
It’s always fun to find a parallel to the modern world in the ancient one, and absolutely delightful to hear that archaeologists also found evidence of imitation of this specific pottery brand at other settlements, evidence that suggests people were buying the ripoffs because they wanted the original but, for one reason or another, could not get it.
They wanted pottery from the oasis, and damn it, they were going to get some even if it was only just a close enough rip-off, like the guys who sell pleather Gucci handbags on the sidewalk. Genuine pieces of the pottery have been found in the burial sites of the cultural and economic elite. This was a serious status symbol. Like someone today being buried with a Le Creuset baking dish.
The researchers reached this conclusion by analyzing pottery fragments from Qurayyah using a range of technological and geological techniques, then comparing them with examples found elsewhere. The evidence suggests the pottery was produced at a centralized site using consistent designs and materials, then distributed across a wide trading network. The pottery became so culturally recognizable that it even inspired a thriving market of knockoffs to be sold at ancient versions of Temu. And all without paying a single influencer. That we know of, at least.
Qurayyah Painted Ware was in production until around the sixth century BC, because no brand, no matter how mighty, is built to last forever.
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