Marks scratched or painted on the Late Bronze Age (LBA) pottery of the eastern Mediterranean are often highly visible elements of the ceramic assemblage because of their bold rendering and prominent placement (fig. 1). Nevertheless, often they have been overlooked. In those instances where they have been noted, interest in them has been primarily epigraphical. Certainly some of the potmarks are connected somehow with contemporary writing systems. But all of them, signs of script or not, have some reason(s) for being painted or incised on certain vases. This paper begins the process of looking systematically for those reasons.