Palestine Traditional Pottery - Craft and Commerce

Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 2017

Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 76.2 (2017): 369–372, 2017

From the various Arab jugs I saw, I was particularly intrigued by the large water jugs named Hesha of Zir in Arabic. Their shape is majestic, their size impressive, many of them are adorned with ancient-looking ornaments and they are ostensibly handmade, in methods that preserve ancient traditions. From the moment I became acquainted with these jugs, I encountered them again in the city, in the moshav and in the kibbutz, at entrances to buildings, inside homes, in courtyards and even at the center of living rooms. My urge to explore the historical background of these jugs stemmed from my actual encounter with their material, form, and identity. These Arab water jugs are the most recent link in a millennia-old chain of local functional pottery, which has ended. They embody local values of form, material, and decoration, and re ect a living succession of generations in the space of the Levant. In this paper I will trace the ethnographic sources of this particular water jug, out of a desire to "recognize the Other", as the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) de ned it. Turning the gaze to the object, which is the water jug, the centerpiece of the Arab home; knowing the history it embodies and examining the intensity of its in uence on Israeli material culture is a kind of welcome that I wish to give the Other with the intention of connecting our common existence in this space.

Palestine Exploration Quarterley , 2018

This research report aims to give detailed information on the pottery from the 1999 and 2013-16 excavation campaigns taking place at the Tell Sufan site in Nablus, Palestine. These were conducted by the Department of Antiquities at An-Najah National University (ANU) in Nablus. It is of note that this ancient pottery has never previously been the subject of research nor has any literature been published on it. Our methodology consists in: analysing the pottery by identifying it, typifying it, and giving it a function; providing chronological information on the site; comparison of the pottery with that from other sites in Palestine, using archaeological information from the site; and contextualising our findings with other historical and archaeological studies. Examination of the functional use of the pottery allows us to demonstrate human activity at the Tell Sufan site, giving information on the most prosperous phases of occupation in regard to economic aspects, through the late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Byzantine-Early Islamic periods.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 2009

Smith and Levy (2008) have published an assemblage of pottery from the copper production centre of Khirbet en-Nahas in Jordan. Based on their interpretation of the 14C dates from the site and contra the accumulated knowledge on the ceramic typology of the Levant they argue that this pottery dates to the Iron I and Iron IIA, and that there was no later activity at the site. We show that much of the Khirbet en-Nahas pottery dates to the Iron IIB-C. We argue that the charcoal samples sent for radiocarbon dating originated from the waste of industrial activity at the site in the Iron I and Iron IIA, while the pottery came from a post-production activity in the Iron IIB-Can activity that included the construction of a fort on the surface of the site. We propose that the fort was built along the Assyrian Arabian trade route, at the foot of the ascent from the Arabah to the Assyrian headquarters of Buseirah.

Palestine Exploration Quarterly 144: 2, 134-139.

Strata: The Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 29 (2011), 61-101.

This paper makes a reassessment of the Southern Transjordan-Negev Pottery (STNP), traditionally known as ‘Edomite’ ware, discovered in archaeological sites in the Negev and southern Transjordan dating to the Late Iron Age. It is built upon three main parts: building a typology of the STNP in the Negev, focusing on both their functional and taxonomic aspects; dating using well stratified assemblages from the Negev; and investigating their spheres of production, distribution and consumption. Scholars have proposed several models for explaining the distribution of STNP, and while many of these proposals have much to commend, they nevertheless focus on a few specific pottery types and stress only one or a few factors for the spatial allocation of the ceramics. However, this ceramic group, being composed of discrete entities, is neither homogeneous nor static. While each of its constituting is congruent inside the typology, they were part of different spheres of production, distribution, consumption and symbolic meaning.

Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 30 April – 4 May 2012,Edited by Piotr Bieliński, Michał Gawlikowski, Rafał Koliński, Dorota Ławecka, Arkadiusz Sołtysiak and Zuzanna Wygnańska; Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden 2014

This Paper presents the preliminary results of the study of the Islamic Handmade Pottery from two excavations areas at Tell Barri in North Eastern Syria (Jezirah). The aim is the complete and detailed study of this pottery: its typology, as well as an analysis of the technical and decorative aspects. The analysis of these vessels of ceramic assemblage provides a significant contribution to our knowledge of common ware production of the 11 th and 13 th centuries in a rural settlement in North Eastern Syria and it allows to reveal several aspects of everyday life in an usually underrepresented territory.

Book review of "The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its Neighbors from the Iron Age through the Hellenistic Period". Edited by Seymour Gitin.

2005

"In September 2005 the IAA Reports series introduced a new book, POTTERY OF THE CRUSADER, AYYUBID, AND MAMLUK PERIODS IN ISRAEL. This book, designed as an easy-to-use catalogue, is a first attempt to collect and distinguish pottery of these periods.In the modern state of Israel a considerable number of sites with strata from the Crusader, Ayyubid, and Mamluk periods have been excavated throughout the last years. These sites yielded a wealth of ceramic mate­rial that is thus far not well known. POTTERY OF THE CRUSADER, AYYUBID, AND MAMLUK PERIODS IN ISRAEL was written in order to fill this lacuna. It presents an up-to-date survey of pottery from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries excavated in Israel through 2004. It is organized as a wide-ranging typology that includes the necessary scientific apparatus, 53 pottery figures illustrating the various types, and 34 color plates that vividly demonstrate the colors of the clay, glazes and decorations. The catalogue is divided into three part: Part I presents the glazed table wares, comprised largely of glazed bowls, and less of closed glazed vessels. There is a wide range of locally produced wares, as well as wares imported from Egypt, Syria, Byzantium, Italy, Spain, and North Africa, and China. Part II deals with simple, mostly unglazed, domestic and industrial wares, as well as glazed cooking wares. Part III discusses the common oil lamps. The initial aim of the book is to assist the field archae­ologist in pottery sorting, as well as to help the interested ceramic specialists, students and readers in identifying and dating the various types. The book is dedicated to the memory of Amir Drori (1937-2005), who was the founder and first director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (1989-2000)."