Two Pottery Assemblages from Khirbat el-Ni'ana.'

Fragments from a group of stamped and painted pictorial bowls dating to the sixth and early seventh centuries A.D., have been found at numerous sites in middle and northern Jordan. While they are of considerable interest both to the archaeologist and the art historian, they have been poorly understood and scantily published. Recent excavations, in particular at Jerash, have begun to redress this situation, and the writer is at present engaged in a detailed study of the group as a whole.' The bowls are commonly referred to as "Jerash Bowls", largely because they were first identified at that site during the Yale excavations of the late 1920's and early 1930's and were recovered there in considerable quantity.2 Further excavations and recent research have confirmed this attribution.

Hadashot Arkheologiyot 134, 2022

Atiqot 100, 2020

Miqne-Ekron 10/1, Field IV Upper and Field V: Iron Age IIC Temple Complex 650, 2022

Excavations and Surveys in Israel 133, 2021

The salvage excavation conducted near Damascus Gate ('Adawi 2021) yielded very little in the way of ceramic material. Furthermore, all the specimens originated from unstratified fill contexts that were associated with neither floors nor architectural features. Therefore, the small corpus from the site is presented by vessel type in order to illustrate the typo-chronological range of forms revealed in the excavation. The assemblage consists of bowls and basins, a chamber pot, a store jar and a terracotta water pipe (i.e., tubulus), jugs or ibriqs, as well as special ceramic finds, including a brazier and a tripod stand associated with ceramic production (Fig. 1). Taken together, these vessels range in date from the Umayyad through the late Ottoman periods (mid-seventh to nineteenth centuries CE). Bowls and Basins (Fig. 1:1-4) Three bowls are presented here. The bowl in Fig. 1:1 is of the well-known underglaze painted ware, which was produced in Raqqa in northern Syria from the mid-twelfth to the mid-thirteenth centuries CE. The vessel has a ledge rim, which is slightly upturned at its terminus. It has white (5Y 8/1) soft-paste fabric, but, like most of the examples of this ware recovered from Jerusalem, the glaze has completely worn off, leaving the fine black (N2.5) painted linear and geometric decoration on its interior and exterior exposed. This ceramic family was first categorized as Ḥama Types VII-VIII (Poulsen 1957) and dated to the thirteenth century CE, and it conforms to the well-known Avissar and Stern (2005:26-28, Fig. 9:4-11) Type I.2.3.1, Soft-Paste Ware Painted in Black under Transparent Colorless Glaze. Although no exact parallel for this vessel could be found, a similar bowl with the same rim form and some of its decorative elements was recovered from an Ayyubid context (mid-twelfth-mid-thirteenth centuries CE) at the Armenian Garden in the Old City of Jerusalem (Tushingham 1985:144, Fig. 44:1). The vessel in Fig. 1:2 is a ring-base bowl which also dates from the mid-twelfth through the midthirteenth centuries CE. Its fabric is reddish yellow (5YR 6/6), it bears a thin white slip and is covered with a yellowish brown gritty glaze. The form corresponds to Avissar and Stern (2005:8, Fig. 2:2) Type I.1.2 Bowls with Gritty Glaze. A close parallel for this bowl was uncovered at Khirbat Ka'kul in the Jerusalem hinterland (Boas 2006: Fig. 12:90).

'Atiqot 95, 2019