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Bible lands Pottery
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Dictionary of ancient pottery of the Bible
1. Glossary of pottery of the Bible
2. Handbook of pottery of the Bible
3. Encyclopedia of pottery of the Bible
4. How pottery is made
5. How to identify ancient pottery
Midianite Pottery
"Fine dining ware"
Trademark pottery manufactured at Qurayyah in Arabia and brought to Israel through the Kenites.
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Negev Pottery
"Disposable dish ware"
Crude, handmade pottery 1446 - 700 BC of the Negev.
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Cypriot pottery
From the Island of Cypress, this pottery was key to proving the location of Jericho.
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A. Radiocarbon Analysis of Pottery at Khirbat en-Nahas:
See our page on Khirbat en-Nahas.
"Initial observations on the pottery corpus suggest that much of the
pottery should be taken as very early Iron Age II, and dated to the
tenth-to-ninth centuries, although there are slight indications that some
of the material may be earlier and dated to the Iron Age I, of the twelfth
-to-eleventh centuries. Collared-rim jars, large jugs, carinated bowls and
monochrome and bichrome ring-painted bowls dominate the local assemblage.
Included in the local assemblage are a large number of hand-made bowls and
holemouth jars that have often been referred to in other reports as
Negebite Ware, and taken as indications of an early date. In the context of
Khirbat en-Nahas they are clearly associated with local production since
they have slag temper, and are not a useful tool for dating." (Reassessing
the chronology of Biblical Edom, Thomas E. Levy, 2004 AD)
"However, the current suite of 37 radiocarbon dates from KEN are not
without problems (see Higham et al. [Chapter 11, this volume]) and it is
clear that many more samples must be tested from sealed archaeological
deposits associated with 'cleaner' assemblages of ceramics, scarabs, seals
and other archaeological evidence. While the current dates push the
occupational history of Edom back to the 12th-9th centuries BCE, the sample
size is too small to confront the arguments concerning the High and Low
Chronologies for the Iron Age in Israel/Palestine. These dates do bring the
Iron Age archaeology of Edom back, to a certain degree, to historical
questions raised long ago by Nelson Glueck (1940) concerning the Iron I and
Iron Ila. While lack of space prevents a detailed discussion here, the fact
that Edom is mentioned no less than 99 times in the Hebrew Bible justifies
a re-examination of some historical issues in relation to the new
archaeological excavations in the lowland region to establish some working
hypotheses for the Iron Age history of Edom. (The Bible and Radiocarbon
Dating, Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Higham, 2005, p159)
B. Neutron Activation Analysis of pottery at Timna:
In 1991, J. Gunneweg worked with The Hebrew University and the
University of Bonn to do a Neutron Activation Analysis of pottery. This is
test allows scientists to identify the trace elements in pottery and
establish a unique fingerprint for each of the 81 pieces tested. The
purpose was to see if a common type of clay was used from a single
geographic location:
"The purpose of this study is to establish the origin of the three above
mentioned different pottery styles in order to shed some light on important
inter-regional contacts between, on the one hand, the Negev and Timna and,
on the other hand, Egypt, Midian and Edom. These different pottery
repertories are listed in Table 1 according to chronological period and
style and with the names used in the present study." (Edomite, Negev,
Midianite Pottery: Neutron Activation Analysis, Gunneweg, 1991 AD)
It was discovered that the chemical make up of the Midianite pottery
at Timna, for example, had a unique very fingerprint:
"`Midianite' pottery: Two painted 'Midianite' sherds (N27 and 28) from
smelting site 2 at Timna show a chemical composition which is different
from all pottery seen so far. This 'Midianite' pottery is chemically
characterized by an unusually low calcium content ( 0.5%) and high
lanthanum and thorium (75 and 25 ppm respectively), whereas cobalt is low
(6.5 ppm). (Edomite, Negev, Midianite Pottery: Neutron Activation Analysis,
Gunneweg, 1991 AD)
The result of the scientific tests was stunning, since it proved
that indeed Midianite pottery found in the Negev was imported from a kiln
discovered at Qurayyah, in modern Saudi Arabia.
"We have compared these data with those obtained from archaeologically
defined local 'Midianite' pottery, which was obtained through the late Mrs
C.-M. Bennett from Parr's survey at Qurayyah in Midian (Arabia) and
analysed at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Cluster analysis made it
clear that the two sherds from Timna statistically match a mixed
Timna-Qurayyah group of pottery believed to have been locally made in
north-west Arabia, perhaps at Qurayyah. Qurayyah is a likely candidate
because this ceramic does not analyse as Negev or Edom wares and Qurayyah
is archaeologically the major site in a region which served as a corridor
between Arabia and the Negev. However, additional production centres are
not excluded, even at sites close to Timna. ... Columns 8 and 9 show the
chemical composition of this 'Midianite' pottery. Statistical comparison
shows that these compositions are quite similar." (Edomite, Negev,
Midianite Pottery: Neutron Activation Analysis, Gunneweg, 1991 AD)
"Early Iron Age I Timna, with its highly centralized metal-mining
activities, was certainly dependent on foreign trade because no major
settlements have been found near Timna which could have imported Timna's
entire copper output. Although Egyptian cartouches and other finds at Timna
(including the Hathor Temple itself) may point to at least an Egyptian
connection there, the picture obtained from this study is much more
complicated. By tracing the copper of Timna one establishes an export trade
to distant countries, but this does not answer the question of who was
mining and working copper at Timna. This can partly be solved by
determining unidirectional trade in pottery of the people who worked there.
INAA data show that 75% of all pottery analysed from Timna (Negbite',
'Midianite' and 'faience' wares) was imported from Edom proper, whereas 10%
could have come from Arabia (perhaps Qurayyah)." (Edomite, Negev, Midianite
Pottery: Neutron Activation Analysis, Gunneweg, 1991 AD)
By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.
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