Negevite pottery

Negevite pottery, Negev pottery, Negebite ware, etc. are the names given to a hand-made ware, i.e. without using the potter's wheel, found in Iron Age sites of the Negev desert,[1][2][3] southern Jordan, and the Shfela of Israel.[4] However, its use was not limited to the Iron Age, starting instead in the Bronze Age and continuing uninterruptedly until the Early Muslim period.[5]

It was produced from coarse clay containing straw and other organic materials. It was discovered by C. Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence in the northeastern Sinai, found again by Nelson Glueck in Tell el-Kheleifeh, and at last identified by Yohanan Aharoni as the wares manufactured and used by the people of the desert. Negevite wares show some similarities with Midianite pottery bowls (in form) and with Edomite pottery (in decoration).

Negevite cylindrical vessels found at excavations of Iron Age IIA sites in the Negev Highlands represent the largest and most dominant ceramic assemblage of simple-shaped vessels discovered in Israel.[6]

Date and significance

Negevite pottery has been used in the Negev, without typological changes, from the Early Bronze II and Middle Bronze I ages throughout the Early Muslim period.[5] This means that it can not be used independently as a marker for the Iron Age or any other period for that matter, and can itself only be dated indirectly, based on the wheel-made pottery found in the same stratigraphic context, which is mostly non-local and is period-specific.[5]

However, Negevite pottery is found everywhere at Iron Age sites in the Negev and southern Jordan, and constitutes almost the only source of information about the pastoralists who lived there, available to the archaeologists.[5] Juan Manuel Tebes suggests that Negevite ware was produced in pastoral households for domestic use, and that the movements of the pastoral groups dictates its geographical distribution.[5]

References
  1. Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader, ed. Suzanne Richard
  2. Avner, Uzi (2014). Tebes, Juan Manuel (ed.). Egyptian Timna – Reconsidered (PDF). pp. 103–163 [139–40]. ISBN 9789042929739. Retrieved 29 September 2021. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  3. Meshel, Z. (2002). Does Negevite Ware Reflect the Character of Negev Society in the Israelite Period? in Aharon Kempinski Memorial Volume: Studies in Archaeology and Related Disciplines (Beer-sheva: Studies by the Department of Bible and Ancient Near East 15), edited by S. Ahituv and E. D. Oren. Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press.
  4. A. Dagan, 'Negebite Pottery beyond the Negev', Tel Aviv 38 (2011): 208–219.
  5. Tebes, Juan Manuel (2006). "Iron Age "Negevite" Pottery: A Reassessment" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. Buenos Aires (4): 95–117 [95, 97]. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  6. 'Ancient Standards of Volume: Negevite Iron Age Pottery (Israel) as a Case Study in 3D Modeling,' Journal of Archaeological Science 33 (2006): 1734-1743

Further reading
  • Y. Aharoni, M. Evenari, L. Shanan & N.H. Tadmor. 'The Ancient Desert Agriculture of the Negev, V: An Israelite Agricultural Settlement at Ramat Matred'. Israel Exploration Journal 10 (1960): 23–36, 97–111.
  • M. Haiman & Y. Goren. 'Negevite' Pottery: New Aspects and Interpretations and the Role of Pastoralism in Designating Ceramic Technology'. In O. Bar-Yosef & A. Khazanov (eds.) Pastoralism in the Levant: Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspectives. Monographs in World Archaeology No. 10. Madison, Prehistory Press, 1992, 143–152.
  • M.A.S. Martin et al., Iron IIA slag-tempered pottery in the Negev Highlands, Israel', Journal of Archaeological Science 40/10 (2013): 3777–3792.
  • J.M. Tebes, 'Iron Age 'Negevite' Pottery: A Reassessment', Antiguo Oriente 4 (2006): 95–117.
  • N. Yahalom-Mack et al., 'Lead isotope analysis of slag-tempered Negev highlands pottery', Antiguo Oriente 13 (2015): 83–98.
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