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September 15, 2006

Friday Pot Blogging

This Friday's pot is my favorite in the whole collection. It's also the largest.

Early Bronze IV Age / Middle Bronze I Age round bottomed jar

This round bottomed, nearly spherical jar, possibly a cooking pot, is almost exactly 25 cm in every dimension. It was made in the Early Bronze IV Age / Middle Bronze I Age transition (c. 2100 to 1850 BCE), and is therefore about the same age as the four-cornered lamp I discussed a couple of weeks ago. The colors are likely the result of oxygen deprivation during firing. While it is reasonable to assume that the potter did this purposefully, it is not reasonable to assume that he had much or any control of the resulting color pattern. The potter applied a red slip before firing. A very similar pot was found in tomb 1101-2 lower level at Megiddo. See Amiran, 78. This is an Early Bronze IV tomb. However, I believe that the pot pictured has greater affinities with the Middle Bronze I jar from El-Uusn that Amiran, 82, pictures or the one she, pl 24 #20, illustrates from Megiddo Tomb 41.

Let's take a closer look at the handle.

Iron I lamp side view

It looks somewhat worthless and as a practical handle it no doubt was. Like buttons on a suit coat sleeve, these are residual elements from an earlier time when pots of similar size and function had substantial handles. Some jars of this general type and age like the one from El-Uusn mentioned above have no handles at all.

Take a close look at this picture of the side of the jar.

Pits in EB IV/ MBI jar

If you look carefully, you'll see pitting on the surface. This pitting is likely the result of falling rocks hitting the pot as it sat in a tomb for 4000 years or a little less. As the ceiling of a tomb (perhaps a natural cave) deteriorates, small rocks fall on the pottery below and pit them. A few of these pits are deep enough to see through. Among the things the deeper pits show is that this pot was well fired with little evidence of gray core. I'll discuss gray core in a future Friday Pot Blogging post.

Reference:

Amiran, Ruth, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land; From its Beginnings in the Neolithic Period to the End of the Iron Age, Jerusalem: Massada Press, 1969

Posted by Duane Smith at September 15, 2006 1:28 PM | Read more on Archaeology |

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Comments

Duane,

An excellent example if I may say so.

Posted by: Joe Cathey at September 16, 2006 10:35 AM

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