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October 27, 2006

Friday Pot Blogging

Today I decided to look at a pot, or better a type of pot, that is not represented in the study collection although I wish it were: the collar rim jar.

If you know anything about the archaeology of the early Iron Age Palestine you've heard of the collar rim storage jar (also know as collared rim jar, collar or collared rim pithos and a few other things to confuse the uninitiated). For those who can't quite imagine what these jars look like, here are two examples.

While this type of jar, which is often associated with "Israelite" material culture, has been found at a large number of sites, I did not select these particular two examples at random.

The one on the left is from 'Isbet Sartah and the one on the right is from Aphek. These two sites are just 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from each other but in many ways, they might as well be a world apart. 'Isbet Sartah was a little farming village and, in addition to collar rim jars had other indications of being an Israelite settlement: stoned lined silos, four-room pillared courtyard houses and so forth. Aphek, a "Canaanite" city, with its scribal school, was the residency of a local Egyptian governor. At the time the first settlers temporarily occupied the site of 'Isbet Sartah in the late 13th century BCE, the Egyptian governor's residency may still have been in use but shortly thereafter it was destroyed and around that same time 'Isbet Sartah was temporarily abandoned.

Both of these jars come from strata that would indicate that they are approximately the same age. The 'Isbet Sartah jar is from stratum III and the Aphek jar is from stratum X13. These are more or less contemporaneous strata. I attempted to synchronize the chronology of these 'Isbet Sartah and Aphek in a previous post. The Aphek jar was likely in use about 1230 BCE. That is the approximate date when a letter from the governor of Ugarit was sent to the governor at Aphek. This cuneiform letter on a clay tablet was found in the remains of the governor's residency along with several collar rim jars including the one illustrated above. So one could date the 'Isbet Sartah jar to about the same time.

Don't worry that the Aphek jar has only two handles while the 'Isbet Sartah jar appears to have four. This one from 'Isbet Sartah doesn't really have four handles. It was just drawn that way to illustrate the shape of the handle better. However, a four-handled type was also found at 'Isbet Sartah. If you don't believe me look up Finkelstein's, 76, picture of four collar rim jars found in Stratum III there: three with two handles and one with four handles. It may be worth noting that the one from 'Isbet Sartah has squarer shoulders than the one from Aphek. The Aphek example looks more like a jar from Stratum II at 'Isbet Sartah. See Finkelstein, 273.

This is part of what Beck and Kockavi, 34-35, the excavators of Aphek, had to say about this and other collar rim jars found it the governor's residency,

The presence of this jar in the Residency at Aphek is further evidence that the collared-rim jar, which became the predominant type of storage vessel during the 12th century B.C.E., had its incipient stage in the 13th century.

But like collar rim jars found at other "Canaanite" sites, it is also further evidence that such jars were not the exclusive property of the "Israelite" material culture. This isn't exactly news. Dever, 125, points this out and he is far from alone. It is true that collar rim jars are seen with greater frequency in those sites thought to be "Israelite" but the reasons for this are far from clear.

Now all of this raises interesting questions about the relationship between material culture, "culture" in a more generalizes sense and ethnicity. I close this post with a quotation from a fairly recent article by Raz Kletter,

Much of the heated debate about the ethnicity of Israel in the Iron Age I period is the result of the different perspectives on ethnicity held by its participants. Over the years, archaeologists who followed the earlier "static" definition of ethnicity have presented many types of evidence as "Israelite ethnic markets" for the Iron Age I period: four-room houses, collared-rim jars, certain cooking posts, continuity with later Iron Age II sites, site layout, and, most recently, the absence of pig bones. The interpretation of all this evidence, however, has subsequently been questioned both from the archaeological perspective and from that of the new understanding of ethnicity, and none has proven to be secure "Israelite ethnic markers." . . . [Here Kletter outlines and criticizes the views of Joffee and Dever.] . . . The problem of defining ethnicity in Iron Age I Israel was formulated in 1992 by Skjeggestad. Was Israel an ethnic community in this period? If so, it may have had material "ethnic markers," even if few and difficult to identify in the archaeological record. If not, there is no reason to search for these markers, since different material cultures that are unrelated to "ethnies" can exist. The entire issue is dependent on the written sources, and archaeology cannot bypass these sources.

A lot of background is needed to understand this quotation fully. For example, Kletter outlines differing definitions of ethnicity. But I think you can get the main point anyway. This whole article is well worth a read. As Kletter points out, the only certain near contemporary written source that addresses the ethnicity of Israel is the Merneptah Stele and it has its own problems.

Update: November 4, 2006
There is now a general table of contents to this series.

References:

Posted by Duane Smith at October 27, 2006 7:31 PM | Read more on Archaeology |

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