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1. Map of the southern Levant in relation to Mesopotamia and Egypt (after Miroschedji 2002, fi g. 2:6).
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... The latter produced a growth of exchanged products in the southern Levant. These arrived at the end of the EB I/ beginning of the EB II and led to the creation of urban sites with defensive walls and public buildings, both palaces and temples (e.g., Greenberg, 2011Greenberg, , 2019, the Urban Revolution of Gordon Childe (1950). The EB II-III sites provide testimony to the growing aspects of a network of production, exchange and consumption (Milevski, 2011). ...
As the Neolithic Revolution made its entrance on the stage of the southern Levant, it brought with it major changes in human society. As man progressed from primitive modes of production in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Pottery Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic periods, into the Early Bronze Age, as he moved on to agriculture and the domestication of animals, as he developed socially and his knowledge of metals and trade and economy grew, so, too, he changed his ways of burying his dead.Throughout these periods, the spiritual world and burial customs of early man developed from in-house burials in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period to cemeteries in the Ghassulian Chalcolithic and to socially separated cemeteries in the Early Bronze Age. In this paper, we will attempt to define the burial customs of late prehistory in the southern Levant and its relationship to economy and society. In this sense, we will present the concept of burial modes as a research tool for archaeology as a scientific discipline.KeywordsBurial modesFunerary customsModes of productionLate prehistorySouthern Levant
... specialist workshops [13] and distributed as commodities over a considerable distance [14]. Among these, 'metallic ware' has been long recognized as a distinctive ware tradition of the EB II Southern Levant. ...
The present work illustrates a multi-analytical study of ceramic fragments that represent a distinctive class of pottery dating to the Early Bronze II (3050–2850 BC) from the archaeological site of Tell el-Far'ah North (West Bank). Optical Microscopy, coupled with SEM-EDS and XRD, allowed to identify it as a ‘metallic ware’ industry produced with a low calcareous clay where quartz is dominant, along with feldspars, fragments of sedimentary and siliceous rocks, and nodules of iron oxides. This mineralogical assemblage is consistent with the geological formations in proximity to the site. The high quality of this ceramic industry was contemporarily achieved by a judicious selection of supplies and a firing temperature in a range between 800 and 900 °C. The metallic ware identified at the Tell el-Far'ah North most likely represents a ceramic industry of the central hill country. Tell el-Far'ah North, or another site in the area, may have been the production location of this pottery, according to the pattern of regional production centres, and regional specialised industries, which characterizes the Southern Levant in the Early Bronze II.
To cite this article: Maura Sala (2023): The EB II 'metallic ware' from Tell el-Far'ah North (West Bank): typology, technology and petrography of a ceramic industry of the central hill country, Levant, The EB II 'metallic ware' from Tell el-Far'ah North (West Bank): typology, technology and petrography of a ceramic industry of the central hill country Maura Sala The present work reports the results of the typological, technological and archaeometric study undertaken on Early Bronze Age ceramic fragments from the site of Tell el-Far'ah North (West Bank), which macroscopic analysis has recognized as representative of 'metallic ware'. The fragments belong to a distinctive class of medium-sized carinated bowls dating to the south Levantine EB II/ESL 4. Petrographic (OM), mineralogical (XRPD) and chemical (SEM-EDS) analyses have yielded the identification of a 'metallic ware' industry, which used a low calcareous clay where quartz is dominant, along with feldspars, fragments of sedimentary and siliceous rocks, nodules of iron oxides, and was fired at a temperature in a range between 800-900°C. Petrographic and mineralogical data have made it possible to discuss the nature of raw materials and to investigate aspects of the production technology. Finally, through a comparison with other ceramics from the site, the fragments have been examined against the background of the local pottery tradition. The metallic ware bowls from Tell el-Far'ah North have proved to be representative of a distinctive specialized ceramic industry of the central hill country, linked to the so-called 'Aphek family' bowls.
The paper presents new data regarding trade in metals during Early Bronze IB. Using chemical and lead isotope analysis of weapons from Early Bronze Age IB burials from the Nesher Ramla Quarry, located in the Shephelah (piedmont) bordering the Judean foothills, it is shown that complex metals were likely procured from eastern Anatolia. These data join similar analytic results regarding several artefacts from the Kfar Monash hoard and evidence from Tell es-Shuna, and it is suggested that metal trade might be considered as a possible conduit for the transfer of cultural ideas and modes of social organization on the eve of southern Levantine urbanism.
This paper presents the results of a large-scale analytical program undertaken on Neolithic ceramics from the Homs region, the Beqaa, and Northern Lebanese Coast. Like other parts of the Northern Levant, a burnished ware tradition is found across these regions from the very introduction of ceramics to the area. Through the 6th and 5th millennia BCE, however, two distinct provinces form. To the south, in Lebanon and the Homs area, burnished wares continue to be produced, whereas to the north and east painted traditions take hold. What first appears a seemingly simple matter of local preference endures, and these areas are set on differing trajectories, resulting in the development during the Bronze Age of a fairly rigid stylistic and technological boundary between what have traditionally been termed ‘Syrian’ styles to the north and ‘Palestinian’ styles to the south. This study integrates an archaeometric approach with traditional macroscale studies to track the development of ceramic technologies, modes of production and decorative traditions in the Late Neolithic of the Central Levant. The resulting data provides deeper insight into key influences on the development of later ceramic traditions of the region which in turn enhances our understanding of the formation, maintenance and remodelling of distinct regional assemblages and their meaning in the pre-classical Levant.
This paper deals with a unique stone object found at the Early Bronze Age site of Tel Yaqush in the Central Jordan Valley. The object is understood by the authors to be a cylinder-seal amulet with incised geometric motifs, locally produced by a non-specialist craftsman in imitation of specialized seals of local glyptic tradition. The paper presents the object as part of the emerging local glyptic tradition of the period and discusses its significance to the understanding of social and cultural trends as related to the EB I–II chronological horizon in the region. The attempt to imitate a specialized object used to impress pottery vessels from a centralized ceramic production centre elicits a profound discussion on the concept of imitation and its social roots. It may be studied and interpreted using a network approach, which provides a good analytical tool to explore the village of Yaqush and its interactions within EB I–II southern Levantine social systems. Yaqush’s singular object and its specific archaeological context, serve as a basis to explore the occurrences of the 31st–30th centuries BCE and discuss relations between the Jordan Valley communities, and the way they are maintained by cultural transmission through objects and practices in this period.
The Early Bronze Age (ca. 3700–2500 b.c.) was an era of wide-ranging changes in the Southern and Central Levant, commonly interpreted in the context of the advent of urban structures in this region. Key elements in regional narratives of urbanization are large fortified sites viewed as regional centers, whose local history is often perceived as a paradigmatic expression of the entire process. Here we present the first stage of research at the site of Qedesh in the Galilee (Israel), that emerged as a large Levantine hub at the turn of the 4th millennium b.c. The study is based on systematic high-resolution surface survey followed by density analysis, probing, and small-scale excavations. Our research suggests that Qedesh was a hitherto unknown key player in the interregional trajectory of social complexification by virtue of its size (min. 50 ha), composite inner structure, and ecotonal location that enhanced connectivity within an economic network associated with the production and distribution of South Levantine Metallic Ware.
This paper uses new petrographic and geochemical data (ICP-AES and -MS analyses) taken from samples of ‘Combed Ware’ jars occurring at sites on the Lebanese coast, the Bekaa Valley, the Orontes Valley around Homs and the North Jordan Valley, to investigate the production and distribution of these vessels in the Levant during the Early Bronze Age. The evidence points to the existence of integrated regional interaction zones that can be identified through specific modes of craft production and the associated distribution networks. The new evidence sheds light on the development of a nucleated settlement landscape, and the economic, social and political changes that this implies, in central Levant and western Syria during the first-half of the 3rd millennium BC, Early Bronze Age.
This study addresses what appear to be similar modes of external interaction experienced by societies of the Anatolian Euphrates valley and the northwestern Levant on the one hand, and on the other the southern Levant during the fourth and third millennia BC. During the fourth millennium BC, both regions were the target of expansion by neighboring literate cultures, Uruk in the north and Egypt in the south. Both regions were significantly affected by the withdrawal of colonizers associated with these expansions, and both saw the arrival of a vastly different third-millennium BC spread of people and ideas derived from the Kura-Araks cultures of eastern Anatolia and the southern Caucasus. In our discussion, we introduce cultural and sociopolitical developments in each region, and then compare them. To what extent are the Uruk and Egyptian ventures colonial in intent and in impact? What occurs in their aftermath? What brought ‘Kura-Araks people’ southward, and what cultural markers did they preserve in the farthest reaches of their expansion? What links together the various regions that they inhabited? This cross-regional consideration summarizes the present state of inquiry and initiates a dialogue on the significance of long-range interaction at the periphery of the core civilizations at the dawn of the Bronze Age.
