This paper will present and discuss a multifaceted research project dealing with the production of cooking pots during the Iron Age II (ca. 1,000–586 BCE) Judah (modern Israel). In particular the new compositional analysis of 541 cooking vessels from 11 sites in Iron Age Judah will be presented. The study employs petrographic and chemical (NAA) analysis. The results of this ongoing research have already produced interesting information about production centers and movements of cooking pots in Iron Age II Judah. Apparently, the vast majority of the cooking pots sampled were made of a similar type of clay, related to terra rossa soil. This is true also for sites in the northern Negev and Judean Desert, where the type of soil was not available in the region of the sites. Furthermore, many of the cooking pots distributed around Judah were made in Jerusalem according to a well‐located chemical profile (JleB). Other groups may represent Judean Shephelah production centers as the Lachish area as well as production centers in southern Israel or ancient Edom. The implications of the importation patterns of cooking pots by peripheral Judean sites will be discussed.

No abstract

No abstract

The study presented here deals with the manufacturing technologies of cooking pots in Iron Age II Judah (ca. 1,000-586 BCE). This is the first comprehensive technological study carried out on Iron Age pottery in the Levant and one of the most extensive studies on ancient cooking ware. Two aspects were studied on an assemblage of ca. 500 cooking pots: paste preparation with a highlight on temper analyses as well as fashioning and finishing techniques. The research is conducted as a part of a substantial multi-disciplinary study of cooking ware in Iron Age Judah, combining technological, typological, petrographic, and chemical aspects. New cooking pot types appeared during the Iron Age II, with the apparent existence of regional production centers for cooking pots in this period. The results indicate that the cooking pots were made by three main fashioning techniques, reflecting a stable technical and technological continuity alongside the rise of specialized production in various regional production centers. Temper analysis carried out through petrography shows a slow shift from calcite-calcareous tempering towards quartz tempering (which may be partly or entirely naturally present in the clay selected). These results will also be discussed in relation to the morphological typology of the vessels and petro-fabrics identified in the more extensive study. Resting on several analytical methods, this paper aims to characterize the cooking pot production system, thus providing insights into Iron Age Judah's pottery craft organization.