Potters in Transition

Abstract

For many years, the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition in the southern Levant has been the subject of intense debates concerning chronological matters and cultural developments. Ceramic studies were often the focal point of the discussion, but they usually concentrated on the appearance of Aegean-style pottery in the southern Coastal Plain and the nearby Shephelah, while largely disregarding the indigenous pottery tradition. In this paper, I study the processes of continuity and change in ceramic shape morphology and decoration techniques of three important tell-sites in the Shephelah: Lachish, ʿAzẹqȧ (Tel Azekah) and Ekron. It will be shown that marked innovations took place during the transition to the Iron I. These were most likely triggered by the appearance of foreign potters who produced local Aegean-style wares and seem to have influenced the traditions of the indigenous ceramic workshops. Such insights not only allow a fine-tuning of the relative chronology of the region at the end of the second millennium BCE, but also illuminate the transmission of professional knowledge and cultural traits through the ages.