Negevite pottery, Negev pottery, Negebite ware, etc. are the names given to a hand-made ware, i.e. without using the potter's wheel, found in Iron Age sites of the Negev desert, [1] [2] [3] southern Jordan, and the Shfela of Israel. [4] However, its use was not limited to the Iron Age, starting instead in the Bronze Age and continuing uninterruptedly until the Early Muslim period. [5]
It was produced from coarse clay containing straw and other organic materials. It was discovered by C. Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence in the northeastern Sinai, found again by Nelson Glueck in Tell el-Kheleifeh, and at last identified by Yohanan Aharoni as the wares manufactured and used by the people of the desert. Negevite wares show some similarities with Midianite pottery bowls (in form) and with Edomite pottery (in decoration).
Negevite cylindrical vessels found at excavations of Iron Age IIA sites in the Negev Highlands represent the largest and most dominant ceramic assemblage of simple-shaped vessels discovered in Israel. [6]
Negevite pottery has been used in the Negev, without typological changes, from the Early Bronze II and Middle Bronze I ages throughout the Early Muslim period. [5] This means that it can not be used independently as a marker for the Iron Age or any other period for that matter, and can itself only be dated indirectly, based on the wheel-made pottery found in the same stratigraphic context, which is mostly non-local and is period-specific. [5]
However, Negevite pottery is found everywhere at Iron Age sites in the Negev and southern Jordan, and constitutes almost the only source of information about the pastoralists who lived there, available to the archaeologists. [5] Juan Manuel Tebes suggests that Negevite ware was produced in pastoral households for domestic use, and that the movements of the pastoral groups dictates its geographical distribution. [5]
The history of ancient Israel and Judah spans from the early appearance of the Israelites in Canaan's hill country during the late second millennium BCE, to the establishment and subsequent downfall of the two Israelite kingdoms in the mid-first millennium BCE. This history unfolds within the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. The earliest documented mention of "Israel" as a people appears on the Merneptah Stele, an ancient Egyptian inscription dating back to around 1208 BCE. Archaeological evidence suggests that ancient Israelite culture evolved from the pre-existing Canaanite civilization. During the Iron Age II period, two Israelite kingdoms emerged, covering much of Canaan: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
Midian is a geographical region in West Asia mentioned in the Tanakh and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was in the "northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea", an area which contained at least 14 inhabited sites during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages.
Tel Megiddo is the site of the ancient city of Megiddo, the remains of which form a tell or archaeological mound, situated in northern Israel at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of Haifa near the depopulated Palestinian town of Lajjun and subsequently Kibbutz Megiddo. Megiddo is known for its historical, geographical, and theological importance, especially under its Greek name Armageddon. During the Bronze Age, Megiddo was an important Canaanite city-state. During the Iron Age, it was a royal city in the Kingdom of Israel.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Kenites/Qenites were a tribe in the ancient Levant. They settled in the towns and cities in the northeastern Negev in an area known as the "Negev of the Kenites" near Arad, and played an important role in the history of ancient Israel. One of the most recognized Kenites is Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, who was a shepherd and a priest in the land of Midian. Certain groups of Kenites settled among the Israelite population, including the descendants of Moses's brother-in-law, although the Kenites descended from Rechab maintained a distinct, nomadic lifestyle for some time.
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Israel Finkelstein is an Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the archaeology of the Levant and is an applicant of archaeological data in reconstructing biblical history. Finkelstein is the current excavator of Megiddo, a key site for the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Levant.
Tel Hazor, also Chatsôr, translated in LXX as Hasōr, named in Arabic Tell Waqqas / Tell Qedah el-Gul, is an archaeological tell at the site of ancient Hazor, located in Israel, Upper Galilee, north of the Sea of Galilee, in the northern Korazim Plateau. From the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age, Hazor was the largest fortified city in the region and one of the most important in the Fertile Crescent. It maintained commercial ties with Babylon and Syria, and imported large quantities of tin for the bronze industry. In the Book of Joshua, Hazor is described as "the head of all those kingdoms" and archaeological excavations that have emphasized the city's importance.
Tel Arad or Tell 'Arad is an archaeological tell, or mound, located west of the Dead Sea, about 10 kilometres west of the modern Israeli city of Arad in an area surrounded by mountain ridges which is known as the Arad Plain. The site is about 10.1 ha.
Ir Ovot is a small village in southern Israel. Located in the northeastern Arabah, it falls under the jurisdiction of Central Arava Regional Council. It operated as a kibbutz from 1967 until the 1980s. In 2019 it had a population of 54.
The Timna Valley is located in southern Israel in the southwestern Arava/Arabah, approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of the Gulf of Aqaba and the city of Eilat. The area is rich in copper ore and has been mined since the 5th millennium BCE. During early antiquity, the area would have been part of the Kingdom of Edom.
Pharaoh's Island, whose current popular name is Coral Island, is a small island in the northern Gulf of Aqaba some 250 metres (820 ft) east off the shore of Egypt's eastern Sinai Peninsula. Some scholars identify this island port with biblical Ezion-Geber.
Tel Sheva or Tel Be'er Sheva, also known as Tell es-Seba, is an archaeological site in the Southern District of Israel, believed to be the site of the ancient biblical town of Beer-sheba. The site lies east of modern Beersheba and west of the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva. Tel Sheva has been preserved and made accessible to visitors in the Tel Be'er Sheva National Park.
Pottery and ceramics have been produced in the Levant since prehistoric times.
Philistine Bichrome ware is an archaeological term coined by William F. Albright in 1924 which describes pottery production in a general region associated with the Philistine settlements during the Iron Age I period in ancient Canaan. The connection of the pottery type to the "Philistines" is still held by many scholars, although some question its methodological validity.
Edomite pottery, also known as 'Busayra Painted Ware' and 'Southern Transjordan-Negev Pottery' (STNP), is the name given to several ware types found in archaeological sites in southern Jordan and the Negev dated to the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. It is attributed to the Biblical people of the Edomites.
Midianite pottery, also known as Qurayya ware is a ware type found in the Hejaz, southern and central Jordan, southern Canaan and the Sinai, generally dated to the 13th-12th centuries BCE, although later dates are also possible.
Tirzah was an ancient town in the Samarian highlands northeast of Shechem; it is generally identified with the site of Tell el-Far'ah (North), northeast of modern city of Nablus, West Bank, in the immediate vicinity of the Palestinian village of Wadi al-Far'a.
Steven A Rosen is the Canada Chair in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Archaeological Division of the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He serves as the Vice President for External Affairs. His research has focused on two general areas, the continued use of chipped stone tools in the periods during which metals were already exploited, and the archaeology of mobile pastoralists, using the Negev as an in-depth case study.
Tel Masos is an archaeological site in Israel, in northern Negev, about 15 kilometres southeast of Beer-Sheva, along the Beer-Sheva River. It is actually a cluster of different sites scattered around the wells in the area.
The Negev region, situated in the southern part of present-day Israel, has a long and varied history that spans thousands of years. Despite being predominantly a semi-desert or desert, it has historically almost continually been used as farmland, pastureland, and an economically significant transit area.
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