Around 30 painted pottery sherds were selected for pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy testing to study the chemical and mineralogical composition of their pigments. These sherds originated from two significant Middle Bronze Age sites located in... more
Around 30 painted pottery sherds were selected for pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy testing to study the chemical and mineralogical composition of their pigments. These sherds originated from two significant Middle Bronze Age sites located in the Southern Levant, i.e., Ashkelon and Tel Azekah, and belong to a ceramic group referred to by scholars as Red, White, and Blue Ware (RWB). Examples of this type of ceramic ware have been unearthed at multiple sites during the last century. However, hitherto no analysis of the pigments' composition has been performed. Our results demonstrate the use of three well-known pigment recipes: Red Ochre, White Lime, and Carbon Black and indicate that the pottery and pigments were locally made from available materials at each site. It is possible that the specific way in which Carbon Black was applied to the pottery was an attempt to imitate Egyptian decoration style.
The construction of terrace walls for dry farming in the highlands of the Levant was traditionally associated with demographic growth that caused pressure on available land for cultivation. In this paper we suggest an alternative model... more
The construction of terrace walls for dry farming in the highlands of the Levant was traditionally associated with demographic growth that caused pressure on available land for cultivation. In this paper we suggest an alternative model and claim that terraces were adopted as a subsistence strategy at periods when land ownership was centralized in the hands of either powerful landowners or managed through complex family-based cooperation like the Musha system of the Late Antiquity period. This claim is based both on the study of land use and settlement patterns within the Upper Nahal Soreq, northwest of Jerusalem, where close to 350 excavated or surveyed sites of all kinds were catalogued and mapped, and on the results of an OSL dating project that directly dated the construction of terrace walls for dry farming in the highlands of Jerusalem in general and at the Upper Nahal Soreq catchment in particular.
Research Interests:
Around 30 painted pottery sherds were selected for pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy testing to study the chemical and mineralogical composition of their pigments. These sherds originated from two significant Middle Bronze Age sites located in... more
Around 30 painted pottery sherds were selected for pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy testing to study the chemical and mineralogical composition of their pigments. These sherds originated from two significant Middle Bronze Age sites located in the Southern Levant, i.e., Ashkelon and Tel Azekah, and belong to a ceramic group referred to by scholars as Red, White, and Blue Ware (RWB). Examples of this type of ceramic ware have been unearthed at multiple sites during the last century. However, hitherto no analysis of the pigments' composition has been performed. Our results demonstrate the use of three well-known pigment recipes: Red Ochre, White Lime, and Carbon Black and indicate that the pottery and pigments were locally made from available materials at each site. It is possible that the specific way in which Carbon Black was applied to the pottery was an attempt to imitate Egyptian decoration style.
Research Interests:
Terraced hillsides are one of the characteristic elements of the topography of the highlands of Bilād al-Shām. Intimately tied to certain patterns of land use, land tenure, and water management (including the control of drainage from... more
Terraced hillsides are one of the characteristic elements of the topography of the highlands of Bilād al-Shām. Intimately tied to certain patterns of land use, land tenure, and water management (including the control of drainage from run-off irrigation), and requiring extensive coordination in labor for construction and maintenance, ancient agricultural terraces are an insufficiently explored window on pre-modern rural societies, which directly reflect traditional land use and labor organization. The growing interest among geographers, soil scientists, historians, and archaeologists in relic terraces has been bolstered by the ‘rural turn’ in Islamic studies, as well as recent developments in scientific techniques that allow for more precise dating of the terraces themselves. This paper presents the preliminary results of a newly launched, multi-disciplinary investigation of Khirbet Beit Mazmil in its terraced landscape. The project ‘The Medieval Jerusalem Hinterland Project’, which is funded by the ‘German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development’, combines archaeological excavations of a late Mamluk and Ottoman farmstead with survey, excavation, and OSL-dating of relic terraces that historically belonged to its lands. Informed by a critical analysis of medieval Arabic and Ottoman Turkish texts (legal treatises and fatwa manuals, agricultural manuals, geographies, local chronicles, endowment documents, and tax registers), the preliminary results of this project suggest ways in which medieval Jerusalem’s agricultural hinterland were revived from the 15th century, and village communities in the vicinity thrived at a time of settlement and agricultural decline in other parts of Bilād al-Shām.