The Middle Bronze Age of the Levant

Introduction

The Middle Bronze Age in the Levant

Generally speaking, ceramic manufacture in western Syria during the early 2nd millennium BCE is of a significantly coarser character and technologically less-demanding level than that of the late 3rd millennium BCE. A marked contraction in the reportoire of total shapes, decreased levels of decoration and ever increasing uniformity

Broadly the same traits are found in ceramic assemblages throughout the entire Levant in the Middle Bronze I period, indicating that the material culture in both Syria and Palestine was remarkably homogeneous, in this respect at least. Most characteristic in regard to pottery shapes is the high frequency of carination, particularly in flat-based bowls and goblets. Flat or overhanging (“lipped”) rims – often grooved on top – are typical for larger open or slightly restricted vessels, whilst jugs tend to have tall necks, again with grooved rims. Larger vessels are frequently decorated with horizontal or undulating comb-incised designs (or a combination of the two) on their shoulder or upper body.

Syro-Cilician Painted Ware represents a common and widespread pottery type in the the areas both around and south of Aleppo, in the Amuq Plain and extending up into Cilicia. It consists of sharply carinated bowls, trefoil-mouthed jugs and footed bowls whose shoulders and upper bodies are decorated with painted animal, plant and geometric motives bordered by horizonantal bands divided into metopes.

Farther south, Ebla and its environs also produce another pottery type known as Common Painted Ware, marked out by painted horizontal bands and cross-hatched triangles on globular juglets and trefoil-mouthed pitchers with twisted handles.

Both Syro-Cilician Ware and Common Painted Ware are to be distinguished from the bichrome ware prevailing in MBI southern Syria, Palestine and the adjacent coastal regions (Levantine Painted Ware – Tubb).

Bibliography

NB: Journal, serial and monograph abbreviations may be consulted on the Abbreviations page.

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