[Magazine] The Biblical Archaeologist. Vol. 37. No 4

23 Pages·1974·2.84 MB·English

The
Biblical
Archaeologist
Publishedb y
The AmericanS choolso f OrientalR esearch
126I nmanS treet, Cambridge,M ass. 02139
.
Volume3 7 No. 4 December, 1974
86 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
The Biblical Archaeologist is published quarterly (March, May, September, December) by the American
Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to provide readable, non-technical, yet thoroughly reliable ac-
counts of archaeological discoveries as they relate to the Bible. Authors wishing to submit unsolicited articles
should write the editors for style and format instructions before submitting manuscripts.
Editors: Edward F. Campbell, Jr. and H. Darrell Lance, with the assistance of Floyd V. Filson in New
Testament matters. Editorial correspondence should be sent to the editors at 800 West Belden Avenue,
Chicago, Illinois 60614.
Art Editor: Robert H. Johnston, Rochester Institute of Technology.
Editorial Board:tG. Ernest Wright, Harvard University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University;
William G. Dever. Jerusalem: John S. Holladay, Jr., University of Toronto.
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Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,B Y TRANSCRIPTP RINTING COMPANY
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Contents
The Biblical Potter, by Robert H. Johnston ......................................... 86
An Israelite Horned Altar at Dan, by Avram Biram ................... ............... 106
Cover: An early Egyptian potter using the tournette, dating from the fifth to sixth dynasty (roughly 2500-2200 B. C.).
Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
The Biblical Potter
ROBERT H. JOHNSTON*
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his
wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's
hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the
potter to do.
Jeremiah 18:3-4
The serious study of the pottery from a given site began in 1891 when Sir
W.M. Flinders Petrie published the results of his excavation at Tell el-Hesi.
He realized the chronological value of sherds from a stratified site and began
to establish a corpus of pottery forms arranged in relative chronological
sequence. Since that time, every expedition report has contained photo-
graphs and drawings, with detailed descriptions and comparative typological
*Robert H. Johnston is Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts and Director of the School for American Craftsmen at
the Rochester Institute of Technology. He serves as the art director for the BA.
1974, 4) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 87
studies, of the pottery forms found. Since fired clay is almost indestructible,
the greatest proportion by far of the artifacts found at a site consists of
thousands of pottery fragments, along with some whole vessels. Petrie wrote
in Tell el-Hesy (1891), p. 40:
Once settle the pottery of a country, and the key is in our hands for all
future explorations. A single glance at a mound of ruins .. . will show
as much to anyone who knows the styles of the pottery, as weeks of
work may reveal to a beginner.
When G. Ernest Wright wrote his doctoral thesis in 1937, he observed
that, while Petrie's use of ceramics was basic and of great value in establish-
ing chronology, there was more that could be learned from the study of
ancient pottery. As he puts it on the first page of his The Pottery of Palestine
from the Earliest Times to the End of the Early Bronze Age:
But a detailed study of the value of pottery for the history of human
culture has yet to appear. Its greatest value at present is undoubtedly
chronological; yet more expert studies in the future will perhaps allow
the student of ethnology, commerce, and related subjects, to make
far-reaching deductions from ceramic evidence, for which at present
there is so little solid ground.
Dr. Wright had a vision of conducting an excavation of major importance
on which specialists of all types could study excavated material and each add
his expertise, leading toward a more complete understanding of the data un-
earthed. This would involve ethnologists, pollen analysts, geologists, paleo-
zoologists, paleo-botanists, ceramic technologists, and all their special tools.
The vision was to set a precedent for future excavations in the Mediterranean
world. I had the privilege of working with Dr. Wright in the capacity of
ceramic specialist for four years, studying material from Idalion, Bab edh-
Dhra, Shechem, and other sites.
Another influence has also played its part in calling forth studies such as
those I shall describe here. Frederick R. Matson of Penn State University
developed a new thrust to the study of ancient ceramic materials built around
an ecological approach. He has taught a small number of devoted students to
use their ceramic studies to better understand the cultural context in which
the vessels were produced. He puts it this way in Ceramics and Man (1965), p.
202:
Ceramic ecology may be considered as one facet of cultural ecology,
that which attempts to relate the raw materials and technologies that
the local potter has available to the functions in his culture of the
products he fashions.
88 THE BIBLICAL AR CHAEOL0 GIST (Vol. 37,
In what follows, I want to carry on a conversation both between the potter
and his culture, and between the ancient potter and his modem equivalent in
the villages of such places as Cyprus, where age-old techniques are still prac-
ticed, informed by long tradition. In all probability the techniques are much
the same, so I shall move back and forth without apology.
The Potter and His Clay
The potters of ancient Palestine played a major role in the life of their
times. The role of the craftsman was to produce a variety of objects needed
for daily life - the pots and pans of antiquity - as well as special vessels for
ceremonial occasions. He also assisted in the production of bricks, roof tile,
drain tile, bee hives, cultic stands and other cultic objects, writing materials,
kilns, and ovens. The ancient craftsman must have been an important
member of his community, although he probably never achieved great
political status by practicing his craft. We get a sense of the craftmen's status
from a passage in the Apocrypha, where in Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sirach) 38:31-
34 this is said about a variety of craftsmen:
All these rely upon their hands and each is skillful in his own work.
Without them a city cannot be established and men can neither
sojourn nor live there. Yet they are not sought out for the council of
the people, nor do they attain eminence in the public assembly. They
do not sit in the judge's seat, nor do they understand the sentence of
judgment; they cannot expound discipline or judgment, and they are
not found using proverbs. But they keep stable the fabric of the world,
and their prayer is in the practice of their trades. (All biblical and
apocryphal quotations in this article are from the RSV.)
The clay used by the biblical potter was an earthenware clay usually found
in the immediate vicinity or brought in from no great distance. Village
potters in Jordan and adjacent areas today still secure clay from nearby beds.
Clay is a material of secondary origin, resulting from the weathering and
disintegration of certain types of primary rocks. It is a hydrated aluminum
silicate mixed with small proportions of iron compounds, calcium
carbonates, quartz, sand, organic matter, and alkalies. The iron compounds
bring about the colors of the fired ware and the varying amounts of
impurities condition the nature of the clay.
Almost all of the village potters I have studied for nine summers, who
produce village functional ware, seek and use "thixotropic" clays, clays that
are extremely plastic in the forming stage and set up almost immediately
when the piece is completed. This immediate hardening of thixotropic clays
is very important to the potter, who must work briskly and expeditiously to
produce the daily quota of functional pottery. Additives are mixed with the
1974, 4 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 89
clay as binders or to slow the drying of attached parts such as handles. The
materials so used today are threshing-floor straw, dung, cat-o-nine tail fuzz,
and ashes. When one studies ancient sherds with a binocular microscope
these same additives can be identified. The addition of non-plastic material
to plastic clay reduces excessive shrinking and helps prevent cracking in the
pottery during the drying phase. The non-plastic additives also open the clay
body and increase the porosity of the ware, an important factor in the storage
of water, since it allows cooling by evaporation. The effects of thermal shock
when the vessel is fired are also lessened by these additives.
The biblical potters and brick makers added threshing floor straw to their
clay as noted in Exodus where the Israelites had to go out and search for
stubble to add to clay.
You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as
heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves.
Exodus 5:7
Thus says Pharaoh, "I will not give you straw. Go yourselves, get your
straw wherever you can find it; but your work will not be lessened in
the least." So the people were scattered around throughout all the
land of Egypt, to gather stubble for straw.
Exodus 5:10-12
The practice of adding these materials is continued today, the technique
passed on from potter to potter, brick maker to brick maker, over several
thousand years. The clay of the ancient potters was used as it was found in
nature, except for the removal of large stones. This material sufficed for the
manufacture of heavy functional ware and ovens, but for finer, burnished
ware a finer clay was needed and this was secured by letting the clay stand in
settling basins where the heavier particles would sink to the bottom and the
upper layers of fine clay could be skimmed off. After repeated settling, a very
fine, watery clay, called "slurry," resulted, which, after the excess water had
evaporated, became an excellent clay for throwing and for slip-decorating.
Today, village potters sometimes mix several clays from different sources to
get just the right clay "body" for the manufacture of the ware they wish to
make. Presumably the ancient potter did the same thing. Potters seek, and
would have sought in ancient times, colored clays on the slopes of nearby hills
where it is the product of the disintegration of certain sedimentary rocks.
Red ocher, an earthy form of hematite mixed with clay, was one of the types
sought, as were kaolin and white marl, a mixture of clay and calcite useful for
making a white slip. Incidentally, this mixing of clays from several sources
can cause problems for the modern researcher who is testing ancient sherds
for the so-called trace elements of the clay, hoping to be able to find the
original clay bed by matching the pattern of trace elements in the sherd with
90 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
what occurs in the modern beds. The ancient potter may have mixed up
modern scientists by mixing his clays!
Decoration of Palestinian pottery was done by applying clay slips
watery solutions of clay - before firing; slips were less liable to rub off or
chip than would paint or "wash" applied after firing. Information about the
locations of clay beds and deposits of clays good for colored slips was passed
from potter to potter, and the rights to beds probably becaihe an important
aspect of the potter's survival. When a clay bed was exhausted, the potter
might have to make radical changes in the amount of ware he produced, as
well as in the form of the vessels he could satisfactorily make.
Some special clays were no doubt transported over considerable dis-
tances, and therefore constituted an aspect of commerce. An example from
modern times is the shipping of "Ball clay" from England to the American
colonies. In fact, Ball clay got its name from the fact that it was sold by the
ball. Some clays will produce a burnished surface when rubbed with a bone
or stone at the leather-hard stage of drying. During the rubbing a fine micro-
layer of clay is brought to the surface and forms a sheen. The potter would
sometimes get himself a surface for burnishing by dipping wares made of
coarse clay bodies in a suspension of clay in water, thereby giving the entire
surface a slip. This slip could then be burnished or polished whereas the
coarser clay without the slip could not have been.
After a satisfactory clay was secured and mixed to the plastic consistency
wanted, the potter had to "wedge" or de-air it. Unless this was done, the
water distribution would have become uneven in the clay and air pockets
would have remained; on firing, these pockets would gather and hold steam,
and eventually blow out, shattering the fired ware. One of the ways of
wedging clay is fast foot treading, an activity described by two Old Testament
prophets. In Isaiah 41:25, we sense this part of the potter's work in a striking
word-image: "I stirred up one from the north and he has come from the ris-
ing of the sun, and he shall call on my name; he shall trample on rulers as on
mortar, as the potter treads clay." Similarly, but here in the brick-making
process, Nahum 3:14: "Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; go
into the clay and tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!"
Village potters still wedge their clay by treading or by kneading or clap-
ping balls of clay together. It is the first step in the manufacturing process
and one of the most important if breakage is to be averted (there will be some
anyway, as any potter knows). Potters and their apprentices often pride
themselves in treading the clay in a rhythmic fashion, forming exact patterns
in the clay as they work it.
During the wedging process, large stones or pieces of other foreign matter
are removed, since they would cause cracking as the plastic clay dries and
shrinks. The tempering ingredients - threshing-floor straw, animal dung,
1974, 4) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 91
cat-o-nine tail fuzz, shell or sand - are added at this point and worked into
the clay to improve the workability and reduce shrinkage. As the potter or his
apprentice-helper wedges the clay, he also brings it to the final consistency he
wants. If it is too wet and too sticky he can add dry clay. To clay that is too
dry, he adds more water and kneads it into the mixture. The potter gauges
the consistency of his clay by the way it feels.
Fig. i. Side and top views of a small vessel made by the pinch-pot technique. The scale is in centimeters.
The Making of Pots
The biblical potter used a variety of methods to build and shape his
pottery. The earliest evidences of the potters' techniques indicate that hand-
building was the means used. Some ware was made by the pinch-pot method:
92 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
a piece of clay is held in the palm of one hand and the walls formed by pinch-
ing the clay with the other hand until the walls have been raised and thinned.
This method was used for making small containers, such as votive dishes or
miniature pots (see Fig. 1). An experienced potter can work very swiftly with
this technique and produce a large variety of small forms. The process is de-
scribed by Henry Hodges in his 1964 book called Artifacts, p. 25, as follows:
A ball of clay is formed and this is held in the palm of one hand, the
thumb of the other hand being dug into the clay ball. The ball is then
rotated slowly while the clay is gently squeezed between the thumb
and fingers of the shaping hand. The process is continued until a pot
is formed.
Fig. 2. Impression of straw matting in the base of a cooking pot from Ezion Geber. The matting would have been the
"bat" on which the piece was made. From R. Amiran, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land (1970), p. 301.
Pottery made in this manner was usually scraped down to refine the form
when it was leather hard, and sometimes burnished or polished. A layer of
slip could be applied, as we have noted, to take the burnish.
Another early technique used to form vessels was the coil method, or a
combination of the coil method with a paddle and anvil process. A base of
fairly thick clay was laid down on a "bat" made of woven material, bark,
stone, or even a piece of broken pottery. This bat allowed the potter to move
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Fig. 3. Wood paddles and fired clay anvils used in the paddle and anvil process of hand-building pottery.
the piece around as he worked and to carry it to the drying area later.
Ancient sherds have been found with the impression of woven material in the
base - the imprint of the bat on which the pot was made (Fig. 2).
Alfred Lucas (see the 1962 edition of his Ancient Egyptian Materials and
Industries, edited by J. R. Harris) suspects that this technique may have had
an early start in Egypt:
In the early days of pottery making in Egypt, that is during neolithic,
Badarian and predynastic times, pots were made by hand, though it is
possible that in shaping some predynastic pottery the clay was placed
on a mat which could be rotated on the ground. Such a technique was
94 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
Fig. 4. A village potter forming a vessel on a tournette. using the stroking method.