A TECHNOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON ANCIENT ISRAELITE POTTERY

Of the many aspects of material culture of the ancient Israelite world, pottery is to be counted as one of the most abundant, pervasive, and informative datasets available. Traditionally, pottery has been used to determine the chronological framework of the Iron Age and was done so in conjunction with the Hebrew Bible. Theoretical developments, as well as the application of scientific methods such as radiocarbon dating and provenance analysis, have broadened the approach to pottery studies beyond the arena of chronology, regionality, and history, such that with suitable methodologies that focus on technological aspects of pottery making, less-tangible aspects of ancient life can be accessed via pottery analysis. These include, among others, socio-economic organization, group identity, and behavior, gender relations, functions of contexts, ideology, and beliefs. This chapter suggests a technological and sociological approach to the study of ancient Israelite pottery, on a theoretical and contextual level, and provides examples of how such an approach can contribute to a nuanced understanding of the ancient Israelite world via the prism of its pottery.