 | Shechem V: The Late Bronze Age Pottery from Field XIII at Shechem / Tell Balâtah Subjects: Shechem (Extinct city); Excavations (Archaeology) -- West Bank; Pottery Ancient -- West Bank -- Shechem (Extinct city); Bronze age -- West Bank -- Shechem (Extinct city); West Bank -- Antiquities; Substantial ceramic and architectural remains attributable to the Late Bronze Age were excavated in Field XIII in 1968 by the Drew-McCormick Expedition. The Late Bronze Age sequence spanning the Late Bronze I, IIA, and IIB contains ceramics from occupational contexts and also from a cache of 850 restorable and complete vessels from a Basement Chamber sealed below destruction debris. This analysis provides data on the ceramic typological development and the technological processes or chaine operatoire at a Northern Hill Country site. While mostly domestic in nature, the ceramic assemblage also comprises imported Cypriot White Slip and Base Ring Wares that place the territorial kingdom, governed by the ambitious ruler Lab'ayu, within a wider regional trade system encompassing the Dothan-Jezreel and Beth Shean Valley routes. The findings from this investigation align with recent scholarship that shows the early Late Bronze I was defined by contracted settlement over a protracted period of time, in contrast to the architectural and ceramic complexity exhibited in the Late Bronze IIA, and to a limited extent in the Late Bronze IIB. This report continues the effort to publish the excavation findings from ten seasons of excavations spanning 1957 to 1972 and originally led by Expedition Director G. Ernest Wright. Catherine A. Duff is a Research Associate at the University of Toronto and a member of the Board of Trustees for the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). As a ceramicist for the Tell el-Borg excavations in the North Sinai, her research focused on the Levantine ceramics found at the site and the cultural interconnections between the Levant and Egypt. Catherine has also excavated at Tell Jawa and Wadi ath-Thamad in Jordan. Her research interests include cultural transmission and ceramics, trade and exchange, and ceramic petrography. Emeritus Professor Edward F. Campbell, Jr. has served since 1957 as a member of the core staff of the Joint Expedition to Tell Balatah/Shechem, more recently as Director and Publication Officer for the Expedition. Now in retirement In Scarborough, Maine, he was from 1956 until 1997 a teacher of Old Testament and Biblical Interpretation at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, the Presbyterian Church (USA) ingredient in the Chicago Cluster of theological institutions. He long served as Vice-President of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and has contributed two volumes of the Shechem Expedition final reports, and edited three others. |
