Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult

The Sanctuary at Gilat,Israel

Thomas Evan Levy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138663855
• eBook ISBN: 9781134946563
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Chalcolithic period was formative in Near Eastern prehistory, being a time of fundamental social change in craft specialization, horticulture and temple life. Gilat - a low mound, semi-communal farming settlement in the Negev desert - is one of the few Chalcolithic sanctuary sites in the Southern Levant. 'Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult' presents a critical analysis of the archaeological data from Gilat. The book brings together archaeological finds and anthropological theory to examine the role of religion in the evolution of society and the power of ritual in promoting change. This comprehensive volume, which includes artefact drawings, photographs, maps and data tables, will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient history, anthropology, archaeology, as well as biblical and religious studies.

IV.
The Emergence of Gilat as a Regional Cult Center: Production and Exchange

9 The Technology of the Gilat Pottery Assemblage:

A Reassessment

Yuval Goren

Introduction

In a previous publication, entitled 'Shrines and ceramics in Chalcolithic Israel: The view through the petrographic microscope' (Goren 1995), I attempted to investigate the nature of Chalcolithic ceremonial contexts through a provenance study of their ceramic assemblages. That study was part of a research project that attempted to investigate the nature of proto-historical social and economic traits through provenance studies of Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age ceramic assemblages from the southern Levant (Goren 1987; 1991). The pronounced differences in the nature and the provenance of the ceramic assemblages of three important sites which bear clear indications for religious activities, namely En-Gedi, Nahal Mishmar and Gilat, had suggested to me that these sites represented different idiosyncrasies of cult that co-existed in the Developed Chalcolithic milieu. In context, this interpretation aimed to clarify at least some of the problems that were raised by the new information that came from the renewed excavations at Gilat (Alon and Levy 1989; Levy et al., Chapter 5, this volume), as well as the increasing interest in the social and economic dimensions of the inhabitants of the southern Levant during the late fifth-fourth millennia BC (cf. Gilead 1989; Levy 1983, 1986, 1998; Levy and Alon 1987; Perrot 1984; Rosen 1986).

The interpretation of the nature of cult through the complex, sometimes unrelated, aspects of pottery typology, technology, and distribution, is undoubtedly a very ambiguous task. Patterns of pottery production, utilization and transportation can be related to numerous other functional, cultural and/or economic motives (e.g. Rice 1984). It is therefore very risky to link directly ceremonial activities and occurrences within one or more ceramic assemblages in a given time and space. Moreover, despite the 'theistic' approach in Near Eastern archaeology that tends to reduce religion to the worship of deities in shrines or sanctuaries, it should be realized that cult in proto-historic societies (as well as in later epochs) must have had many more expressions that may have left different patterns of archaeological remains. Nevertheless, since Near Eastern archaeology has always tended to interpret cult as activities restricted to shrines, it has attempted to concentrate on the location of sites and artifacts concerned with the worship of deities in communal loci, such as central or oversized buildings, or other installations of this nature. In this context, it is very tempting to attribute cultic activities to any location in which symbolic or 'precious' artifacts from an abundant aspect of the material culture. This approach, which led to my previous interpretations concerning Gilat, En-Gedi and Nahal Mishmar, may be justified in particular cases. However, it is merely intuitive and needs to be supported by other sources of evidence.

Cult, no doubt, was a predominant issue in the life of the inhabitants of the southern Levant during the Chalcolithic period. Of the several archaeological sites and features in the southern Levant that have been interpreted as elements of religion (Elliot 1977), the sanctuary at En-Gedi, the site of Gilat and the 'shrine' at Teleilat Ghassul (Seaton 2000)—the latter as yet fully published —are best known. To these we may add the Nahal Mishmar hoard which, although hidden in a cave, may have originated from some ceremonial center (Ussishkin 1971,1980). In a previous study of the ceramic assemblages of these sites (excluding the Teleilat Ghassul shrine), I attempted to interpret their diversity on the basis of contemporaneous hierarchies in ritual activities. However, a closer look at the Gilat material, together with the current typological data that must be considered in this context, indicates that this interpretation was over-simplified.

In the present chapter, the role or cult in Gilat will be re-examined on the basis of a comprehensive petrographic study of the pottery assemblage. For the sake of this report, the petrographically examined sample was increased considerably in collaboration with C. Commenge (this volume, Chapter 10) who directed the social and cognitive study of the Gilat ceramic assemblage. Based on the typological and technological results, it was decided to slightly extend this report beyond the scope of the Gilat assemblage alone, and include in it comparisons with other assemblages that seem now to be relevant to it on a chrono-typological basis. Based on these revelations, a modified picture will be suggested for the questions concerning production and distribution of pottery in the Chalcolithic northern Negev, formerly discussed in some previous publications (Gilead and Goren 1989; Goren and Gilead 1987; Goren 1995).

History of the research and previous interpretations

The history of the petrographic research of the Gilat pottery has some important methodological implications, and thus it will be surveyed below in some detail.

A first attempt to investigate the technology or the pottery, excavated by Alon (1976) during the first seasons, was made in the early 1980s as part of a MA thesis (Goren 1987). From the beginning, the petrographic study of the Gilat assemblage featured many interesting aspects. The results of this very preliminary study of Chalcolithic ceramic assemblages, restricted mainly to the southern part of Israel (the northern Negev and the Judean Desert), have demonstrated that the Gilat assemblage was far more diverse than that of any other site in this region in terms of petrographic groups and their provenance. These results have been incorporated in Alon and Levy's (1989, 1990) previous discussions on the interpretation of Gilat as a regional center. In this preliminary study, the composite nature and the variability of groups in the assemblage was briefly delineated and compared to other Chalcolithic assemblages in the northern Negev and the southern Judean Desert. That study was based mostly on the petrographic examination of the outstanding vessels (e.g. the 'Gilat Torpedo jars' and other unique forms), revealing a remarkable variability incomparable with any other ceramic assemblage in the study area. At that stage, no regulated typological study was made on the material, and therefore the samples were selected with no regard to their stratigraphic or architectural context. Nevertheless, even at this preliminary stage, it became obvious that the provenance of most of the Gilat vessels did not extend beyond the limited research area of the northern Negev and the southern Judean Desert. Indeed, there was one Egyptian ('Nilothic') body sherd, but such a sherd is also known from site Y-2 at Qatif and from the small hamlet R-48 in northeastern Sinai (Oren and Gilead 1981; Goren 1987). Another vessel from Gilat was made of paste rich in Orbitolina fossils, common in the marine Lower Cretaceous formations of Samaria and the Galilee. Yet a jar with Orbitolina fossils was also observed in the assemblage of Abu Matar near Beer Sheva (Commenge-Pellerin 1987: PI. I: 4) and another one was found in Wadi Makukh cave 6 nearby Jericho (Goren 1991: Appendix 2). Alon and Levy (1991:34) declared that the petrographic evidence was unequivocally in line with the conclusion that Gilat was an inter-regional center whose influence was lively and discernible in the southern Levant throughout the entire Chalcolithic period. However, this conclusion was somewhat overstated since the petrographic evidence suggested that Gilat was a center only for the northern Negev, or a part of it, the southern Shephela and the Judean Mountains. The sherds of vessels that were produced further away were too few and similar pieces were also found in regular habitation sites.

An extended study was made in the early 1990s, concurrently with preliminary attempts, made by T.E. Levy and his team, to study the typology of the then re-excavated Gilat assemblage. The petrographic sample was increased significantly in order to cover the entire range of shapes and variants. Accordingly, more petrographic thin-sections were prepared from the Gilat assemblage to form an overall number of 170 samples (Goren 1995). The previously observed petrographic variability was confirmed. Nevertheless, about half of the assemblage consisted of group 'loess-quartzitic sand', representing the lithology of the immediate vicinity of the site (ibid. Fig. 11). The related group 'loess-calcareous sand', whose distribution overlaps that of the former group at Gilat (ibid. Fig. 10), formed about 8% of the assemblage. Additional groups which might have been classified as local were those related to the 'Cream Ware' (Gilead and Goren 1989), usually composed of Taqiya marl. These formed about 15% of the total. Therefore, about 70% of the Gilat pottery assemblage had been defined as local or nearly local.

Amongst the foreign groups, about 9.5% of the assemblage was composed of groups 'Moza clay-dolomitic sand' and 'Moza marl-calcareous sand' attributed to the Judean Mountains. The remaining groups did not reflect any specific geological environment, yet they were extremely rare in the other assemblages of the northern Negev and more common in the assemblages of central Israel.

Other conclusions were the following:

1. Of the total of 19 bowls included in the petrographic sample (based on a preliminary examination of the assemblage), 15 (79%) belonged to the local loessial groups. The remaining groups are all related to the 'Cream Ware' class (mostly of the 'Taqiya marl' group). Consequently, it seems that most of the bowls were not imported to the site from distant localities.
2. In the case of the basins, churns and holemouth jars, though most of them are considered as local (40% of the basins, 63% of the churns and 54% of the holemouth jars), relatively high proportions of imported vessels occur. In most cases these belong to groups 'Moza clay-do...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• I. THEORY
• II. ARCHAEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
• III. BIOLOGICAL DATA FROM GILAT
• IV. THE EMERGENCE OF GILAT AS A REGIONAL CULT CENTER: PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE
• V. PROCESSES OF INTEGRATION: THE EMERGENCE OF A PAN-REGIONAL RITUAL CENTER
• VI. APPENDICES
• Index