Fatimid- and Crusader-Period Pithoi in Palestine: New Insights on Their Typo-Chronology, Production Techniques and Provenance

Year 2025, Volume: 1, 90 - 101, 15.04.2025

Itamar Taxel , Anat Cohen-weinberger

Abstract

This study focuses on a class of ceramic vessels – pithoi – that has thus far been little studied regarding the Islamic- and medieval-period southern Levant. Nine complete and fragmentary pithoi from Fatimid- and Crusader-period (11th and 12th centuries) contexts in five excavated coastal and inland sites in Israel were examined, including by petrographic analysis. The discussed pithoi functioned in domestic contexts for the sake of foodstuff storage, and were sometimes reused for other purposes following their retirement from prime use. The petrographic results show that most of these pithoi, represented by three or four types, were imported from locations elsewhere in the northeastern Mediterranean, while another pithos type is probably of local production. These pithoi, notably the imported ones, seemingly have few to no published equivalents, including in their potential regions of origin. Hopefully, that this study will assist scholars working in the Levant and other Mediterranean regions to identify and date similar, and different, Islamic- and medieval-period pithoi, and that it will contribute to a better comprehension of pithoi with respect to the material culture, daily life and economic structures of contemporaneous Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies.

Keywords

pottery, islamic, crusader, palestine, pithoi, petrography, provenance, production techniques, function, typo-chronology

Supporting Institution

Israel Antiquities Authority

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