Same medium, different messages

Stamped storage jar handles in Judea from the Iron Age to the Early Islamic period as evidencing regional memory and acquaintance with the past

Bibliographic Data

ID12911369
AuthorsItamar Taxel (0000-0002-4739-1956, Israel Antiquities Authority, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume13
Issue1
Pages35-57
Publication date2020-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTime and Mind (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-696X • E-ISSN: 1751-6978
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1751696x.2020.1717118
OpenAlexW3006050683
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited30

This study provides an original cross-period theoretical perspective on the unique regional phenomenon of storage jar stamping in Judea between the Iron Age 2 and the Early Islamic period (eighth century BC to ninth/tenth century AD). A six century-long tradition of jar stamping for economic and administrative (and possibly religious) purposes under governmental initiative and control ended during the Hellenistic period, to be renewed under different circumstances and expressing different messages in the late Byzantine or the beginning of the Early Islamic period. Thus far, no attempt has been made to discuss together these two episodes of Judean jar stamping, or to interpret the renewal of this custom in the first millennium AD. As argued in this article, the key to understand the reappearance of jar stamping in Judea after a gap of at least 700 years is the existence of close, constant contact between local people and ancient remains and artifacts, in this case stamped jar handles. These region-specific objects had become part of the local cultural heritage, albeit in a level of a ‘dormant memory’ during the centuries which passed since their final phase of usage, and the idea of reviving this memory was apparently borne in the minds of local potters in late Byzantine or Early Islamic times

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Byzantine architecture · Islam · JAR · Ninth · Period (music · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Computer Science · History

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