Pottery in Palestine

Pottery and ceramics have been produced in the historic region of Palestine by local and foreign artisans and ceramicists for millennia.

During the Roman and early Byzantine period, common kitchen ware of the Galilee region was produced primarily in Kafr 'Inan (Kefar Hananya). One item produced there, the "Kefar Hananya I CE type," is also known as the "Galilean bowl." This coarse ware network was one of many sub-regional and micro-regional coarse and fine ware ceramic culture networks in operation in the Levant.

In exploring the similarities throughout the different eras, Macalister discusses Palestinian pottery in the Arab period and its shared characteristics with the ancient and modern pottery produced in Palestine. Of the pottery from the Arab period, he notes: "...there seem to have been large globular jars, not unlike the Pre-Semitic and First Semitic barrel-shaped jars." He describes them as having "ledge-handles, though of a different shape from the early ledge-handles," and continues to write that, "... this kind of handle is still made in native pottery." Further, he notes that jar-covers from this period are strikingly similar to those of the "earliest type of ware," the "Second Semitic jar-covers, with two loops in the middle of the saucer."

The lamps produced during the Arab period are "either of the Hellenistic type, with long spout, or the Byzantine slipper form." The "Third Semitic lamp" which almost completely disappears during the Hellenistic period, comes into use once again during the Arab period and Macalister notes that it is still frequently used among the Arab inhabitants of Palestine.

Some of the linear decoration techniques also show a "startling resemblance to the painted ornament of the Second Semitic Period." Macalister notes that the major differences are that "The slip and the paint have a fatter, richer texture in the Arab ware than in the Amorite, and the painted devices are more geometrical, more mechanical, and also more minute and 'finicking' in the later than in the earlier pottery." As for similarities with the Roman period, horizontal ribbing, a key characteristic of Roman era pottery, "is as common in this period as in the Roman, but it seems to differ in outline."

...
Wikipedia