General Information
Kerbschnitt Ware, or Cut Ware, refers to a group of hand-made bowls decorated by cutting out pieces of clay, generally to form wedge or zig-zag shapes. The ware is thought to imitate either Arabian soapstone/schist bowls (Holmqvist 2019: 55), although these vessels are more clearly imitated by Early Islamic Black Burnished Ware, or carved wooden vessels (Magness 2010: 137). This ware has been known and dated to the Early Islamic period for the better part of a century (see, e.g., Fitzgerald 1931: 36), but much about it remains unknown, including its exact center or centers of production (Holmqvist 2019: 128-129), although Jarash has been suggested as a production center (Stacey 2004: 93), perhaps indicating a connection to Jerash Byzantine-early Islamic Light Grey Handmade Ware. It is found throughout the southern Levant, from at least Capernaum in the north (Peleg 1989: 54) to Jabal Harun in the south (Gerber 2016: 135), and Peleg (1989: 54) argues that similar glazed vessels found in Syria and Iraq represent a "glazed variant" of the ware produced in Mesopotamia. Although some researchers have placed the emergence of the ware in the Umayyad period, and occasionally even the 7th century CE ('Amr 1990; Daviau 2010: 474; Peleg 1989: 54), the current consensus places its emergence in the 'Abbasid period, probably the early 9th century CE (see, e.g., Walmsley 2022: 94).
Although similar kerbschnitt decorations are found on other wares, e.g., Syro-Anatolian Bri...
Jerash/Gerasa (Jordan/Northern Highlands)
Khirbat Yājūz (Jordan/Central Highlands)
Pella/Fiḥl (Jordan/Jordan Valley)
Rujm al-Kursī (Jordan/Central Highlands)
