General Information
Basaltic cooking ware is a distinctive thin-walled, hard-fired product that is first attested in the last third of the 2nd c. BCE at sites in the eastern Galilee and central Golan Heights. The basalt inclusions indicate that it was made either in the Golan or the Chorazim plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee, where basalt outcrops appear (Stone 2012: 340). Vessels appear at sites in the Golan and Galilee into the mid-later 1st century BCE. Notably, basaltic cooking ware vessels are absent from sites in the northern Hula Valley, e.g., Tel Anafa and Tel Dan in the Hula Valley, suggesting that inhabitants were connected to different suppliers and markets for their cooking ware than those serving eastern Galilee and the Golan in the later 2nd-mid 1st centuries BCE (Stone 2012: 339).
The most common forms are cooking pots with a high, sharply angled neck (Stone 2012: 348-349). Producers also made casseroles with short, sharply angled rims, cooking lids, and jugs, likely used to boil water (Stone 2012: 340).
The appearance of basaltic cooking ware in the later 2nd century BCE coincides with significant political and demographic changes in the region following the collapse of Seleucid authority and the rise of the Hasmonean kingdom (Stone 2012: 328). At Kedesh, basaltic cooking ware vessels first appear in the site's “squatter” phase (ca. 130s-120s BCE), when small groups reoccupied parts of the abandoned Persian Hellenistic Administrative Building (PHAB). This represents a marked shift in the region's supply networds, as prior residents of the PHAB had relied principally on cooking ware from coastal producers, principally the region of 'Akko-Ptolemais, since at least the 4th century BCE (Stone 2012: 376).
Basaltic cooking ware cooking pots were made with clay recipes and forming techniques similar to those seen further south, in the region of Judea; the vessel forms are also quite similar. This suggests that, in these years, potters were amongst those who moved north, from Judea to the Galilee (Stone 2012: 384-385).
Basaltic cooking ware continues at Jewish settlements in the region through the 1st century BCE. At Gamla, for example, the assemblage is very similar to that from the squatter phase at Kedesh, with the most common forms being cooking pots with high splayed necks and casseroles with short angled rims (Stone 2012: 382-383).
In the early-mid 1st century BCE, a sizeable manufactury for cooking vessels was established at the site of Kfar Hananya, in the eastern lower Galilee. The resultant production of Kfar Hananya cooking ware quickly eclipsed the smaller workshops making Basaltic cooking ware. Notably, the two earliest shapes made by the Kfar Hananya potters - a cooking pot with slightly splayed rim and a casserole with short angled rim - are almost identical in profile and size to those made in Basaltic cooking ware, reflecting smooth continuity in consumer supply. The Kfar Hananya workshop becomes the dominant source for cooking wares at sites throughout Galilee and the Golan Heights for the next half a millennium, through the 5th century CE.
The appearance of Basaltic cooking ware in the Galilee and Golan is part of a broader pattern of material commonalities among Jewish communities that arise in the early years of the Hasmonean kingdom. A preference for "Judean"-style everyday household goods signals a common cultural identity formed in part by opposition to the Hellenizing goods and styles prevalent at coastal sites to the west, Idumean sites to the south, and in the Decapolis cities to the east.
DescriptionThis is a hard, thin walled fabric with an abundance of small white inclusions and occasional small rounded black (basalt) inclusions. Fired red (2.5YR 6/6) or dark red brown on the surface (2.5YR 4/6-5YR 5/6) often with a red core (2.5R 6/6) or gray core if fired red on the surface.
