General Information

The term ‘Negebite’ Ware was coined by Yohanan Aharoni in the late 1950s to refer to a family of crude handmade pottery found in nearly all Iron Age (first millennium BCE) sites in the Negev Highlands and the ‘Arabah Valley (Meshel 2002, 284). In addition to the Late Bronze and Iron Age, crude handmade ceramic vessels have been found mainly in the arid regions of the southern Levant in the Early Bronze Age I and II, Middle Bronze Age I, Byzantine and Islamic periods (Haiman and Goren 1992, 143). All share the same technological profile, namely that vessels are crude and handmade wares; for this reason scholars often refer to them collectively as ‘Negebite’ Ware (Dagan 2011, and references).

Occasionally some of these Iron Age handmade vessels were made with the addition of crushed copper slag in the fabric. Some cases might be a result of accidental contamination, but with others it seems that this the slag temper is a deliberate addition. Iron Age Handmade vessels occur in a vareity of fabrics including an assortment of predominantly non-calcareous, silty to non-silty fabrics. Shale-rich varieties are prevalent. Micaceous clays occur occasionally.

Recent scholarship has worked to distinguish the different periods of production, largely on the basis of shape and function. For example, crude handmade vessels of Early Islamic date have been separately studied and re-classified as Early Islamic Negev Highlands Coarse Handmade Ware (Taxel et al. 2022).

Coarse handmade ware, generally of desert origin and affiliated with (semi-)nomadic desert population components; including predominantly open shapes, such as the well-known cylindrical cooking kraters; temper generally coarse including grog, vegetal temper and crushed slag; in the Iron I and Iron IIA strong connection with the copper production in the Wadi Arabah; in these periods, the term "Handmade Arabah Ware" is more appropriate (cf. Martin and Finkelstein 2013)