General Information

Vessels of this ware family were made across northern Israel beginning in the late 13th c. CE. Forms include deep globular cooking pots and wide, flat-bottomed baking dishes/frying pans, each with two distinctive rim forms. The first type of cooking pots have an everted, almost-ledge rim with no neck; the second have a similar everted, almost-ledge rim with a short neck. The baking dishes/frying pans have an outturned or "gutter" rim, grooved so as to receive a lid. They carry a transparent lead glaze that fired yellowish, yellow-brown, greenish brown, or brown, generally even and well melted; the glaze facilitated cleaning the vessel in places where food might stick (Avissar and Stern 2005, pp. 92-94; Stern, Edna J. 2014, Kh. Din'ila, p. 80). On the baking dishes/frying pans the glaze usually extends to the rim but on the cooking pots it is usually limited to the bottom of the interior. The first type of cooking pot and baking dish were found mostly in the Galilee and the Golan, and are dated from the end of the thirteenth and through the fourteenth century, and possibly later. The second type of baking dish is found at sites throughout the southwestern Levant, and probably dates to the end of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and possibly later (Stern, Edna J., 2014, Kh. Din'ila, pp. 80-84).

It is interesting to note that the forms and the fabrics of the cooking wares are utterly different from those of the previous, Crusader period, such as Beirut early medieval glazed cooking pot ware, indicating a break in production traditions.

Both the baking dishes and cooking pots can be divided into two main types according to fabric. For both shapes, the first type has thick walls, a slightly greasy, light brown fabric and a thick, mostly glossy glaze, usually in a mustard-yellow shade with some brown specks. The second type of cooking pot appears in different fabrics, apparently reflecting different production centers; most examples differ from the first type in that they are coarser and darker in color. In contrast, the fabric of the second type of baking dish is rather fine, with thinner walls.