General Information

This cooking ware produced in Israel's southern Shephelah region during the 3rd and 2nd c. BCE. During these centuries, the political designation of this region was Idumea (a hellenized version of the biblical name of Edom). The region is marked by low rolling hills and fertile slopes, especially well suited to the cultivation of olive trees. People lived across this zone in small towns and rural farmsteads, oriented to the major city and market center of Maresha/Marisa. Dense settlement created steady demand for a range of cooking vessels; it is probable that there were many small workshops specializing in their production over the course of these centuries, although none have yet been identified.

The fabric ranges in color from deep red to red-brown in section. Vessels are noticeably freckled with small and medium fragments of chalk. Chalk is a consistent substratum in this region's geomorphology, and it permeates the potting clay generated from the soils here. Chalk inclusions are characteristic of other wares produced in this region during these centuries, such as Idumean Hellenistic Slipped Fine Ware and Idumean Hellenistic chalk-flecked Semi-Fine Ware.

It seems to be analogous with https://www.levantineceramics.org/wares/1066-judean-hellenistic-lime-flecked-cooking-ware.

It is associated to the petro-fabric https://www.levantineceramics.org/petrofabrics/108-israel-shephelah-negev-loess-calcareous-clay-calcareous-sand