Ceramics in Transition: Production and Exchange of Late Byzantine-Early Islamic Pottery in Southern Transjordan and the Negev

Ceramics in Transition focuses on the utilitarianceramic traditions during the socio-political transition from the lateByzantine into the early Islamic Umayyad and 'Abbasid periods, c. 6th-9thcenturies CE in southern Transjordan and the Negev. These regions belonged tothe Byzantine province of Palaestina Tertia, before Islamic administrativereorganisation in the mid-7th century. Cooking ware and ceramic containers wereinvestigated from five archaeological sites representing differentsocio-economic contexts, the Jabal Harn monastery, the village of Khirbetedh-Dharih, the port city of 'Aqaba/Aila, the town of Elusa in the Negev, andthe suburban farmstead of Abu Matar. The ceramics were typo-chronologicallycategorised and subjected to geochemical and micro-structural characterisationvia X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (ED-XRF) and scanning electron microscopy(SEM-EDS) to geochemically 'fingerprint' the sampled ceramics and to identifyproduction clusters, manufacturing techniques, ceramic distribution patterns,and material links between rural-urban communities as well as religious-secularcommunities. The ceramic data demonstrate economic wealth continuing into theearly Islamic periods in the southern regions, ceramic exchange systems,specialized manufacture and inter-regional, long-distance ceramic transport. The potters who operated in the southern areas in the formative stages of theIslamic period reformulated their craft to follow new influences diffusing fromthe Islamic centres in the north.