Palestinian Traditional Pottery: A Contribution to Palestinian Culture. a Fieldwork Study, 1972-1980 (Cahiers De La Revue Biblique, 101) 9789042947085, 9789042947092, 904294708X

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CAHIERS DE LA REVUE BIBLIQUE Series archaeologica 3

101

Palestinian Traditional Pottery A Contribution to Palestinian Culture John LANDGRAF Owen RYE Elizabeth BURR Jean-Baptiste HUMBERT Owen RYE Hamed SALEM Editors

PEETERS 2021

PALESTINIAN TRADITIONAL POTTERY A Contribution to Palestinian Culture

“PALESTINIAN TRADITIONAL POTTERY” IS A CO-PUBLICATION BY :

École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and

Birzeit University, Palestine

CAHIERS DE LA REVUE BIBLIQUE Series archaeologica 3

101

Palestinian Traditional Pottery A Contribution to Palestinian Culture

John LANDGRAF Owen RYE Elizabeth BURR Jean-Baptiste HUMBERT Owen RYE Hamed SALEM Editors

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2021 – Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven. ISBN 978-90-429-4708-5 eISBN 978-90-429-4709-2 D/2021/0602/133 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes. Graphic designer: Kiyoshi Inoue Cover photo credits: Owen Rye

In memoriam

John Elsemore LANDGRAF 1928 – 2017

CONTENTS Foreword by Jean-Baptiste Humbert …………………………………………………………………… ix Two appreciations of John Landgraf …………………………………………………………………… xii Appreciation by Linda Ammons …………………………………………………………………… xii Appreciation by Claudine Dauphin ………………………………………………………………… xiv Prefaces and acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………… xvi Preface by Elizabeth Burr (2019) …………………………………………………………………… xvi Preface by John Landgraf (1999) …………………………………………………………………… xvii Preface by Owen Rye (2019) ………………………………………………………………………… xvii Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………………………… xix Introduction by Hamed Salem …………………………………………………………………………… xxi Archaeological background ………………………………………………………………………… xxi Fieldwork and publications ………………………………………………………………………… xxii Cessation and adaptation …………………………………………………………………………… xxv Interpretation and use of the present to understand the past ………………………………………………………………………… xxvi Introduction by John Landgraf and Owen Rye ……………………………………………………… xxvii Definition of “traditional” ………………………………………………………………………… xxvii Archaeological and ethnographic connections …………………………………………………… xxvii Locations of pottery making ……………………………………………………………………… xxix Women and men potters …………………………………………………………………………… xxx Map: Historic Palestine in 1967 ……………………………………………………………………………2 Map: Distribution of potters’ sites, most of them in the Palestinian Territories, in 1977 ……………………3 End of a tradition: Palestine’s women potters by John Landgraf ……………………………………………5 Origin and reintroduction of handmade cooking pots and water storage jars in Palestine …………………………………………………………………5 Modern context and techniques of the women potters ……………………………………………… 12 Women potters in ten West Bank villages ………………………………………………………………… 26 Dura, Fuqeiqis and Beit ‘Awwa ……………………………………………………………………… 26

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Beit ‘Anan …………………………………………………………………………………………… 36 al Jib ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 56 Beitunia ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 68 Excursus: Handmade Pottery of the Peasant Women from Ramallah and Surroundings [1914] …………………………………………………………………… 68 Sinjil ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 79 Qusra ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 100 Qabalan ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 116 Kafr al Labad ……………………………………………………………………………………… 127 Ya‘bad ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 133 Survival of a tradition: Palestine’s male potters by Owen Rye …………………………………………… 145 Overview of the tradition …………………………………………………………………………… 145 Male potters at eight centers in Palestine ………………………………………………………………… 162 Ramallah (including al Ramla, Jericho, and Jordan) ………………………………………………… 162 ‘Irtah ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 166 Jaba‘ ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 167 Nazareth …………………………………………………………………………………………… 187 Haifa ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 187 Akka (Acre) ………………………………………………………………………………………… 192 Hebron ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 194 Gaza ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 237 Reasons for the decline in the number of Palestinian male potters ………………………………… 260 Change and stability in traditions …………………………………………………………………… 261 Works cited ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 265 Appendixes ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 269 Toponyms revised by Jean-Baptiste Humbert ……………………………………………………… 269 Potters’ workshops ………………………………………………………………………………… 270 Potters’ names by John Landgraf …………………………………………………………………… 271 Glossary of technical terms by Owen Rye …………………………………………………………… 273 Palestinian census figures for 1967 and 1997 ………………………………………………………… 275 List of figures …………………………………………………………………………………………… 279 Album …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 288

FOREWORD by Jean-Baptiste Humbert There are many persons with whom we make our way in life. Life and time select among them, and some figures remain as milestones. In retrospect, you understand that something that was not noticed, a kind of energy, has been given to you. When I arrived in Jerusalem fifty years ago, I met John Landgraf, who became a companion from the early days and shattered my image of the American. Nonconformist, free of conventions, a committed ecologist, close to the earth, John seemed to me dismissive of comfort with the deliberate choice of a simple life. A hardworking stature, always in gardener’s uniform, long hair in the wind suggesting a reference to the wild state, he was a man of strong convictions with obstinacy, without attraction to a professional career. A true researcher, he published little; learning, understanding was his only goal. He lived in an old house in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. The house looked like him. He had won the trust of the owner, a ninety-something with whom he shared the premises, whose strongly structured nature evoked a biblical patriarch, wearing a lion’s mane but white, with white hands and white galabiyeh (a traditional Egyptian, robe-like garment). The house, several centuries old, had rooms arranged around a white-limed courtyard, where a very old lemon tree gave fruit and shade. Everything was white, the very expression of the light of the East. Jerusalem then was not today’s modernized Jerusalem, which is being eroded by colonization, tourism, and consumerism. John was at that time attached to the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. His itinerary in Palestine was simple. Having entered the world of Near Eastern archaeology, he was first attracted by Semitic epigraphy in the wake of American-style biblical archaeology, which wanted

the Holy Land to be woven into the Text, and History to be under its control. He published two short articles on epigraphic topics. With young people from the Hebron region, he discovered a long Aramaic inscription carved on a rock; he spent whole days and even nights there to bring back a squeeze of it 2.5 m long. He had the slow but precise gesture of the watchmaker, and the taste for a job well done. John also studied Palestinian pottery from the Bronze and Iron Ages. But, contrary to the typical scientist of today who seeks to focus on a single topic, deepening understanding of the same subject over a lifetime, he wanted to open up perspectives. As his method required him to verify the results acquired by crossing disciplines, he had to test hypotheses through experimentation. His interest in the origin of clays and the composition of pottery tempers led him to acquire a basic knowledge of geology; in order to understand the exploitation of clay, he tried to locate the quarries. During the first excavation season at Tell Keisan in 1971, he hypothesized that a potter had worked there. In search of the clay that would have suited that potter, he dug, alone, at the foot of the Tell, a borehole five meters deep to sample the granulometry. Charged with overseeing the pottery recovered at the Tell, in the hinterland of Saint John of Acre, with infinite patience he pre-washed thousands of sherds, including possible ostraca, to preserve the paint or ink traces on them. He wanted to calibrate the firing of the ware, so he built in the gardens of the École an old-fashioned potter’s kiln. He wanted to unlock the secret of manufacturing black and red thick burnished wares from Early Bronze Age Khirbet Kerak, an Egyptian technique characteristic of the “Black Top” of the Nagada III period (ca. 32003000 B.C.): to this end, he shaped bowls and tested different burnishing modes by smoothing or dry brushing before firing.

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Finally, the desire to unlock the secrets of pottery motivated him in the 1970s to team up with Owen Rye, who already had skills in the field of traditional pottery technology. Their scientific training, combined with their strong interest in Palestine, led John Landgraf and Owen Rye to the villages and urban centers, where they approached and designed the project of studying traditional domestic pottery. They were able to combine spontaneous feeling for the village and urban potters with an acute scientific curiosity. They visited potters’ workshops in eight mostly urban centers, which were all living laboratories where experimentation was constantly happening. They observed, noted, and recorded with patience and humility. The potter knew and the archaeologist was there to learn. The construction of a jar seems simple to the neophyte, but the impossibility of building it with a single movement either by hand or on the wheel requires an understanding of the potter’s gestures and craft. In the Netherlands, John had been initiated by H. J. Franken, the excavator of Tell Deir ‘Alla, and Jan Kalsbeek, who had decided to investigate the processes by which the pottery excavated at the site was manufactured. Observation of the knowledgeable skill of traditional potters, along with their well-established techniques, could help to recover the lost techniques of Antiquity. The added interest in contemporary material was new. The practice of archaeology in the 1970s was largely a para-biblical discipline, enclosed in a more or less bypassed Holy Land, seen as subordinate to the biblical text. The new research was steeped in modern ideologies, though paradoxically dominated by a historicizing reading of the Bible. A whole generation of archaeologists, mainly Anglo-Saxon, was interested in and sometimes tempted by confessionalism. Yet that same generation also called for an independent archaeology that would no longer be subject to the text in order to first understand and describe the society that had engendered it. Crossing the Jordan River, Franken had already distanced himself from the perspective of biblical archaeology. He was a pioneer in a research endeavor that was not really new but was in the air at the time—the study of Middle Eastern pottery as a purely human production independent of chronology. Franken was interested in the primitive pottery he had seen in the deepest stratigraphic layers of Jericho and in the rough pottery of the Iron Age. He had been struck by the similarities between the techniques of the ancient potters of Jericho and those of the craftsmen of the Jordan Valley, particularly in the medieval pottery of the villages near Deir ‘Alla. The sherds that littered the surface of the sites were ignored by archaeologists but offered an exceptional research potential. Beyond the more or less flexible, sophisticated, and hierarchical typologies of the Bronze and Iron Age periods, it seemed useful to create a

repertoire of contemporary technology. Understanding permanence and continuity in the evolution of techniques opened the new research up to the anthropological method. For Franken, studying the traditional pottery of the villages around Deir ‘Alla was the first step. For the archaeologist, the interest in a piece of pottery is usually limited to its alleged demonstration of historical-stratigraphic significance; the object has only an abandoned status. Yet pottery, like all human production, offers many other possibilities. If archaeology enters an obsolete world, anthropology calls for its reengagement. In itself, a piece of pottery contains the archives of its manufacture and the causes of its production. In its present state, it keeps the immaterial trace of those who conceived it and the material trace of the gestures that built it. And the preserved narrative does not end with its production. Upstream, before its production, the craftsman and the user are revealed. A society and its way of life are sketched out in the background; the next chapter of the raison d’être and function of vessels opens with the question of the organic link between matter and form. The shape of a vessel is governed by its use, but it is the constraint exerted by the materials that allows the form to emerge. The discipline of anthropology has developed at the crossroads of two tendencies. The first, AngloSaxon, is based on the exact sciences; the second, more Mediterranean, is still based on the human sciences. The first believes in number; the second puts its trust in word. The first, empirical, expresses experience through calculation. It breaks down the object in material terms and lists the contingencies of its production. This tendency led to the New Archaeology of the 1970s, which dismissed history because it threatened the conclusions being drawn. History being a discipline in motion, constantly reformulated, how can we be sure of the interpretation being presented? The object would not have a history but would have undergone an evolution. Because there is still human production, anthropology had to be brought in, but through behaviorism. To escape from the uncontrollable, vital momentum of human beings, it was necessary to codify behaviors and build models of human adaptation to the natural environment. The mechanical arrangement of models is the general principle of the transformation of cultures, and thus of technologies (processualism). It means to return to the determinisms of the positivist philosophy of the nineteenth century. We must avoid caricature, moderate our judgment, and recognize that the two tendencies, which have never been isolated from each other, combine in different ways. The use of determinism patterns has been fruitful in the approach to societies without history and obviously in the field of prehistory.

FOREWORD BY JEAN-BAPTISTE HUMBERT

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Landgraf and Rye came from the Anglo-Saxon West but without dogmatism. Their common desire to grasp the framework of traditional village sociology encouraged them, without renouncing the exact sciences, to remain within the fold of the human sciences.

and the material controls the tool that conditions the form. Technologies progress, regress, and disappear according to the social evolution of a given group. One of Leroi-Gourhan’s books is entitled Le geste et la parole, subtitled Technique et langage. Intellect masters the gesture and the ability to invent.

The École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem is today honored to publish the work of Landgraf and Rye in its archaeological collection. Both authors are part of an already long tradition of scientific exploration of Palestine that began in the second half of the nineteenth century. The momentum was strengthened by the intellectual abundance that prevailed in Jerusalem before 1914. For its part, the École biblique had invested, since the beginning of the twentieth century, in the fields of Nabataean and Thamudaean epigraphy and the exploration of the archaeological Hijaz; the Dominicans Antonin Jaussen and Raphaël Savignac had investigated the customs of the nomads of the land of Moab, not forgetting to note the linguistic characteristics of the Arabic dialects. Jaussen (Sheikh Antoun), who tirelessly promoted research in this field, is considered a pioneer in social anthropology.

Landgraf and Rye used the methods of social anthropology in their study of the traditional Palestinian potters. Since then, the women potters have stopped working. While some male potters of Palestine are still working, their technological potential is impoverished and the future of their practice is threatened even in the short term. Landgraf and Rye offer us the precious advantage of having described, with professional conscientiousness, the techniques of a craft industry that has regressed since the 1980s. Today the potters’ guild has disintegrated, and the potters’ expertise will no longer be transmitted. The economy that supported them has disappeared. We have witnessed the expiration of a thousand-year-old savoir-faire. The exceptional case of domestic pottery made by women is a case that was closed in the early 1980s. Palestinian traditional women’s pottery, entirely handmade without a wheel and fired in the open air without a kiln, with its floral and geometric painted decoration, was part of a technological tradition going back in a straight line to the thirteenth century. We are deeply indebted to the authors for undertaking this endeavor as soon as they understood that the associated culture would soon die out. It is imperative that the results recorded here in the field of the history of technology be made available to scholars.

After 1945, in France a sui generis, interdisciplinary anthropology was born at the intersection of ethnology and archaeology. The pragmatic tendency had led to the reduction of the object to its strictly organized components before its typological classification. André Leroi-Gourhan restored the operative chain by going back as far as possible in the production process: the gesture precedes the tool,

TWO APPRECIATIONS OF JOHN LANDGRAF Appreciation by Linda Ammons An important strength of this book is that it makes significant contributions to three diverse bodies of literature: traditional ceramic production techniques and their diversity and evolution; ethnoarchaeology with specific application to archaeological research in the Levant; and the ethnography of Palestinian village life in the twentieth century. The preponderance of the book—and its stated goal—is to describe traditional Palestinian ceramic production techniques in two versions, female and male, and how and why those changed over the course of the twentieth century. But intertwined with the thorough description and analysis of many examples of ceramic production, one also finds comparisons and contrasts of this traditional pottery with ceramic forms and techniques commonly found in the archaeological record in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, along with the authors’ understanding of how their record of the work of traditional Palestinian potters might inform archaeological analysis in the region. In addition, many details of the everyday lives of the potters in the latter half of the twentieth century are revealed throughout the accounts of the potters at work. Readers who care about ethnoarchaeology and ethnography, and who persevere, will find those tidbits highly informative.

In reading John’s descriptions of the work of the traditional women potters, I found myself marveling at the depth of detail that he amassed and put together here in a way that lets the reader see clearly into Palestinian village life. While John explains to us the myriad details of the potters’ work, which I am certain will be of real interest to both potters and archaeologists, much else about their lives comes clear. His portrayals allow us to envision the arrangement of some of the potters’ homes and workspaces, and how their work was integrated both into local and regional economies, and into the seasonality of their lives. This will be of value to archaeologists working in the area. Cultural anthropologists will be informed and intrigued by the glimpses, though often fleeting, of the women’s relationships to their natal families, to their husbands, to the families into which they married, and to the women’s community in their villages. Of the three bodies of material that the book addresses, I am most familiar with the ethnographic material and am painfully aware that accounts of participant-observation research into Palestinian village life constitute a particularly sparse set of studies. Thus, I appreciate any substantive contribution to that, and this book qualifies.

John Landgraf and I were friends, and the period of my research in the 1970s coincided with some of his; I am a cultural anthropologist and did ethnographic research in a Palestinian village in the West Bank in the 1970s, and again in the 1990s. John and I had several conversations about our work in the 1970s. I regret that, although John invited me to accompany him on some of his research trips to the potters, I never found the time to do so. It is a joy both personally and professionally to see the work into which John put so much time and energy come to light for the edification, use, and enjoyment of others. I did not know Owen Rye in the past but have now become acquainted with him and his work through this text.

As a student and teacher of the intricacies of participant observation, I was especially impressed by this book because of the gendered nature of the research: John was often working with women potters in contexts where there were no men from the women’s families present. This in the 1970s was a difficult and potentially even dangerous situation. My own research in a Palestinian village taught me that the strong separation of male and female life in the village, comprising most aspects of people’s lives—work, leisure-time activities, and family and community events—was a key factor to be recognized while doing research. Women’s lives were strictly controlled by both the men and the older women of their families, and any perceived

APPRECIATION BY LINDA AMMONS

indiscretion would reflect on the whole family, not just the individuals involved. Women usually did not associate socially with men who were not relatives. Over the early months of my research in a West Bank village, after being accepted first as a guest and then as an adopted daughter of a village family, I found that, as a single Western woman, I could carve out a space for myself that allowed me both full access to women’s spaces and activities, and some access to men’s spaces and activities. I have thought that a female anthropologist working in Palestinian society, and perhaps in other Muslim societies, thus had an advantage over a male; a woman could have partial access to the male world in addition to nearly full participation in the female world, while a male anthropologist, being a potential threat to the honor of women and their families, would have very limited access to the world of women, and therefore very limited understanding of that world. In reading this book, however, I could not detect that such was the case for John in his work with the women potters. In fact, I was surprised at some of his accounts, which clearly indicate that he was allowed access and was accepted into both the social and physical space of the women potters, most often without male relatives present, and usually without restrictions. A prime example is his account of sitting up through the night observing and helping women potters with an outdoor firing. The two women workers finally retired at 3:30 A.M., leaving John to watch the fire and add fuel as needed. Such access and inclusion are real tributes to John’s easy-going personality, his interpersonal skills, and

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his fluency in colloquial Arabic. Most Palestinian villagers in the 1970s had met few Westerners other than Israelis. And most had never met a Westerner who managed, or even tried, to communicate with them in their own language. Some facility in Arabic was enough to break down some barriers quickly. Then John’s contagious smile, his affability, and his genuine interest in other people, particularly in Palestinian villagers, frequently put other people at ease. John apparently managed to work his way into village society in a way that made many people feel he was like one of the family. This is a real skill that is unfortunately exceptional. And that John was able to do this in a number of different villages is even more unusual. Even with those skills, I know from experience that it takes a huge commitment of time on the part of the ethnographer to nurture a relationship before Palestinian villagers will let down their strict gender barriers. John was willing to make that commitment in time, going back again and again to visit the women in their homes with the whole family present, until it was not questioned that he was a possible and even welcome guest and helper, day or night, at the women potters’ outside workspaces and their firings. The result is data from Palestinian village life in the latter half of the twentieth century that is both rare and authentic, and that through ethnoarchaeological analogy sheds new light on serious archaeological questions about pottery making in Syria-Palestine in antiquity, in addition to the project’s primary aim of recording the minutiae of women’s and men’s traditional pottery production and their change over time. It is a welcome study.

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Appreciation by Claudine Dauphin I first met John Landgraf in October 1975 at a party of American and British expats—archaeologists and anthropologists from the Albright Institute and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem—in a house spanning the first arch on the Via Dolorosa, near St  Anne’s (White Fathers) in the Old City of Jerusalem. British-trained in Near Eastern archaeology, I had recently taken up a bursary from the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem to pursue research on the demography of Byzantine Palestine, then a subject of little interest to “pure” archaeologists. In this unusual setting, I came face to face with an off-beat character sporting long hair and a slightly diffident manner, which he abandoned as soon as he graphically and enthusiastically described his excavations a year earlier of a Byzantine tomb at Khirbet Jemar, 2 km northwest of Tell Beit Mirsim. This was Dr. John Landgraf, scientist turned archaeologist. He explained that the six arcosolia of this tomb had been robbed of their contents and that, of the fifty individuals who had been buried there, only their teeth were found. The unusual age distribution suggested that their death might have been due to the bubonic plagues that cyclically decimated the population of Late Byzantine and Early Umayyad Palestine—a theme that I was to fully develop twenty years later in my La Palestine Byzantine: Peuplement et Populations. Not only was Landgraf a brilliant thinker, but he was also an amazing dancer: in between bouts of wild flinging about of arms and legs in all directions to the music of the Rolling Stones, we discussed the budding discipline of Archaeological Demography, the plague, and burial habits in Byzantine Palestine. The foundations of scholarly exchange and of a friendship lasting some forty years had been laid. Soon, another party consolidated this friendship. From their Agence France Presse posting in Athens, my parents came to Jerusalem for Christmas and threw a party just ahead of the New Year. The mixture of guests, ecclesiastics from the White Fathers and Dominican monasteries, along with archaeologists from the Israeli Department of Antiquities and

Museums (IDAM) and from local universities, was slow to “gel.” Late in the evening, the doorbell rang and in walked John Landgraf with a Canadian artist friend, Ed Sawatzky, who was visiting John at the time and, fascinated by Jerusalem, ultimately stayed for two years. They were ushered in by the entire assembly of guests exclaiming, “Jesus Christ has arrived!” Within seconds the party “took off.” John was the heart and soul of every social gathering: he was erudite but fun; he was a mine of stories and a bridge between the various human facets of the Holy Land, past and present; and especially he did not take himself or anyone else too seriously! I became a regular dinner guest in the courtyard of John’s old rented Arab house in the Bab al-Hutta district of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. Years later, I still associate nahna (mint) tea with sitting in his courtyard under a lemon tree on balmy nights, listening to John’s adventures. Top of the list was his walking across the Ladder of Tyre and the Israel–Lebanon border (which was theoretically sealed, since Lebanon had never recognized the State of Israel), his American passport lacking a Lebanese visa, which led him to experience three Lebanese prisons! John, who had belatedly switched from hard sciences to archaeology, did not hold a secure academic post or scholarship and had very little money. He would catch the Arab bus from Damascus Gate to the Bethlehem or Nablus markets where vegetables and fruits were cheaper than in Jerusalem, or be given what was left on the stalls of Mahane Yehuda in West Jerusalem, just before the market closed for Shabbat. An excellent cook, he produced delicious vegetarian meals, and we dined like kings! Telephone landlines were few in the Old City in the 1970s, and mobiles did not yet exist, but with his plastic basket overflowing with notebooks as well as vegetables and fruits picked up along the way, and his fluent Arabic spoken with a strong American accent, John was a well-known figure across East Jerusalem, and messages to or from him would be relayed orally. One of our “safe houses” was the shoemaker’s small shop just off Salah Eddin Street, where John and his

APPRECIATION BY CLAUDINE DAUPHIN

friends could drop by to collect and leave messages, or sit and chat for hours. John was an ancient ceramics specialist, and his expertise and fine analysis were much sought after by field archaeologists of all nationalities. I myself called upon him to advise on the pottery of three of my excavations: the Byzantine church at Nahariya (fifth–sixth centuries), the ecclesiastical farm of Shelomi (fifth–eighth centuries), and the Byzantine episcopal basilica at Dor (fourth–eighth centuries). Excessively modest, John did not envisage requesting a consultant’s fee and often faced boxes of pottery stacked high awaiting his inspection and study during several weeks or even months, which were unpaid and done “for the Greater Glory of God.” I strongly encouraged him to break away from this recurring pattern, so that the mercantile value of his important work would be recognized. The first time that he “dared” request payment for his research, the Jerusalem archaeological community was in a state of numb shock, but he stood his ground. The excavator had no choice but to produce the funds, and the material aspect of John’s life thankfully improved. Eventual employment as a senior staff member at the Deutsches Evangelisches Institut (German School of Archaeology) also helped. The manufacture of pots was of little interest to most archaeologists in the late 1960s and 1970s, principally for lack of understanding and of clear explanations. John’s publication of the pottery from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem’s excavations at Tell Keisan in Western Galilee, a model publication that relates sherds collected in excavations with the realities and intricacies of pot making, was the first to remedy this lacuna. Building on the premise that the craft of modern traditional Arab potters evolved from the past and that therefore archaeologists should study the present in order to seek insights into the past, in the mid-1970s John focused his research on traditional Palestinian women potters in ten different villages of the West Bank. Of particular

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interest to him was the fact that the women’s craft differed from the wheel-thrown, kiln-fired pottery of Palestinian male potters in that it was handmade and fired in open bonfires. Despite a lack of adequate funding, I encouraged John to pursue his study, in particular the essential photographic recording of potters in action. After a time gap due to personal family reasons that had beckoned him back to the United States, I urged him to reactivate his research, which led (among other results) to his writing an article entitled “The Thrown Closed Base,” which was published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 19–20 (2001–2002), on the Editorial Board of which I was then a member. The traditional potters of the Levant are the last in a long line stretching back to the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2100 B.C.). In the 1970s, at a time of turmoil and change in the Levant, when traditional knowledge was rapidly being eroded for the sake of modernization, it was urgent to track down the last remaining potters and to record in detail, step by step, visually and verbally, their manufacture of handmade and wheel-made cooking pots and amphoras for storage. John’s significant efforts to do so will have enabled archaeologists faced with the physical remnants of modern-traditional Palestinian ceramic production to resituate such remnants in their paleoethnographical context, thereby preserving an ancient tradition and saving for posterity the knowledge of a fast-disappearing ancient craft.  To those of us who lived in Jerusalem in the mid1970s, John Landgraf was a household name, a guardian figure, who transmitted to colleagues and friends both his infectious enthusiasm for the creative dimension of pottery and his sincere and profound love for the landscapes and peoples of Palestine. “We belong to God and to God we return.” ϥ· Ϳ ϥ·ϭ Ϫϴϟ΍ ϥϮόΟ΍έ

(Quran, Al-Baqara [sura 2], v. 156)

PREFACES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Preface by Elizabeth Burr (2019) More than forty years have passed since the studies of traditional Palestinian potters were conducted that form the basis of this book. In the interim the material in this volume remained unpublished. Then in February 2017 John Landgraf died of brain cancer. In his last days, as his wife, I promised him that I would do everything I could to publish this work. The first person I reached out to after John’s death regarding this project was John’s old friend and colleague Father Jean-Baptiste Humbert at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, who responded immediately with the idea of publishing a memorial volume for John. About a year later, I was able to contact Owen Rye in Australia, who had conducted field research with Palestinian potters aimed at illuminating archaeological investigations of excavated pottery in the 1970s, when he and John also collaborated. Owen graciously agreed to participate in the publishing effort, having stored much of the research material at his home. Meanwhile, Professor Hamed Salem, representing Birzeit University and its Palestinian Institute of Archaeology (PIA), had expressed interest in publishing John’s and Owen’s work, particularly since Hamed himself is a scholar and archaeologist who has continued to conduct research and to write in the field of Palestinian traditional pottery. Moreover, Birzeit University had its own archive of material from the John–Owen project. Thus, a four-person enterprise came into being, each of the four persons (who became the four editors) being essential to its fulfillment. This study consists mainly of a report outlining the work of the women potters written (except for Ya‘bad, which was co-authored) by John Landgraf, and a report outlining the work of the male Palestinian potters written by Owen Rye with assistance from John Landgraf. Some studies of women potters were done by Owen, and comprehensive studies on the women potters were completed by John. John also played an active role in 1

the study of the male potters, with his fluency in colloquial Arabic functioning as interpreter in the 1974 and 1977 field seasons, as well as conducting further fieldwork on the male potters, especially in Gaza. Without John’s assistance, the study of the male potters would have been considerably impoverished, and his substantial contributions are acknowledged with gratitude by Owen. Likewise, Owen’s contribution to the study of the women potters is gratefully acknowledged by John. John and Owen agreed that John would write the section on the women potters, incorporating some observations by Owen, and Owen would write the section on the men potters, incorporating extensive field observations by John. The reader will notice that the original field research and writing were completed in the 1970s,1 and for this reason the editors have put most of the text into the past tense. The reader will also notice that one or both of the authors may sometimes use a first-person narrative, which the editors have retained. Unfortunately, it has not been possible (or practical) to provide an updating of many aspects of Palestinian life that were true at the time of writing but no longer are. We have sought to recover and present the fruits of this research into what was once a vital part of Palestinian culture among village women potters as well as urban male potters. The volume incorporates many images, which are linked to the text. The laborious task of selecting images from a multitude of color slides, black and white photographs, and drawings and tables, all of them created by the two authors, was performed by Hamed Salem for Part 1 of the book, on the women potters; and by Owen Rye for Part 2 of the book, on the male potters. I speak for John equally when I express my deepest gratitude to Jean-Baptiste Humbert, Owen Rye, and Hamed Salem, all of them dedicated, as John was, to recording a treasured cultural tradition.

John’s initial section of text, pp. 5–25, which precedes his discussion of the women potters in ten West Bank villages, was written in 1999.

PREFACES BY JOHN LANDGRAF AND OWEN RYE

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Preface by John Landgraf (1999) My interest in Palestine’s traditional potters began not in Palestine but in Holland, where I spent three months in the summer of 1970 studying not modern but ancient ceramic construction techniques in light of a new approach to the study of ancient ceramics introduced by H. J. Franken and Jan Kalsbeek. There for the first time, I actually made pottery both by hand and on the wheel. My trip to Holland came about as a result of the tragic death by drowning of Paul Lapp in the spring of 1970 off the coast of Cyprus; until then, I had planned to work with Paul on an excavation that summer at the ancient site of Idalion on Cyprus. His death also meant the end of my formal study of the Late Bronze Age pottery from Tell Taanach, which I had begun in the fall of 1968 under his guidance with the intention of presenting it as a Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Tübingen, where I had earned a doctorate in molecular biology. From 1965 to 1980, I lived in Jerusalem continuously (except for a few visits back to the U.S.). My interest in Palestinian ethnography had begun earlier at the village of Simya (also known as Khirbet es Simya) adjoining Deir Samit, in the district of Hebron, in the fall of 1967. For about two and a half months, five Americans lived in this village as we conducted an excavation in a nearby ancient Middle Bronze I cemetery, Jebel Qa‘aqir, directed by Dr. William Dever. Our workmen were Palestinian villagers (fellahin) from Simya and other nearby villages. Although we came there ostensibly to learn about the distant past, some four thousand years earlier, for me the experience was an opening into the entirely new world of Palestinian village life in the present. My focus then shifted to that world. The first fieldwork for my study of Palestinian women potters in any systematic way was undertaken in the summer of 1973, when I established contact with a potter from the village of Sinjil, about halfway between Ramallah and Nablus. That summer I usually left Jerusalem early in the morning by taking the bus or a service taxi north to Nablus and getting off near Sinjil. Close to the Sinjil turnoff, there was a

small shop that sold a few antiquities as well as modern jars and other vessels made by Sinjil women potters, in addition to some wheel-made pottery from Jaba‘, a village north of Nablus on the road to Jenin. I had stopped at this shop several times previously during excursions to visit several northern archaeological sites. In conversation with the owner of the shop, I learned the name of one of the women potters who lived in Sinjil, a widow named Halima. After reaching Sinjil, I was eventually led to Halima’s house. Thus I began to search out Palestinian women potters on the West Bank by asking Palestinian village friends or people I met on my many bus rides back and forth, south and north of Jerusalem, for the names and locations of women potters. When I began studying the work of these potters, I discovered that their pottery-making schedules were irregular, so that not being in the right place at the right time might mean missing an entire season. Another difficulty was their association of photography with vague evil consequences; yet as time went by, they gradually allowed me to take priceless photographs of themselves making pottery. Women potters in al Jib, Sinjil, Kafr al Labad, and Ramallah had been described by women authors (see below for references to articles by Lydia Einsler and Grace Crowfoot), so that finding women potters in those places was easier than finding them in other locations that had not been mentioned in prior literature. The precipitating impetus for my formal study of traditional Palestinian women (and to a lesser extent traditional men) potters occurred in 1974, when I began a collaboration with Owen Rye from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, who was also conducting a formal study of traditional Palestinian potters. Both the work I did individually and the work we did together had a lasting impact on my life long after I left Jerusalem in 1980 to return to the United States.

Preface by Owen Rye (2019) Prior to my studies of Palestinian potters, I studied traditional potters in Pakistan. The research I did there was published in 1976 as Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology No. 21, with the title Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan. This publication became the standard reference work for the traditional pottery of Pakistan. In the lead-up to my Palestinian research, I was introduced to the American archaeologist Albert

Glock, who was based in Jerusalem, by William Potts, an archaeologist colleague at the Smithsonian Institution. Bill Potts’s specialized studies were conducted primarily in Israel. The project as it is reported here originally began at the suggestion of Dr. Glock, who served as director of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

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in Jerusalem in the late 1970s, and in 1987 helped to found the Palestinian Institute of Archaeology (PIA) at Birzeit University on the West Bank. Al Glock had begun his archaeological work in the region from the viewpoint of biblical studies; he was then a Lutheran minister in the United States. After the death of Paul Lapp, Glock became director of the Taanach expedition. In preparing the publication of excavation results at Tell Taanach, he was eager to learn how the study of present-day traditional potters could contribute to an understanding of the ancient pottery he was analyzing. His developing interest in the life of the villagers in Tiinik, the Palestinian village at the foot of the Tell, led him to consider how studies of their way of life could illuminate the archaeological finds. This is where I came in. My original plan was simply to study the work of traditional Palestinian potters. But in discussions with Glock we gradually developed the idea of attempting to correlate the modern traditional potters’ practices with excavated pottery. Previously, pottery studies by archaeologists in the region had been confined to the shape of vessels and any surface decoration. This information was used to establish “typologies.” But Glock and I decided that information about the manufacture of pottery could provide a much richer insight into the past, and a much more precise method of classification (typology) than had been possible with previous practice. The present volume refers only to studies of Palestinian potters’ manufacturing practices and not to any specific archaeological site. My investigation of connections between modern potters’ practice and material excavated at Tell Taanach was to be included in publications by Al Glock that were never completed. His assassination in 1992 prevented that.2 To conduct the fieldwork on which the study of the male potters in this volume is based, I traveled to the region three times: in August 1973 from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; June to September 1974 from London; and March to August 1977 from Canberra, Australia (my native country), where I was in the Prehistory Department of the Research Schools at the Australian National University. The purpose of my first visit was to locate pottery workshops for study on later field trips. At that time I did not know John Landgraf and was not aware of the work he was doing with Palestinian potters. John lived in Jerusalem from 1965 to 1980, and conducted his field research on the women potters during the six pottery-making seasons from 1973 through 1978. John and I established contact in 1974 and did field research together then; later, in 1977, there was more collaboration between us. John’s fluent Arabic allowed detailed discussions of their processes with the potters, considerably enriching 2

our observations of their practices. My understanding of and previous experience with traditional pottery techniques enriched John’s knowledge and approach, so we gained mutual benefits from working together. The original aim of our joint project was to locate and record the working techniques of traditional Palestinian potters in the West Bank and Gaza. At the beginning of the project, however, it became apparent that two quite distinct traditions of pottery making existed among the Palestinian potters. One tradition consisted of women potters forming vessels with hand-building techniques, firing them in open fires, and working at home. Their wares were either used domestically or sold in localized markets. The other tradition consisted and still consists of male potters using the potter’s wheel exclusively for forming vessels, firing them in updraft kilns, and working in workshops distinct from their homes. Their wares were usually distributed over a widespread marketing area. We studied the work of traditional Palestinian potters for two primary reasons. First, it was extremely doubtful that this traditional craft, especially as practiced by the female potters, would survive much longer, making it imperative to record the techniques and methods used by both female and male potters before they succumbed to changing economic and political conditions. Second, we hoped that a careful study of their techniques would provide useful comparative data for archaeologists studying the ancient pottery of Palestine. At the conclusion of our fieldwork, John and I agreed to divide the documentation of our investigations into two separate publications, one by John dealing with female potters and one by me referring to male potters. It had become clear from our fieldwork that these traditions involved two quite different and almost completely unrelated types of practice. We agreed that John would freely use my observations of the women potters in his publication and vice versa, and so I would like to acknowledge John’s extensive observations of the men potters particularly in Gaza. Unfortunately, however, circumstances intervened and, although we both completed extensive writing toward these publications, they never eventuated, in each case for different personal reasons. So now it is a source of pleasure to me to see that our would-be separate publications have merged into one publication, which will finally come to fruition. I would like to thank Elizabeth Burr for her hard work and persistence in driving this project to completion. I supported the idea of its being presented as a memorial to John Landgraf.

Edward FOX, Palestine Twilight: The Murder of Dr. Albert Glock and the Archaeology of the Holy Land (London: HarperCollins, 2001); reprinted in the United States as Sacred Geography: A Tale of Murder and Archeology in the Holy Land (New York: Henry Holt, 2001).

Acknowledgments Dr. Albert Glock not only encouraged and supported this work, but in various discussions contributed to its development. He also assisted with much of the organizational detail and with fundraising for Owen’s participation in the project. He and his wife, Lois, provided Owen with support in other forms too, including the hospitality of their home. Various people working at the Albright Institute were helpful in many ways to Owen, and the Albright provided accommodation on one trip until something more permanent could be organized. John benefited from his long-standing working relations with other foreign institutes in Jerusalem as well, notably the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, where Fr. Jean-Baptiste Humbert served as head of the Archaeology Department; and the Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes, directed at the time by Dr. Ute Wagner-Lux, who hired John as her administrative and research associate. Others who contributed to Owen’s involvement in the 1970s included Gus Van Beek of the Smithsonian Institution, who allowed Owen and John to use his field camp at Tell Jemmeh as a base when they were working in Gaza; he and his wife, Ora, displayed their customary warmth and hospitality. Clifford Evans, also of the Smithsonian, helped with his practical organizational ability and encouragement. Owen’s work was supported by various research grants, from the Tell Taanach Excavation budget, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and the Australian Institute of Archaeology. The assistance of these organizations is gratefully acknowledged. John, who lived in Jerusalem for fifteen years, including all of the 1970s, supported his research through his own funding and hard work, 3

motivated by enthusiasm and experientially acquired knowledge of Palestinian culture, especially in the villages of the West Bank. In the aftermath of his death, it is only right that his dedication should be acknowledged by the concept of a memorial volume. The potters themselves, in common with other Muslim people known to John and Owen, extended their hospitality and cooperation; without their kindness and generous sharing of time, this work would have been impossible to complete. While normally not singling out individuals for commendation, an exception must be made for ‘Abed al Halim of Hebron, whose workshop became a base of operations for the two researchers and whose generous hospitality could never be adequately repaid. Owen and John were especially aware that many of the potters had strong personal and social reasons to be suspicious of “European” strangers in their midst asking endless questions about their work;3 their cooperation was doubly meaningful when this dimension is considered. The receptiveness of the women potters in the West Bank villages to John’s and Owen’s presence was particularly gratifying. Tourists never reached these far-removed villages, where (as John remarked) it was not always easy for a strange, foreign man to barge into a private household to observe, much less photograph, the work of a woman potter. This was especially true when the woman was widowed or divorced, or when there was no adult male in the household. One was constantly reminded that the Arab world is not the West and that its rules of conduct and social customs are ever so different. Only by perseverance and the kindness of these women potters, which of course was at the risk of their own reputation in their society, was John able to gather the information from the women potters in the villages that is presented in this study.

During field visits years later, Hamed Salem found that several potters remembered John; some stated that at the beginning they were suspicious that John might have been collecting information for the Israeli settlers. But later they understood his work and removed their doubts.

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In addition to the work of the two authors and the four editors (Owen Rye also being an author), JeanBaptiste Humbert (one of the editors) supervised the publishing concern with Peeters Éditions. Another invaluable colleague has been our gifted designer, Kiyoshi Inoue, who worked for many months on typesetting the book at the École biblique Publishing Workshop; he mastered the whole iconographic part with talent. Paolo Garuti, in charge of the publications of the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, generously accepted to issue it in the Series archaeologica of Cahiers de la Revue biblique. Four other experts contributed significantly to the quality of this publication. Linda Ammons, Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, who has had archaeological and academic experience in Palestine/Israel, was consulted on several important aspects of the project. Likewise consulted was Claudine Dauphin, Honorary Professor in Archaeology and Theology of the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, whose work on the archaeological and religious demography of Byzantine Palestine remains seminal. Dr. Maurya Horgan of The HK Scriptorium, Inc., in Denver, Colorado, brought her considerable expertise and skill as a professional copyeditor and proofreader of texts in related disciplines to our manuscript. Finally, ethnoarchaeologist Gloria London, a specialist in ceramic technology who has been affiliated with the Madaba Plains Project-‘Umayri since 1987, identified and located some of the bibliographic sources used by John Landgraf that were not explicitly documented in his text, while also providing further updated information. The editors are greatly indebted to all four of these remarkable women. They are also indebted to two remarkable Palestinian women who generously answered questions related to the content and progress of the project: Samia Khoury, a trustee

of Birzeit University and a highly regarded author in her own right; and Vera Tamari, a visual artist and ceramicist as well as cultural activist. There were three additional indispensable helpers: Fr. Jean-Michel de Tarragon, Dominican priest and former professor of Old Testament history at the École biblique, in his capacity as administrator of the École’s photo collection, digitized all of the color slides for this book as well as the black-and-white negatives provided by Owen Rye. Saleem Gregory Zoughbi, retired professor of Information and Communication Technology at Bethlehem University and a UN expert in this field, as well as cultural activist, offered indispensable assistance with the English transliteration of Arabic toponyms and Gaza street names; he was also the source for the 1997 census figures included in the Appendix of 1967 and 1997 census figures. Fr. David Whitten Smith, Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, using his limited home equipment, scanned a number of color slides for transfer to the École biblique and incorporation in the book, responding at a moment’s notice to a series of urgent requests. Finally we acknowledge the role of Professor Abdul Latif Abu Hijleh, President of Birzeit University, and Dr. Asem Khalil, Vice President for Community Affairs, in facilitating access to the Birzeit University archival materials, and in helping to create the Memorandum of Understanding between Birzeit University and the editors.

INTRODUCTION by Hamed Salem

Archaeological background The Neolithic revolution in the sixth and the fifth millennium B.C. created a farming society based on food production. The surplus products, mainly wheat and barley, required new storage containers. The Natufian and Neolithic communities already had the knowledge of how to use clay bricks in building houses and making storage basins, particularly at Tell es-Sultan/Jericho. If one of these houses caught fire, the sun-dried mudbrick used for building the houses became very hard. This may have inspired the forming and firing of clay objects. Pottery is simply a fired clay. Pyrotechnology is a major element in pottery production, which became a dominant feature of the material culture. Early Neolithic pottery was made with simple materials and hand-forming techniques.1 The early potters used coiling techniques to create bowls and jars, which functioned as storage and serving items. These coiling techniques became universal and were followed until recently in a similar way by the Palestinian women potters. Neolithic pottery was mainly made for domestic use, but as time passed, with the rising needs of exchanging surplus products, new techniques were required to serve the growing market. This occurred in two stages. The first was the introduction of turning techniques. The use of the turntable was introduced during the Chalcolithic period, or the fourth millennium, and continued through the Early Bronze Age

(third millennium B.C.). In the case of Early Bronze Age I jars from Tell Jenin, the lower part was made using coiling techniques, while the upper part was turned on the slow wheel.2 Parallel to the wheel and the mass production of pottery objects was the development of close firing. Archaeological evidence from Tell el-Far’ah shows two kilns outside the city limits.3 Controlling pyrotechnology was an essential step to mass production, meeting the market demands of Early Bronze Age urban culture. It follows that pottery production became a profession, which required a workshop. Not until the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2250–1550 B.C.), however, were jars and other objects fully made on the fast wheel, which gave the centrifugal force needed for fast forming. The second stage was the introduction of throwing techniques, by which the potters were able to produce various forms in larger quantities, serving various functions. For example, carinated bowls or oval jars could not be produced without such techniques. This also included forming various bases to replace the flat ones that had prevailed in the Early Bronze Age. Jars, jugs, and bowls had rounded, pointed, ring, and disc bases. Rims could be shaped in various ways, including pointed and profiled ones. At the same time, making pottery became one of the dominant professions in the urban centers. With the fast wheel, the potters were capable of mass production and flooded the market with pottery items. Village

1

H. J. FRANKEN, In Search of the Jericho Potters, North Holland Ceramic Studies in Archaeology 1 (Amsterdam and Oxford: NorthHolland, 1974).

2

Hamed SALEM, “Early Bronze Age Settlement System and Village Life in the Jenin Region/Palestine: A Study of Tell Jenin Stratigraphy and Pottery Traditions” (Ph.D. diss., Leiden University, 2006). Available for full download at https://openaccess .leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/4360.

3

M. SALA and S. MIGNARDI, “A Forgotten Centre of Ceramic Production in the Southern Levant: Preliminary Analytical Study of the Early Bronze Age Pottery from Tell el-Far’ah North (West Bank),” Ceramics International 45 (2019): 11457–67.

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potters had little ability to compete with this new development, as with the introduction of plastic and aluminum objects in the mid-1970s. Coiling techniques (used only for handmade pots) were limited to the production of certain items, mainly basins and some cooking pots. The wide-based form of the Middle Bronze Age cooking pot has continued until today. It is made from the hamra red clay, which is high in iron content, resulting in a ceramic product with a hard, strong clay matrix. This clay is combined with calcite as a major tempering agent, which is either included in or added to the clay source. The use of calcite in archaeological ceramics was a subject of discussion in recent decades. During the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 1550– 586 B.C.), potters combined the coiling method with the fast wheel to produce large jars. The same production sequence was followed to create the basic forms. Iron Age forms had several handles attached to them. The cooking pots had profiled rims, and some new neck forms were invented for them. The clay body had a similar fabric composed of calcite and red soil. The classical periods witnessed a variation in forms based on thinner walls for the cooking pots and jars. Most of the forms were made on the wheel. The clay in the Roman period was highly levigated to meet the demand for lighter, thinner forms. This trend continued until the end of the Early Islamic period (ca. 800 A.D.). Islamic jars were made at such sites as al Ramla, Tabaqat Fahel, Barsinia, Beisan, and others.4 A new wave of artisan work was introduced during the Umayyad (661–750 A.D.) and Abbasid (750–1258 A.D.) Islamic periods Umayyad and Abbasid pottery had intensive geometric and floral designs especially on bowls. Bowls were made with the coiling methods. In the Fatimid period (920–1171 A.D.), the mold technique was introduced to create fine floral and textual designs; glazed pottery was introduced then as well. Most of the

Fatimid jars were also decorated, and most of these decorations were done by women. Villagers had a room in which to show their designs, displaying both domestic objects and other items. The Ayyubid and Mamluk potters followed the same trends by decorating their pottery. Some forms were made on the wheel and some by hand. Mamluk pottery continued the Fatimid and Ayyubid traditions of geometric and floral design. These traditions gradually merged in the following periods, when handmade pottery became identified with village production and wheel-made pottery with the urban centers. Palestinian traditional pottery is rooted in these traditions, especially the geometric and floral motifs of Sinjil, Beit ‘Anan, and Ramallah, which continued a tradition that extended back to the Umayyad period. Ceramic production during the medieval period (ca. 900–1300 A.D.) developed as a mass phenomenon. Trade was a major component of the Islamic-period economy, and pottery reached almost every locality in several regions of the Islamic world. Village pottery, being hard to make, faced a challenge from this competition. Yet Palestinian village women in rare cases still make clay objects like tābūns and basins. It should be noted that research on Palestinian traditional pottery can advance our understanding of the archaeological tradition. The project by John Landgraf and Owen Rye that is presented in this volume was conducted in the 1970s in the twilight of this pottery tradition. Their groundbreaking research is the only full documentation of a tradition that has all but ceased to exist. I was personally encouraged and supervised by the late Albert Glock, who initiated the research project, to carry forward the research on this subject. What follows here is a summary of my own fieldwork and publications that can supplement the book.

Fieldwork and publications Socioeconomic Constraints A tradition represents not only the abstract form, function, and manufacturing methods but also the socioeconomic aspects of pottery production. In this context, I argue that three basic elements influence a tradition.5

1. The transmission of the pottery craft from one generation to another has followed two major learning frameworks: the family learning framework and the neighbor network. In families, the Palestinian potters, whether male or female, followed the patriarchal or matriarchal framework, where pottery was transmitted from mother to daughter and father to son. In the neighbor network, potters learned by watching or imitating other nearby potters of the same gender.

4

See n. 18 on p. 11, which cites Sauer, Whitcomb, Ziadeh, Stern, Jaber and Al Saa’d, and Avni.

5

Hamed SALEM, “Implications of Cultural Tradition: The Case of Palestinian Traditional Pottery,” in Archaeology, History and Culture in Palestine and the Near East: Essays in Memory of Albert E. Glock, ed. Tomis Kapitan (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 66–82.

INTRODUCTION BY HAMED SALEM

2. In the domestic mode of production, pottery was handmade for household consumption in small quantities with limited forms. Pottery in this category was made by the coiling method and in most cases was decorated with painted designs, a rope motif, or incision lines. Handmade pottery production was done by women, with little help from men. This was due to gender norms that are followed by the villagers in dividing labor. Men usually work in construction, lime kilns, and farming. Women work in the house and make handicrafts part time. However, there are also professional specialists, who can be divided into two traditions: Handmade Qedreh Tradition, producing the burnished cooking pots of al Jib and Ya‘bad, which are made mainly for market exchange. These women potters are called Qadarat. Handmade Hesheh Tradition, or jar making at Sinjil. In most cases the jar being made is for household consumption, but sometimes for exchange as well. These women potters also make other forms such as bowls, jugs, and small jars. 3. In the market mode of production, pottery is made in a larger quantity and in various forms following the customer’s demand. For this reason, there is a high degree of competition between the workshops, which has created different traditions,6 namely: a. El Fukhar el Ahmar, or the red pottery tradition, also known also as el-Fukhar el-Khalili tradition after Hebron b. El Fukhar el Aswad, or the black pottery tradition, also known as el-Fukhar el-Gazawi tradition after Gaza c. El Fukhar el Abyad, or the white pottery tradition, also known as el-Fukhar el-Haifawi tradition after Haifa These traditions share similar techniques but differ in how they finish the pots. These traditions and techniques are covered in greater detail in the two major sections by John Landgraf and Owen Rye, respectively, in this volume.

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Procurement of Resources The four resources used in pottery making are water, clay, temper, and fuel. These are locally obtained within the workplace vicinity. Water is brought in from nearby sources or collected in tanks. The largest challenge faced by the potter is the procurement of clay and tempering agents. Potters use the resources that were used by their fathers, in some cases over millennia. There are very limited clay resources in Palestine. Al Jib clay (called Moza clay in this volume) was also named A’alalah by Jericho and Hebron potters. The same clay source was used by the potters of al Jib, Beit ‘Anan, al Ramla, Jericho, and Hebron. By itself, this clay is not workable for wheel-made pottery. It has to be mixed with other clay sources, especially the hamra, or terra rosa red clay referred to below, and the marl clay in the case of Jericho.7 To improve its workability and strength, since the marl clay is heavy with iron, potters add calcite to the clay body for cooking pots and frying pans. Lutfia A’tatwah, the last potter currently working on the West Bank, in Ya‘bad, declared that her knowledge of adding calcite was limited. She prefers grog because it makes her cooking pot stronger. The common argument has been that adding calcite is a means of creating thermal shock resistance.8 This was accepted by many but debated by others. Calcite is added to the clay to improve workability. The authors of this volume, Landgraf and Rye, emphasize the importance of documenting calcite as a tempering agent for handmade cooking pots since ancient times. Calcite has been added since the Bronze Age to other wares such as water jars and bowls.9 Among the other main tempering agents commonly added by the women potters for handmade pots were grog and straw. For wheel-made water jars, quartz (sand) is substituted as the temper. Quartz and grog have been used to improve these water jars’ permeability, which is needed to keep the water cool. For added coolness, the zīr is placed in the soil to keep the walls damp. The final resource is the fuel, for which the women potters used any burnable material, including wastes. The major fuels were shrubs (netish), manure (lata’

6

For further discussion of these traditions, see Hamed SALEM, “ The Palestinian Traditional Pottery,” Orient Express 1 (1994): 18–21.

7

Hamed SALEM, “Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology: A Preliminary Study” (M.A. thesis, Tucson: University of Arizona, 1986).

8

For several arguments about adding calcite as a mineral, see B. FABBRI, S. GUALTIERI, and S. SHOVAL, “The Presence of Calcite in Archaeological Ceramics,” Journal of the European Ceramic Society 34.7 (July 2014): 1899–1911. For thermal resistance, see N. S. MÜLLER, V. KILIKOGLOU, P. M. DAY, and G. VEKINIS, “Thermal Shock Resistance of Tempered Archaeological Ceramics,” in Craft and Science: International Perspectives on Archaeological Ceramics, ed. M. Martinón-Torres (Doha, Qatar: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation, 2014), 263–70.

9

See SALEM, “Early Bronze Age Settlement System,” chap. 4.

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dwab), cactus (saber), and crushed olive seeds (jift). Men potters also use gasoline, tires, and carpenter waste (nisharah) to fire their kilns. In most cases fuel is purchased or exchanged for pots.

Production Sequence

another color. Salt is a typical additive for the coastal area; in the past, a potter at Aqabat Jaber in Jericho and the potters from al Ramla used sea salt as a coloring agent, having learned to do this from the Haifa potters.

Forming

Clay Preparation

The Palestinian traditional potters used coiling and throwing as the common forming techniques. Coiling was used by the women potters in several stages. The common practice for each potter was to specialize in producing certain forms in four stages. The first stage was making the base (qā’a), for which they used the term bintawb el qā’a, which literally means to beat the base. The second stage was to make the middle part, for which they used the term bindwarha, meaning to turn the form. They shaved and burnished the extra clay as described by Landgraf, using either a metal tool or a bamboo stick (binkasbha). The final stage was adding the handles (binthwanha). The Kafr al Labad, Ya‘bad, Qusra, and al Jib potters specialized in making cooking pots. They were called Qadarat, or cooking pot makers. The potters of Sinjil, Beit ‘Awwa, and Bardala specialized in making the water jar. They were called Hashashat, or jar makers. In rare cases, these potters also made cooking pots. Landgraf ’s observation of Beit ‘Anan potters who had learned to make the cooking pot after visiting family members who made cooking pots in nearby al Jib is a unique case. However, the cooking pot ware was similar to the ware used to make the water jars. The exception was adding calcite instead of grog. Rather than burnishing their cooking pots, the women decorated the upper part with a motif similar to the one that they applied to the jars.

Potters followed or follow two techniques in preparing the clay. The women potters prepared small quantities sufficient for making one to five forms. All the male potters use the tasweel method, the aim of which is to separate out the heavy particles and make a high-levigated clay by means of three processes, for which three basins are used. The first (called joret es-sool, or fajrah in Gaza) is used to soak the clay for one day and later to remove the large particles. The second (called el maswaal ) is used to settle the clay particles. The third (called al manshar) is used to dry the clay. After one week, the clay is removed from the last basin and stored in a shady area in a large pile. The Hebron potters add purple sand to increase the iron content, and they mix the typical al Jib-Dura clay with terra rosa red clay to produce a heavier red color. White pottery results from adding salt as a coloring agent. The salt leaves a whitish coat on the pot surface; in time this coat dissolves, and the pot takes on

Each of the wheel-made pottery traditions follows a similar production sequence but uses various techniques in finishing the final product. The pot is made in two or more short drying phases. The method is called the tijlis technique, which is a throwing method typical of the Palestinian potters.10 They follow three stages. The first is making the base (qā’a). In this stage, called tiab, they finish the base, or, in the case of Jaba‘, they finish the rim and neck. The incomplete heavy pot is left for a few hours to dry. The pot is then thrown on the wheel using a special mold (qālib). The middle and upper parts are completely finished with the help of a metal tool (sādif ). This stage is called fateh, or opening the unfinished wall. The last stage is adding the neck, handle, and spout. It is called tarwees, or adding the heads. These processes are followed to make pots with very thin walls of 0.5 cm. The finished product is set aside to finish drying before firing.

The Workspace The workspace has four functional components: clay preparation and storage, forming, drying and final products storage, and firing. A well-designed workspace is essential for the market mode of production. Wheel-made pottery is made in a workshop called a Fakhura or Masna’. A typical workshop is composed of the clay preparation basins, the wheel room, the storage place, and the kiln. Rye and Landgraf have provided a clear description and discussion of the workshops at Jaba‘, Jericho, Hebron, and Gaza. The workspace for handmade pottery was mainly in the potter’s house or courtyard. Firing was done in the open and away from the village center. The workspace of Hajit Wazna Shahada of Beit ‘Anan as presented by Landgraf was atypical. Her house had an external built-up platform on which to place dry pottery before it was fired. In other villages such as Beit ‘Awwa, the rooftops were used. They provided a clean area for work, whereas village house courtyards were usually trampled soil and could be hazardous for clay preparation.

10 SALEM, “Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology,” 18.

INTRODUCTION BY HAMED SALEM

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Decoration

Firing

The next phase before firing is to decorate the pots by applying painting, incision, punching, or plastic decoration. The women potters called this process zineh, which is a secondary treatment to add beauty to the jars. It is a kind of art competing with embroidery, carpet weaving, and basket making. In most of the Palestinian villages, the common design was based on geometric and floral red painting, mainly the spark and palm combined with a triangular motif. The master potters of Sinjil and Beit ‘Anan were the ones who applied the designs. Other women applied a plastic decoration in the form of a floral design or a pinched clay rope (toq) design. The potter of al Jib added an incised line below the rim as both a decorative element and a means of marking her cooking pot.

The two firing methods adopted by Palestinian traditional potters are universal. The fuel is dung waste and other material. Open firing was adopted by the women potters; they could control the firing in a direct manner when open firing small quantities of pots. Landgraf observed a firing of twentyone pots at Beit ‘Anan. The maximum temperature reached in that firing was 800 °C. In this way the potter reduced the thermal stress on the non-plastics, mainly the calcite. An open firing was short compared to a kiln firing, which takes longer for both heating and firing. Wheel-made pottery is fired in larger quantities, depending on the form. A kiln can hold up to 120 vessels per firing. The potters use updraft kilns. The maximum temperature reached is about 1080–1090 °C. This temperature level is needed to produce a well-fired, strong vessel. It should be noted that the black pottery of Gaza is a result of manipulating the end firing by closing the kiln openings and adding organic materials, allowing carbon to penetrate the walls. This method, which the potters call tatweseh, is common to Gaza pottery.11

Most of the wheel-made pottery is not decorated, although some male potters add certain decorative elements such as the rope motif and punching, incised wavy lines, or other clay additions to the form, for example, several spouts in Jaba‘ or a ring in Hebron. They also apply incision and rim punching to flowerpots. Some of the Gaza potters decorate their pots with modern paint to cover any cracks.

Cessation and adaptation The discussion by Landgraf and Rye of the cessation of women’s pottery production reflects the end of a tradition as influenced by the local conditions observed in the later 1970s.12 Among the other reasons for this cessation were the hard labor required to make pottery and the socioeconomic constraints, including the lack of demand for pottery. The women potters experienced pot making as very hard work that required intensive labor, especially digging the clay and crushing the non-plastics. For this reason, many of them refused to teach their daughters, or their daughters were not willing to learn. Lutfia A’tatwah, the potter of Ya‘bad, is an exception; she learned pottery making by watching her mother and practicing it in secret. Most of the daughters wanted to pursue other careers or higher education. However, the major challenge to all traditional pottery in general has been the high competition from other industrial items made with plastic and metal (especially aluminum and copper cooking pots). The development of various means of transportation led to the mass distribution

of these competitive products, reaching almost every village household. Moreover, the current political situation and the closure of the borders greatly affected the wheelmade traditions. Of the fifteen Gaza workshops reported by Landgraf and Rye in this volume, at most five are functioning today, along with three in Hebron and one in Jaba‘. The surviving potters adapted to the needs of the market in three ways: first, by continuing to produce those forms still in demand by the local community such as the cooking pot (qidra), the jug (šarbeh), and the pitcher (ibrīq); second, by producing pottery as decorative objects—new forms were created and others were modified from those forms produced by their fathers; third, by introducing machinery for preparing the clay body, forming, and firing. For example, the Hebron potters replaced foot and hand kneading with clay kneading machines. Most of the potters of Gaza and Hebron replaced the kick wheel with the electric wheel. Some potters in those two places used an electric kiln to fire certain

11 Hamed SALEM, “An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Ottoman Pottery: The Case of ‘Gaza Gray Ware,’” in Reflections of Empire: Archaeological and Ethnographic Studies on the Pottery of the Ottoman Levant, ed. B. J. Walker, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 64 (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2009), 23–36; figs. 119–25. 12 Hamed SALEM, “Cultural Transmission and Change in Traditional Palestinian Pottery Production,” Leiden Journal of Pottery Studies 22 (2006): 51–64.

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HAMED SALEM

pots, especially when imitating the ones from antiquity. These techniques reduced their physical efforts to a notable degree, allowing the new generation to continue their fathers’ craft. By 2019, all the women potters who were the subjects of the research presented in this volume had passed away. Yet they left many memories among neighbors and family members. Umm Hamdan of al Jib was the last traditional woman potter to

stop working, which she did three years before she passed away in 2014 at the age of eighty-seven. As mentioned above, there is one younger woman potter who is still working today on the West Bank, in Ya‘bad. She continues because of her passion for pot making that was born when she watched her mother. Perhaps the craft is not completely dying out and she will inspire a new generation to carry it on.

Interpretation and use of the present to understand the past How is the study of Palestinian traditional pottery relevant to archaeologists?13 Ethnoarchaeology emerged from the connection between archaeology and anthropology as an academic discipline concerned with interpreting past cultures. The basic tool of the field is the analogy between the material remains of the past and the living material culture of the present. In the 1970s,

John Landgraf and Owen Rye applied and advanced the approach developed by Albert Glock, in which traditional pottery was a core analytical tool for the villages. The data and knowledge offered by Landgraf and Rye in this book will stimulate and enhance our interpretation of the archaeological record.

13 See Hamed SALEM, “Archaeological Use of the Traditional Pottery Technology among the Palestinian Potters,” Newsletter, Department of Pottery Technology (Leiden University) 16/17 (1998/1999): 25–38.

INTRODUCTION by John Landgraf and Owen Rye

Definition of “traditional” This study is limited to the work of “traditional” potters, but the definition of “traditional” is not easily clarified. A previous description of a traditional potter is “one who uses materials, tools, techniques, and firing methods that are not demonstrably of recent introduction.”1 To this definition might be added the further qualifications that the potter produces vessels for functional purposes, in forms of considerable antiquity; and that the potter works within technological and aesthetic parameters that usually have been modified very slowly over a considerable time span. The distinctions noted above mean that, within the region studied, Israeli ceramic factories and Israeli “artist” potters were irrelevant to the present study, because in both cases the technology and aesthetic qualities of their work showed recent introductions from other areas of the world. Despite the known presence of indigenous Jews in the region

throughout historic times, and despite the known practice by Jews of some crafts, no mention in the literature was noted to suggest a historic tradition of Jewish potters. Our investigations showed no evidence of the present-day existence of Jewish traditional potters in the region, although Jews have been involved in other crafts such as glassmaking. Part of the difficulty of defining a “traditional” potter in the Palestinian Arab context is that there had been recent modifications in the working techniques (especially equipment, with the introduction of machinery) and repertoires of many Palestinian potters. These changes meant that some potters were “wholly traditional” in their work, and others were almost “wholly nontraditional.” A discussion of the nature and implications of recent changes in the Palestinian pottery tradition is given in the final section of the text, entitled, “Change and stability in traditions.”2

Archaeological and ethnographic connections From a broadly cultural standpoint, the beginnings of pottery making in Palestine need to be related chronologically and spatially to the origins of agriculture and the development of urbanization. But

pottery making in and of itself in Palestine had never been studied thoroughly before the 1970s. Among the studies published in the early twentieth century is Lydia Einsler’s 1914 article written in German on women

1

Owen RYE, Pottery Technology: Principles and Reconstruction, Manuals on Archeology 4 (Washington, DC: Taraxacum, 1981), 14.

2

Editors’ note: For further discussion of Palestinian traditional pottery, see Hamed SALEM, “Implications of Cultural Tradition: The Case of Palestinian Traditional Pottery,” in Archaeology, History and Culture in Palestine and the Near East: Essays in Memory of Albert E. Glock, ed. Tomis Kapitan (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 66–82.

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JOHN LANDGRAF AND OWEN RYE

potters in the Ramallah area,3 and Grace Crowfoot’s 1932 account of the making of cooking pots by women in two villages north of Jerusalem, al Jib and Kafr al Labad (the latter near Tulkarm).4 Cooking pots similar to those described by Crowfoot were noted in an “antique” shop in Ramallah in 1974, but the women potters of al Jib had ceased production. White clay from al Jib was used in the production of whitebodied, glazed ware in several Palestinian workshops in Jerusalem. According to Crowfoot in 1932, handmade pottery was being produced in Kafr al Labad, as well as at “Sinjil, Balata, and other villages near Nablus”; and wheel-made pottery was being produced in Jaba‘ and Nablus.5 Writing in 1907 about Gaza City, Martin Meyer reported that “there are fifty potteries in the city.”6 Likewise, potters had been making pottery in workshops for decades in Hebron. Despite the extensive archaeological work that had occurred in Palestine/Israel (as already indicated) before the 1970s, almost no ethnographic studies of the work of traditional potters in the region had been undertaken. This is especially surprising given that the use of ethnographic analogies can now be considered a standard method in the repertoire of the archaeologist. In addition to the value of publishing formal research on the work of traditional Palestinian Arab potters in itself, the studies reported here were conceived from the viewpoint of their usefulness for the interpretation of archaeological evidence. Given the dearth of previous publications on Palestinian potters, much basic groundwork was required before the links between ceramics, ethnography, and archaeology could be considered. One issue of interest to archaeologists is the initial historical appearance of cooking pots and roundbottomed pots, which may have existed before the

Early Bronze Age, that is, in the Chalcolithic or Neolithic periods, but if so have not been preserved. Thus, it cannot be asserted with certainty that these vessels were not made before the Early Bronze Age, only that there is no trace of them. Pottery making in this region may have “started around 10,000 B.C., but the pots might not have been adequately fired to survive long-term and therefore they did not survive.”7 Another issue is the type of temper used,8 which will be discussed in the treatments of specific locations, potters, and workshops below. For the study of the male potters, our first objective was to locate all the pottery workshops in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and any surviving traditional workshops within Israel itself (see map on p. 3). If the development of extensive pottery manufacturing workshops or “factories” as an industry was dependent in part on access to a large market, one could predict that the location of these “factories” would be either in or near large urban centers, or adjacent to major trading routes, or more likely both. As complete a list as possible of the female and male potters that we studied is provided in an Appendix. Workshops of the male potters with their owners and workers are listed in the sections on Ramallah, ‘Irtah, Jaba‘, Nazareth, Haifa, Akka, Hebron, and Gaza.9 With the exception of the male potters of Haifa and Nazareth, who were Palestinian Christians, all the male potters referred to in this study were Palestinian Muslims. The women potters were all Palestinian Muslims, with the exception of a potter in Ramallah.

3

Lydia EINSLER, “Das Töpferhandwerk bei den Bauernfrauen von Ramallah und Umgegend,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 37 (1914): 249–60. Landgraf provides an English translation of this article, entitled “The Handmade Pottery of the Peasant Women from Ramallah and Surroundings [1914],” with his discussion of Beitunia, pp. 68–72.

4

Grace CROWFOOT, “Pots, Ancient and Modern,” Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1932): 179–87. Editors’ note: For additional references, see Hamed SALEM, “Archaeological Use of the Traditional Pottery Technology among the Palestinian Potters,” Newsletter, Department of Pottery Technology (Leiden University) 16/17 (1998/1999): 25–38, here 25–26.

5

CROWFOOT, “Pots, Ancient and Modern,” 179.

6

Martin A. MEYER, History of the City of Gaza: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Columbia University Oriental Studies 5 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1907), 107. For a review of the pottery traditions and various resources on the black pottery of Gaza, see Hamed SALEM, “An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Ottoman Pottery: The Case of ‘Gaza Gray Ware,’” in Reflections of Empire: Archaeological and Ethnographic Studies on the Pottery of the Ottoman Levant, ed. B. J. Walker, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 64 (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2009), 23–36; figs. 119–25.

7

This paragraph is based on a personal communication from Gloria London, written on 11 July 2019. According to Hamed Salem, pottery making in Palestine dates from the sixth millennium onward and archaeological evidence for this has been found at several Neolithic sites.

8

Regarding tempers, Gloria London (personal communication, July 2019), provided the following reference: S. SHOVAL, M. GAFT, P. BECK, and Y. KIRSH, “Thermal Behavior of Limestone and Monocrystalline Calcite Tempers during Firing and Their Use in Ancient Vessels,” Journal of Thermal Analysis 40 (1993): 263–73.

9

See the table of potters’ workshops on p. 270.

INTRODUCTION BY JOHN LANDGRAF AND OWEN RYE

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Locations of pottery making Our studies of traditional Palestinian potters were completed in the 1970s. At that time there were eight places where pottery was still being produced by traditional male craftsmen: Ramallah, ‘Irtah, Jaba‘, Nazareth, Haifa, Akka, Hebron, and Gaza were the leading centers,10 although flowerpots amounted to over half of Hebron’s production. At ‘Irtah, a village west of Nablus on the West Bank, only one potter was still working, on Fridays and Saturdays; during the week he was employed by an Israeli ceramics firm. Several Gaza and Hebron potters also worked for Israeli potteries. At Jaba‘, a village north of Nablus, there were two workshops. ‘Irtah and Jaba‘ were the only villages where male potters worked, as the other male potters were all city dwellers. At Nazareth, Haifa, and Akka, which have been within Israel since 1948, the production was limited to flowerpots and drums. Before or during the 1970s, seven other centers stopped making pottery. Prior to 1948, al Ramla, Lydda, Jaffa, and Faluja had workshops; Faluja lay 3 km northwest of the current Israeli town of Kiryat Gat. After leaving their homes in 1948, the al Ramla potters set up workshops in the Jericho refugee camps, which they abandoned after the Six-Day War of June 1967, when they fled to Jordan. Until 1953, traditional wares were produced in a workshop within the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City at the Burj al Laqlaq in the northeast section of the Old City. Between 1953 and 1967, this workshop produced glazed ceramic sewer pipes. In 1976, the Jerusalem potter from this workshop set up an operation in one of the abandoned potters’ workshops in the south Jericho refugee camp, where he was also making sewer pipes. Thus, not only was there a considerable change in the location of potters’ workshops, but also for the Gaza and West Bank potters there was an equally rapid change after 1967 in the consumer demands of the urban Israeli market as reflected in the large output of flowerpots, which amounted to about 50 percent of production in the 1970s. These and the glazed pottery and tiles for the tourist and Israeli market, which were made at

Jerusalem’s Armenian potteries, and after 1967 also by some of the Hebron potters, are not dealt with here, as the emphasis of this study is on the traditional utilitarian forms. In the 1970s, we visited ten West Bank villages where women still made pottery (by hand): Beit ‘Awwa and Fuqeiqis (Ifqaqis) near Dura; Beit ‘Anan west of al Jib; al Jib northwest of Jerusalem; Beitunia near Ramallah; Sinjil between Ramallah and Nablus; Qusra northeast of Sinjil; Qabalan northwest of Qusra; Kafr al Labad east of Tulkarm; and Ya‘bad west of the main road between Nablus and Jenin. In these villages, there were a total of at least twenty potters, most of them being fifty years of age or older. They were the last remnants of a household village craft widely practiced in the recent past in many but not all regions of Palestine and the Levant. South of Jerusalem in the courtyards of most West Bank village homes, one could still see large handmade unpainted water jars, often with a raised rope design and with two large handles between the neck and the body. To the north of Jerusalem, especially in the Ramallah region, women specialized in water and oil storage jars, with designs in red paint, akin to the Sinjil or Qusra water jars with four handles attached at the jar’s largest diameter. Like the embroidery on their dresses, the painted patterns and the jar shapes varied slightly from village to village. The women potters of Balata and Kafr al Labad in the Nablus district who were observed by Grace Crowfoot in 193111 stopped their pot making shortly before the 1970s. Ideally our 1970s research should have been undertaken thirty or more years earlier, prior to the rapid technological innovations of the twentieth century and the escalation of the region’s political turmoil. In the 1970s, it seemed especially urgent to conduct a study of Palestine’s traditional potters not only before the women potters had completely disappeared,12 but also before technological changes and new marketing demands had obscured the traditional methods of the male potters.

10 Other centers were Aqabat Jaber, Khan Younis, ‘Ain es Sultan Camp, and Jerusalem. 11 CROWFOOT, “Pots, Ancient and Modern,” 179–87. 12 Editors’ note: We were informed in 2019 that the traditional Palestinian women potters on the West Bank had stopped making pottery by the early 1980s.

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JOHN LANDGRAF AND OWEN RYE

Women and men potters Distinctions between Women and Men Potters In Arab society a sharp distinction is made between women’s and men’s work. Of the ten villages studied where pottery was made by women, there were no male potters within the family or region. Only rarely might a man help his potter wife with any aspect of her craft; likewise, if a male potter’s workshop was adjacent to his home, his wife or daughters might assist him with menial tasks, such as carrying pots back and forth to his wheel. But the craft of pot making was always transmitted from generation to generation on either the male or female side of the family. Palestinian women potters always made pottery by hand; wherever the wheel was involved, the potters were men. A son usually learned pot making from his father and often started helping him at five or six years of age. Many sons were real assets to the male potters. They prepared the clay, carried pots back and forth to the wheel, and helped in loading the kiln, feeding fuel during firing, and removing the pottery from the kiln after firing. Only gradually did they learn to throw pottery and at first were able to throw only the smallest forms, such as spouts for the ibrīq. Almost never did one see a potter working on the wheel who was under the age of twenty. Girls might learn pot making from their mothers, but perhaps as often from older neighbor women, relatives, or women potters living in the same extended household. Thus, apart from often using the same or similar clay deposits, every aspect of pot making from clay preparation to firing was so completely different for the male and female potters that they are treated separately in this volume. The women potters usually made pottery only during the summer and early autumn. This was the time after the harvest and the threshing of winter wheat and barley, from late April to July, depending on the temperature of the region, yet before the olive harvest or the rainy season, which began in late autumn. These are the warm, dry summer months when, apart from growing fruits and vegetables, summertime crafts were practiced, including spinning and weaving, and making straw trays and baskets. Another important craft was making various unfired items for the village household from a mixture of clay and chaff; among these items were the container (makhbaz), which surrounded the bread in the typical village oven (tābūn); the brazier (kānūn); the bee hive (‫ۊ‬aliah); and the rapidly disappearing grain storage bins (khābīa). These

were also the months when Palestinian Arab village women replastered the outsides of their tābūns or other structures with a mud and straw or chaff mixture, and in some regions painted the interior and exterior of their houses with a slurry of marl (‫ۊ‬ūwār). At Qusra and the villages of the Hebron and Ramallah regions, where pottery was made for limited use within the female potter’s own household or village, pot making lasted for only a few days of the year and was more likely to be done in early summer. At al Jib, Sinjil, and Ya‘bad, potters supplied a larger market outside the village, and there the potters might work later into the fall. At Ya‘bad the potter told us that she worked all year round. She worked outside in her yard and often in full sun. Initially at least, her pots dried outdoors. After initial drying outside, however, cooking pots were often placed within the tābūn for final drying prior to firing. This of course was in contrast to the male potter, who always made his pottery on a wheel inside a workshop. He also had drying rooms inside, which enabled him to work all year round.

Men and Women Potters – Why Two Traditions? Why have these two distinctly different traditions coexisted for long periods? The distinction between handmade and wheel-made pots is shown in H. J. Franken’s excavations at the medieval site of Tell Abu Gourdan in Jordan,13 and of course both traditions coexisted much earlier, although it cannot be maintained with absolute certainty that the distinction between handmade and wheel-made pottery was always a distinction based on the gender of the potter. Why has the tradition of handmade pot making by Palestinian women died out and that of wheelmade pot making by Palestinian men survived to date? There are no definite answers, but some suggestions are the following: a. The two traditions served different markets. Essential parts of the handmade tradition were calcitetempered cooking pots and large, grog-tempered water storage jars. The use of calcite temper was a good way of achieving thermal shock resistance (thermal expansion of calcite is close to that of clay). Hand-forming

13 H. J. FRANKEN and Jan KALSBEEK, Potters of a Medieval Village in the Jordan Valley, North Holland Ceramic Studies in Archaeology 3 (Amsterdam and Oxford: North-Holland, 1975).

INTRODUCTION BY JOHN LANDGRAF AND OWEN RYE

techniques imposed very little stress on clay, whereas wheel forming set up stresses, causing vessels to crack more easily when heated and cooled. The high content of calcite used would result in a body not very suitable for throwing. The low firing temperatures required with calcite temper resulted in fairly weak cooking pots, so this body was not well suited to other vessel types. Handmade pots worked best for heating in direct flame; male potters made “oven pots” for indirect heating, for slower heating and cooling; thus handmade, calcite-tempered cooking pots were functionally better overall than wheel-made pots.

xxxi

propane gas stove became more common. Their more intense, localized heat cracked ceramic pots but not metal vessels, which were more durable. c. Regarding the large water storage jars (zīrs), demand for water jars was declining due to more modern methods of storing and cooling water. The women potters adapted in some places, not in the types of vessels produced but to the market, which was no longer a Palestinian village market; rather the women of Ya‘bad, Sinjil, and al Jib in the 1970s (at the time of our study) sold mainly to Israelis, foreigners, or sophisticated urban dwellers.

Large water storage jars were difficult to transport, so they were made locally and did not need to be moved far from where they were made. The professional male workshop potters served a wide market, whereas the women making large water jars served only a localized market. This was reflected in distinct differences in form from one village to the next, both in water jars and in cooking pots—where the main distinction was in the shape of the handles.

d. It was more difficult for women to adapt because of the nature of Islamic society in that women could not move around as freely as men could. Also pot making was only a part-time activity for women, so there was less urgency for them about changing to other production than there was for full-time male potters, whose whole income came from pottery production.

b. The reason cooking pots are no longer made relates to their function: methods of heating changed, such that, instead of fire, the primus stove or the

e. Education was also an influence, with many more girls going longer to school and therefore being less inclined to become potters.

Palestinian Traditional Pottery A Contribution to Palestinian Culture

John LANDGRAF Owen RYE

2

MAPS

Akka Haifa Nazareth

Beisan Jenin Tulkarm Nablus

Qalqilya Jaffa (Yafa)

Ramallah Jericho Jerusalem (al Quds) Bethlehem

Gaza City

Hebron

Historic Palestine in 1967

MAPS

3

Beisan

Ya‘bad

Jenin

Bardala Jaba‘

Tulkarm

‘Irtah

Tammun

Kafr al Labad Nablus

Salem Maqqurah

Qalqilya

Huwwara Usarin Jurish Qabalan al Sawwiya Qusra Talfit Jalud Sinjil Qaryut Karama al Ramla

Ramallah

Beitunia al Jib Biddu

Beit ‘Anan

Qaluniya (Moza) al ‘Arrub

al Bireh Kafr ‘Aqab Qalandia Bir Nabala

Jerusalem (al Quds)

Bethlehem

Beit Ummar Faluja

Gaza City

al Kom al Tabaqa Deir Samit Hebron (al Khalil) Beit ‘Awwa Dura al Fahs Fuqeiqis Khursa Fawwar al Burj

Yatta Dhahiriya

Samu‘

Distribution of potters’ sites, most of them in the Palestinian Territories, in 1977

Jericho

First Part

END OF A TRADITION: PALESTINE’S WOMEN POTTERS by John Landgraf

Origin and reintroduction of handmade cooking pots and water storage jars in Palestine The handmade cooking pot in Palestine is first found in the Early Bronze II period,1 and the earliest cooking pots were probably imported from the Sinai Peninsula, as they were tempered with granite.2 Later Palestinian cooking pots were calcite-tempered3 and continued to be handmade into the Iron Age.4 Toward the end of this period, wheel-made cooking pots came into use and continued in use well into the Islamic period. Ancient handmade Palestinian pottery (except for roof tiles, lamps, and a few other items) virtually disappeared toward the end of the Iron Age. In Palestine clear evidence of handmade vessels does not reappear until the Mamluk period (ca. 1250–1517 A.D.). Thus in Palestine there was a gap of two thousand years or more in the manufacture of handmade vessels such as the storage jar and the cooking pot. The male potters’ wheel-made craft, which can be traced back thousands of years, demonstrates a continuity of tradition in making water jars. In contrast, before

the reintroduction of handmade pottery into Palestine, handmade water jars were last manufactured in the early second millennium B.C., and handmade cooking pots were last manufactured in the early first millennium B.C., until replaced by wheel-made cooking pots in the late eighth century B.C. It is generally thought that in SyriaPalestine the production of all handmade pottery ceased around 750 B.C. The very last ancient handmade pottery fired in open firings was probably the calcite-tempered, round-bottomed vessels of the eighth century B.C. Shortly thereafter thinner-walled, wheel-made cooking pots began to be manufactured which were differently tempered and kiln-fired like the other vessels of the period. It is possible that these thinner-walled cooking pots were no longer used on open fires but only in ovens, where thermal gradation would be greatly lessened. It was not until the Mamluk period—more than two millennia later—that handmade, open-fired vessels reappeared: both calcite-tempered cooking pots5 and vessels designed for holding water (water storage jars).6

1

Ruth AMIRAN, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land: From Its Beginnings in the Neolithic Period to the End of the Iron Age (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970), p. 55 and pl. 14, nos. 6–7, on p. 57.

2

Ruth AMIRAN, Early Arad: The Chalcolithic Settlement and Early Bronze City, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1978), 48.

3

H. J. FRANKEN and J. KALSBEEK, Excavations at Tell Deir ‘Allā, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 119; Excavations at Tell Deir ‘Alla: The Late Bronze Age Sanctuary (Louvain: Peeters, 1992), 109.

4

FRANKEN and KALSBEEK, Excavations at Tell Deir ‘Allā, 1:129.

5

FRANKEN and KALSBEEK, Late Bronze Age Sanctuary, 109.

6

Editors’ note: Much of this paragraph represents John’s own thinking based on years of research and reflection.

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END OF A TRADITION

Fig. 1.1 -. Mamluk handmade forms

Why did handmade pottery reappear after such a long gap in its production? Undoubtedly it met a need in rural Palestinian village life, which until that time had been filled by wheel-thrown ceramics. Does this reappearance of handmade, calcite-tempered cooking vessels indicate a reinvented technology, or were these vessels present all along and preserved in some fringe area of the Middle East and then for some reason worked their way back into Palestinian village craft? The same question must be posed for the reintroduction of handmade, open-fired water storage jars, the temper composition of which was so different from their wheel-thrown, kiln-fired counterparts. Large handmade vessels for storing food or water had not been made in Palestine for more than three thousand years, in other words, for more than one thousand years before the last handmade, calcitetempered cooking pots disappeared. In this study, I argue that two ceramic traditions (handmade and wheel-made pottery) have existed for the past five hundred to eight hundred years side by side in Palestine since Mamluk times. Even two thousand years prior to the Mamluk period, calcitetempered cooking pots were the only handmade

forms manufactured. To find larger handmade storage jars, one must go back at least another one thousand years into the Middle Bronze Age. Certainly no historical memory existed of this craft during Mamluk times, when women began to make smaller juglets by hand and to fire them without a kiln. It was in some ways similar to the beginning of ceramics in Neolithic times, when the very first potters— who were most likely women—invented the craft of pottery making. The earliest Mamluk-period, handmade ceramic forms were quite small (fig. 1.1), and only gradually did early potters learn that they had to increase temper quantity if larger forms were to survive the thermal stress caused by temperature gradients in open firings. Thus, the first attempts in Mamluk times to produce handmade pots were most likely limited to smaller forms that could survive open firings, and in that same period larger jars would have been exclusively wheel-made and kiln-fired by men. Only gradually did women potters through trial and error and accident discover that for larger handmade, open-fired forms, more temper correlated with less breakage.

ORIGIN AND REINTRODUCTION OF HANDMADE POTS

The potter’s wheel and the earliest kilns first appeared in Palestine before 1950 B.C.7 Even though handmade cooking pots continued to be manufactured for another twelve hundred years, until ca. 750 B.C., thereafter until ca. 1250 A.D. (the beginning of the Mamluk period), most pottery in Palestine was wheel-made. The first reappearance of handmade, open-fired pottery occurred sometime during the Mamluk period, from which smaller one- and twohandled painted jugs have been found.8 The designs on these jugs bear certain resemblances to Sinjil and Ramallah jars that were handmade until the late twentieth century. Although we do not have precise chronological sequences,9 perhaps the Sinjil jar tradition began during these Mamluk times. My assumption is that the handmade Mamluk forms were the work of women and were open-fired without a kiln, like the modern handmade pots that we studied.

Two Ceramic Traditions: Wheel-Made and Handmade Thus, from the Mamluk period until the late twentieth century, there were two distinct ceramic industries in Palestine. Men’s wheel-made ceramics had a long history of continuous development mostly in urban centers. Working year round in their specialized workshops with settling basins for preparing clay, wheels for throwing, and kilns for firing, the male potters produced wares that were intended either to be sold and used within the local urban center, or to be transported and sold in other urban centers or even villages where the home-based craft was not practiced. It would seem that urban centers used exclusively the wheel-made, kiln-fired pottery produced by men. The traditional male potters in modern Palestine were usually city dwellers, although their workshops may have been located on the city’s outskirts. This was not always the case, however; the two villages of Irtah and Jaba‘, located between Nablus and Jenin, were exceptions. At the end of the twentieth century, there were two major urban centers in Palestine where male potters had workshops—Gaza City and Hebron. Palestinian male

7

potters were also found south of Haifa, at Akka, Nazareth, and Ramallah.10 Alongside this wheel-made industry, Palestinian village women produced an entirely different type of ceramics, handmade vessels open-fired on the ground either for storing water or oil or for cooking. Like traditional women potters elsewhere in the world, they used few specialized tools in their craft, which was associated with village, not urban, culture. In Palestine, women potters also did agricultural work, so that their pottery making had to be sandwiched in between the times of planting and harvesting crops. They usually made pottery by hand only during the late summer and early fall months in the yards adjoining their homes. If ancient society was organized in any way like modern society, women as the child-rearers would have been the food preparers—that is, the cooks— and much of early ceramics was involved with food, its preparation, serving, and storage. Thus, ceramic design often grew out of this connection. Regarding the status of the traditional women potters in the late twentieth century, the production of handmade pottery in the villages was rare at that time, whereas in the 1970s, women in a few West Bank villages still did make their own ceramic vessels by hand, mainly jars for storing water and pots for cooking. In the early years of the twentieth century, this handmade village women’s craft was more widespread than in later decades.

Transition from Handmade to Wheel-Made Pottery Between handmade pottery and the use of the wheel, on which a lump of clay is centered and thrown, would have been the development of a slow wheel, or tournette, which eased the finishing process especially of the rims of vessels. In ancient Egyptian tomb drawings at Beni Hassan, the potters using a tournette and firing in kilns are male.11 Thus as specialized tools and workshops and kilns came into being, it seems

7 AMIRAN, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land, 90. Also Moshe DOTHAN, “Afula,” in Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. M. Avi-Yonah (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), 32–36. 8 For a discussion of Mamluk painted pottery that was not wheel thrown but rather made in a mold, see H. J. FRANKEN and J. KALSBEEK, Potters of a Medieval Village in the Jordan Valley (Amsterdam and Oxford: North-Holland, 1975), 167–99. 9 Editors’ note: Although true in 1999, this statement is no longer strictly accurate. 10 Editors’ note: In 2019 Palestinian male potters, though much reduced, were still working in Jaba‘, in the Hebron area, and in Gaza. 11 D. ARNOLD and J. BOURRIAU, eds., An Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Pottery (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1993), 47–48, figs. 48–50.

8

END OF A TRADITION

that the potters were men. The other transition, from open firing to kiln firing, would have been via pit firing, where the fuel is still in direct contact with the pottery; pit firing contrasts with firing in a kiln, where the fuel is separated from the pottery.

Reintroduction of Handmade Pottery in Mamluk Palestine Unless we discover that the craft of handmade pottery crept back into Palestine from some nearby yet unidentified area, it must be assumed that Palestinian women potters reinvented their craft when it reappeared in the Mamluk period. Throughout the Middle East, especially in rural village settings, the art of forming objects by hand out of soil mixed with straw was continuously handed down from one generation to the next without a break, despite the complete lack of handmade ceramic objects for two to three thousand years.12 Thus, within this tradition, women did work with clay to form unfired, utilitarian items. Straw added to clay or soil prevents it from cracking during drying. Inside their homes, Palestinian women crafted furniture and storage containers out of soil mixed with fine chaff. Thus, mud and straw mixes or mud and chaff mixes (straw- or chaff-tempered mud) covered and waterproofed their dwellings, were used to make containers for the storage of agricultural products, especially grains, and were ingeniously fashioned into furniture, including niches that served to store folded-up quilts, which were spread out on the floor at night for sleeping. Mud and straw were also used to form bee hives. When such items as ovens or dirt floors were exposed to high enough temperatures, undoubtedly some of the heated clay hardened into ceramic-like floor areas. From earliest times women were involved with baking bread and cooking. If modern Palestinian parallels are valid, women were most likely the manufacturers of all ovens. Palestinian women in the late twentieth century made all bread ovens (tābūn), which used dung on their outer surface as a fuel, by adding a certain amount of chaff or finer straw to the soilclay mix. Thus, historically the transition from unfired to intentionally fired clay or marl forms would not have been a great technological leap; in other words, it was not a major shift for the women to mix fine

chaff (as a tempering material) with their clay to make pottery. The use of fine chaff with clay, coupled with firing to higher temperatures, might have been the first step in the rediscovery of how to produce handmade, open-fired pottery. In essence, upon firing, numerous micro air pockets are created in the clay that has been mixed with fine chaff, due to the burning off of the chaff. These tiny voids enable the pot to survive the large temperature gradients encountered in open firings. This is exactly the type of handmade pottery found in the villages of the Hebron district, which was made from clay tempered with the finest wheat chaff. Even the method of adding and smoothing the clay bears resemblances to the way the tābūn or the tanur was made. First, the pot was not moved, only added to during its manufacture; initially the potter even leaned over the pot. Second, successive layers were built up by adding lumps of clay, which were smoothed by simultaneously pushing and pulling both hands back and forth horizontally. That is, no tools were used, and each layer did not much exceed the width of the potter’s hand (fig. 1.2 a). Likewise, the stages in the making of unfired storage containers would have been almost identical to those of building larger storage jars. But any of the unfired objects would be thicker-walled than most ceramics. The soil-clay mixture would be tempered with finer or coarser straw chaff. Open-fired jars with such temper have indeed been found in southern Palestine and tend to have thicker walls than the grog- or calcite-tempered wares found farther to the north, with one exception, at the village of Bardala. The typical Palestinian bread oven (tābūn) was an earthen, semi-conical form ca. 30 cm high, with a maximum top diameter of 50 cm and maximum base diameter of more than 100 cm, with convex walls and a metal cover (fig. 1.2 b).13 Ash and dung were used to cover the tābūn; that is, the fuel was heaped up on the outside of this earthen straw oven, while bread was baked inside it on limestone pebbles. In Syria, Iraq, and Turkey (also Pakistan and India) one would find a different type of bread oven, the tanur, essentially a high cylinder that was a meter or more in diameter. In contrast to the tābūn, where the fuel covered the outside of the oven (the top and sides), the inside of the tanur was heated (the fuel being burned

12 Editors’ note: This was John’s view based on his knowledge in 1999. Since then documented evidence of handmade pottery in the region from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been published. Gloria LONDON, Ancient Cookware from the Levant: An Ethnoarchaeological Perspective (Sheffield: Equinox, 2016), 31–36, 257–67. 13 The tābūn was made, for example, in the village of Sinjil, and always by women.

ORIGIN AND REINTRODUCTION OF HANDMADE POTS

a)

b)

c)

Fig. 1.2 -. a) Woman potter at Fuqeiqis adding a layer, or coil b) Woman potter, probably at Qabalan, making a typical Palestinian tābūn c) Woman potter crushing a clay chunk with a rolling stone at Qabalan, assisted by her husband

9

10

END OF A TRADITION

at the interior base) and the dough was slapped against the hot inner walls of the oven in order to bake a flat bread.14 In Iraq there were kiln-fired versions of the tanur, made by male potters, which did not contain straw in the body. But handmade versions of the tanur were also produced, which were always tempered with a certain amount of straw and were unfired, though perhaps gradually low-fired during continual use as a bread oven. In connection with the use of a mixture of soil and straw in an unbroken tradition of making unfired items, one could speculate that the first Mamluk handmade pots were tempered with fine organic material and that the use of grog as a temper for handmade pottery came later. The use of calcite as a temper for cooking pots must also be addressed. The occurrence of calcite as large surface nodules is not uncommon north of Jerusalem, especially in the al Jib area but also farther to the north. It may be associated with outcroppings of Moza15 marl, but my impression was that calcite is not encountered south of Jerusalem. Why after two thousand years do calcite-tempered cooking pots appear again? In one instance, in the village of Qabalan, I encountered a bread oven (tābūn) of which the clay body contained some calcite. Could it be that this addition of calcite preserved the knowledge that calcite temper was useful for items exposed to heat? The Qabalan tābūn was intentionally fired at temperatures not high enough to break calcite down.16 Whereas the two ceramic traditions (of wheel-made pottery by men and handmade pottery by women) existed side by side in Palestine for the past five hundred to eight hundred years, the origins of the village craft are unclear, as emphasized above. Archaeological excavations in the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods at sites in Palestine do not support the presence during those periods of such a twofold ceramic tradition. Handmade pottery vessels, except for molded lamps, have not been found or reported from those periods.

Returning to the question of what possible factors led to the reintroduction into Palestinian villages of handmade, open-fired pottery after a hiatus of two to three millennia, the motifs and designs on the Mamluk pottery bear a strong resemblance to designs on modern painted jars from Sinjil and the Ramallah area, suggesting continuity from the pottery of the Mamluk period down to the late twentieth century. It is in some ways remarkable that continuity in the material culture from the relatively recent past of the Mamluk period until the end of the twentieth century is so obscure and difficult to trace. Gaps in archaeological knowledge. One reason for this dearth of knowledge lies partly in what has been a complete lack of interest by Israeli and Western archaeologists in anything except the biblical periods, beginning with the Hebrew Bible period of the “patriarchs” and thereafter. The Islamic period (beginning ca. 640 A.D.) has been the least studied period of Palestinian ceramic history. At some excavation sites in Jerusalem, where there was continuous occupation from about five thousand years ago down to the present day, the upper layers were bulldozed off in order to reach more quickly the layers that were of greater interest to Israeli and Western biblical scholars. The other factor that has obscured the more recent period of Palestinian history—beginning with the Islamic conquest in the seventh century—is related to a phenomenon that has only recently begun to be recognized: the demographic decline in Palestine that took place in the years leading up to the beginning of the Islamic period. The reasons for this decline and its quantitative degree are not well known, but it is reflected in the scarcity of archaeological sites that were occupied in the Mamluk period as compared to the Byzantine and Roman periods, and even to the Iron Age and the Bronze Age. The drastic population decline thus indicated began as early as the mid-sixth century A.D.,17 thus within the century preceding the Islamic conquest—in

14 For a detailed description and discussion, see Jennie EBELING and M. ROGEL, “The Tabun and Its Misidentification in the Archaeological Record,” Levant 47.3 (2015): 328–49. Also G. DALMAN, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina. Band 4: Brot, ٟl und Wein, 2nd ed. (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1987). 15 Moza clay was known by the potters as qalalah (colloquial ’alalah) and is al Jib clay. 16 Note by Owen Rye: For calcite, the temperature of firing and later of heating would have to be below 827 °C/1520 °F, the temperature at which calcite converts to calcium oxide, which during and after cooling then forms calcium hydroxide. Calcium hydroxide occupies a larger volume than calcite, and so the mineral expansion can fragment and destroy the vessel. 17 Claudine DAUPHIN, La Palestine Byzantine: Peuplement et Populations, 3 vols., BAR International Series 726 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1998), 512–18.

ORIGIN AND REINTRODUCTION OF HANDMADE POTS

11

my view primarily as a consequence of the incidence of the bubonic plague.18

events have exerted socioeconomic influences that led to the reintroduction of handmade pottery?

Before I reached this conclusion, I did a quantitative study of the decline in ceramic imports at the site of Tell Keisan in the Plain of Acre during the Byzantine period. In an attempt to explain the drop in the quantity of ceramic imports after 550 A.D., I pointed out that the decline in foreign imports at this site coincided with the demographic decline that was taking place on a large scale throughout not only Palestine but the entire Mediterranean area. The first two hundred years of the Islamic period coincided with this dramatic demographic decline. Hundreds, if not thousands, of sites occupied during the Byzantine period were entirely abandoned. The few sites that did manage to survive continued with a much-reduced population, so that the deposits of occupational debris were much thinner than for previous periods.

To conclude this section, there are certain presuppositions that will have to be more thoroughly investigated in the future, but what is known as of the late twentieth century includes the following points:

Quite by accident I met in Jerusalem a young American scholar named Michael Dols, who had just completed an important study of the sixth-century A.D. bubonic plague based mainly on Arabic sources.19 My own work suggested that such an extreme demographic decline was best explained by cyclic recurrences of bubonic plague, which Dols and others had studied and written about using Arabic sources.20 This scale of decline, I thought, could not be due to earthquake activity but must have been caused by the recurrences of plague.21 Palestine’s population was further diminished during the Mamluk period, in 1348–1349, by the Black Death, the same plague that eliminated 30 percent of Europe’s population; there were also recurrences of the Black Death in Palestine between 1360 and 1379. Could these

1. Sometime during the Mamluk period (ca. 1250–1517 A.D.), handmade pottery reappeared in Palestine after two thousand years or more for cooking pots, and after three thousand years or more for vessels not made for cooking such as water storage jars. 2. It is most likely that these handmade forms were fired in the open, that is, without a kiln. Evidence for this can be seen in the subtle variations in surface color that are characteristic of open-fired pottery. 3. In order for non-wheel-made pots to survive the temperature gradients encountered in open firings, tempers had to be added to the clay. 4. With the increase in vessel size, the need for larger quantities of temper increased, as did the need for larger sizes of temper grains—the size was proportional to the wall thickness. 5. Knowledge of the use of temper for open-fired pots was probably not borrowed or brought in from some fringe area but rediscovered afresh. 6. If one traces modern practice back as far as the Mamluk period, it would appear that pottery formed by hand and fired without a kiln was made by women then too.

18 Before this demographic decline was clearly recognized, in his study of the ceramics of the Islamic period, the late American archaeologist James Sauer established chronological phases based on a study by an Israeli scientist of earthquakes in Palestine. Sauer determined ceramic periods according to whether the ceramics appeared before or after a particular earthquake. Perhaps it was a given that such an approach would attribute demographic decline primarily to seismic activity. J. SAUER, “The Pottery of Jordan in the Early Islamic Period,” in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, vol. 1, ed. Adnan Hadidi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 329–37. Note added by Hamed Salem: The best comprehensive reference for Islamic pottery chronology is Donald WHITCOMB, “Khirbet al-Mafjar Reconsidered: The Ceramic Evidence,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 271 (1988): 51–67. See also Ghada ZIADEH, “Ottoman Ceramics from Ti’innik, Palestine,” Levant 27 (1995): 209–45; Edna STERN, Pottery of the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods in Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2005); N. JABER and Z. AL SAA’D, “Petrology of Middle Islamic Pottery from Khirbet Faris, Jordan,” Levant 32.1 (2013): 179–88; and G. AVNI, The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 19 Michael W. DOLS, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977). 20 DOLS cites an estimate for the period from 541 to 700 A.D., according to which the population was reduced by 50 to 60 percent (Black Death in the Middle East, 17). 21 According to Claudine DAUPHIN, this great demographic drop was the cumulative result of famines and plagues in the mid and late sixth century hitting the population of Byzantine Palestine—whose reproductive powers had been depleted by a poor diet and ill health, notably malaria—with cyclical resurgences that lasted well into the Umayyad period (La Palestine Byzantine, 2:373– 518, esp. 512–18). Note added by Hamed Salem: In a personal communication (2019), Amer Barakat, historian of the Islamic period, expressed support for the “plague theory” of demographic decline because of the plague’s severe toll on all sectors of the population.

12

END OF A TRADITION

7. Women crafted and fired the pottery that was intended for strictly local consumption. Handmade pottery intended for commercial trade outside the village was most often fired, transported, and sold by men. 8. The pottery discussed here was a craft associated with Palestinian village life, as opposed to urban life; the pottery vessels used in urban settings continued to be wheel-made and kiln-fired by men. 9. Although we do not have the archaeological evidence, it seems likely that twentieth-century handmade Palestinian open-fired pottery originated

with the rebirth of handmade, open-fired pottery in the Mamluk period. 10. Whereas in Palestine we know the ceramic forms and chronology for the pottery of the pre-Islamic period, the picture from the introduction of Islam into Palestine in the seventh century until the present day is largely terra incognita.22 The same could be said for any knowledge of the tempers from the beginning of local pot making in Palestine some eight thousand years ago up to the modern period.23

Modern context and techniques of the women potters The Impact of Electricity A transition took place in Palestinian villages after the late 1950s. Many homes in West Bank villages of the past had larger ceramic water storage jars and smaller ceramic water containers. But during the twentieth century new fuels became available: kerosene, propane gas, and electricity. Of the three, electricity had the greatest impact on how water was cooled. The availability of running water via pipes and faucets reduced the need for stored cold water. Prior to piped-in water and electricity, water was stored in large jars that were filled each day. It was the woman’s work to carry water from the village well to the house, where it was poured into a large storage jar. From the jar water was removed for drinking (usually with a cup), cooking, or washing. Unglazed ceramic jars are porous and, when filled with water, tend to “sweat” and thus have a thin film of water on the outside of the jar. This film of water evaporates and, in doing so, cools the water within the jar.24

If piped-in water is stored in large galvanized tanks on the roof of the house, and during the warmer months of the year the sun warms the water in those metal tanks, then there remains a demand for cold water. But if electricity is available and if one could afford to buy a refrigerator, one probably would not need a larger storage vessel to keep water cool or even a smaller hand-held, spouted drinking vessel. Therefore, the use of utilitarian ceramic vessels has been largely eliminated by the presence of electricity and refrigeration. Occasionally perhaps a large handmade water storage jar (zīr) or even a smaller vessel might be displayed in a home as a decoration, but it would seldom be used in the manner originally intended. Thus, whether made by hand or on the wheel, ceramic jars for storing water were relatively rare at the end of the twentieth century. In general it was also rare to find ceramics made by women; and at Ya‘bad, where one still could find handmade pottery, such pottery was made almost exclusively for the Israeli

22 Editors’ note: Although true when written, this statement is no longer accurate, especially regarding the Islamic periods, which have been redefined. 23 Editors’ note: The need to analyze pottery technology in general, including tempering agents, which is not done enough, is still relevant. 24 After years of use, older jars would lose their porosity (as their pores sealed up and clogged with various impurities in the water) and would no longer serve to cool water as they had in the past. These older jars were often used for the storage of oil in regions where the olive tree is grown.

MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

tourist market.25 Pottery made for actual utilitarian use in the home, for holding and storing water or for cooking, was almost a thing of the past. In the late twentieth century, Palestinian men potters did make some water jars, but 90 percent or more of their production consisted of flowerpots that were largely sold to the Israeli market. This same trend was also mostly the case for Jordan and Syria, where the major production of male potters was either flowerpots or decorative forms. In Israel the plastic industry was producing large round and rectangular flowerpots, which seemed to be replacing the ceramic flowerpot. The only Middle Eastern country where traditional ceramic production in the late twentieth century prevailed over the trend toward utilitarian use was Iraq, where traditional jars for holding water and cylindrical ceramic ovens (tanur) continued to be the major pottery forms produced. The destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure (including electricity) during the 1991 Gulf War and the U.S.-led sanctions, which prevented the importing of supplies to repair that infrastructure, meant that Iraq’s ceramic production industry did not follow the trend noted in other places.26 The use of traditional ceramic jars for storing water and the widespread use of ceramic bread ovens was a means of coping that Iraqi families used to survive the dire effects of the United States’ destruction of their infrastructure and economy.27 Analogously, if as a Palestinian you were to find yourself suddenly living in a temporary makeshift tent or cave because your house had been demolished by the Israeli military, you would quickly start using a traditional large ceramic water storage jar again.

Collection and Preparation of Raw Materials Clay Even though the collection and preparation of clay and temper for women potters has usually been women’s work, and the actual digging of the clay and its transport back to the village were the task of women,

13

there was an exception to this rule in villages with an export-oriented cooking pot industry, for example, al Jib, Kafr al Labad , and Ya‘bad, the woman potter’s husband or sons normally dug and transported the collected clay and temper (calcite) back to the village. As we shall see, men also fired the women potters’ handmade cooking pots in the open for export from these villages. This was not true, however, in any locale where water jars were manufactured, for there the pot making from beginning to end, including its firing, was done by women. After the clay was obtained, it was spread out on the ground to dry thoroughly. Chunks of clay that are not dry do not readily dissolve in water. Once it had dried, in most of the villages north of Jerusalem (with the exception of Ya‘bad) chunks of dried clay were crushed with a rolling stone and sifted with a gut-string or screen sifter (fig. 1.2 c). The exact method of clay preparation differed from village to village in the West Bank. At Sinjil, Qabalan, and Kafr al Labad , the clay was pulverized, ground, sifted, and mixed dry with the temper. Only after this dry mixing of the two ingredients was water added. In villages where the clay was not ground or sifted, the clay was slaked before the temper was added. At al Jib and Beit ‘Anan, the temper was spread out and then wet-slaked clay was poured into a depression in the pile of temper. At Ya‘bad, the clay was slaked in a pan and the temper was poured on top of the moistened clay. The exact proportions of clay to temper also varied from village to village. At Sinjil the clay-grog mix was about one to one. The same was true for the clay-calcite mix at al Jib and Beit ‘Anan.

Temper On the shores of the Dead Sea, at the ancient sites of Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira, the temper for a number of Early Bronze Age vessels often consisted of limestone.28 Crushed limestone was the only temper used at these sites for cooking pots or for large, coarse, whole-mouth jars. Smaller vessels and bowls were tempered with wadi sand, composed of quartz sand, limestone fragments, and chert.

25 This is one example of conditions that pertained in 1999 (and even more so in the 1970s, when most of this book was written) but presumably are no longer true as a result of political changes in the years since. 26 Editors’ note: The use of ceramic water storage jars has been noted also in Syria as a result of the civil war that started in 2011. See https://www.efe.com/efe/english/life/syrian-potter-braves-civil-war-to-make-traditional-items/50000263-3676928. 27 Editors’ note: The author was writing before the second Gulf War of 2003. 28 For this paragraph, see Walter RAST and R. Thomas SCHAUB, Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘: Excavations at the Town Site (1975–1981), 2 vols. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004).

END OF A TRADITION

14

Calcium carbonate converts to calcium oxide when heated at or above 825 °C. Later, calcium oxide combines with water from the atmosphere to form calcium hydroxide, which involves volume expansion. This causes lime-blowing, fracturing, and weakening of the pot. The open firing of calcite-tempered vessels does not occur at temperatures above 800 °C, thus avoiding this problem. Firing with Sarcopoterium as the fuel, or even a small amount of dung, would probably meet these requirements. The reason for using calcite as a temper for handmade cooking pots, where expansion and contraction due to heating and cooling was an issue, was that calcite has expansion characteristics that are similar to those of typical low-fired clay (fig. 1.3). Grog and chaff. In central and northern Palestine, grog or crushed pottery came to be used as tempering material instead of chaff. Grog has the same expansion characteristics after firing as typical low-fired clay.

4.5

N&CI (Halite)

KCI (Sylvite)

Quartz

4.0

EXPANSION (VOLUME PERCENT)

3.5

CaO 3.0

2.5

Aragonite

Olivine Graphite (Carbon) Rutile

2.0

Plagioclase 1.5

Calcite

Typical low-fired clay

Zircon

1.0

0.5

0

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

TEMPERATURE °C

Fig. 1.3 -. Graph showing thermal expansion of minerals (relating expansion to temperature)

The chaff-tempered jars in the villages to the south near Hebron and Dura were at least twice as thick as the grog-tempered jars of the Ramallah region. Their thickness may simply have been a by-product of how these “southern” jars were made. No tools were used in their production; only the woman potter’s hands served to form and smooth these vessels. Because water would be poured out of the chaff-tempered jars by tipping them forward, they had to be stronger and thicker than the thinner-walled water jars made north of Jerusalem, which sat upright inside the home, where one would dip into them with a cup. Essentially the Palestinian women potters used three different types of temper: chaff, calcite, and grog. Grog was used anywhere north of Bethlehem for water storage jars and all other fired pottery in which water or liquids were to be stored (or for any pot not meant to be placed in a fire). The potsherds to be crushed into grog were gathered from nearby ancient archaeological sites (fig. 1.4). Women potters maintained that the hardest sherds were the best, and they usually rejected sherds from their own handmade pottery. In Ramallah and Beitunia, where some houses were roofed with imported French roof tiles, the potters regarded those roof tiles as the best grog materials, since they were very hard and brittle. The preferred grog thus came from kiln-fired pottery, for which the firing temperatures were higher than they were for open-fired pots. Only in one village, Ya‘bad, did the women potters use sherds from their own broken jars. The clay-grog mix was most often two parts clay to one part grog. Grog and fiber. Water storage jars were tempered with finely ground grog (sherd fragments), which had been crushed fine with the use of a rolling stone (and then sifted with a gut-string sifter with 2-mm openings). At Bardala in the Jordan Valley and in the village of Tammun and higher up on the eastern edge of the Jordan Valley, as much as 50 percent grog was added to the dry clay mix. But this proportion was achieved only with the further addition of organic fiber in the form of cattail (bulrush) fluff (fig. 1.5), which enhanced the workability of the clay and thus enabled the addition of more grog than could normally be added without the clay collapsing.29 The tiny cattail fibers interlocked with the clay and extended its plasticity, enabling it to have a higher-temper, lower-clay content; thus the potter could increase the amount of temper added to the clay while retaining workability. Although not found in other parts of Palestine at that

29 When interviewed, villagers from the Tammun and Tubas area east northeast of Nablus reported that they added cattail fluff to their clay.

MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

15

Fig. 1.4 -. A pile of ancient sherds collected from a nearby archaeological site to be crushed into grog

Fig. 1.5 -. View of cattail (bulrush) growing; it can be used as a tempering agent

time, one did find stands of cattail along freshwater streams flowing into the Jordan River. The addition of cattail fluff to lean clay by Iraqi male potters in the Tigris River valley to make the clay body more workable was also reported in potters’ workshops northeast of Baghdad.

pots for the next two thousand years were quartztempered and wheel-thrown and considerably thinner than handmade cooking pots.30 Cooking pots and jars were still being made by male potters in Gaza in the late twentieth century, entirely wheel-thrown.31 These pots are never cooked in over an open fire, but rather are placed in a baker’s oven. Calcite-tempered, handmade cooking pots, however, were manufactured by women potters in several West Bank villages at least until the late 1970s. These pots could be cooked in over an open brush fire, held up above the fuel by a U-shaped, unfired clay holder (fig. 1.6). Like modern wheel-made cooking pots in Gaza, perhaps the wheelmade cooking vessels from the eighth century B.C. onward were used inside an oven, where variations in the temperature of the vessel itself would be more uniform and any temperature gradients between the top and bottom of a vessel during cooking would be minimal.

Grog and calcite. Mixtures of clay with grog or calcite, where the temper was one-third to one-half of the clay body, were highly distinct from the clay bodies used by male potters for wheel throwing, where either no temper was used (as in the case of Gaza) or about 10 percent sand was added to the clay (as at Hebron). In addition, the grog or calcite particles were considerably coarser than the sea sand used by male potters. It is highly doubtful that a male potter could throw clay on a wheel if one-third to one-half of the mix were grog or calcite temper (the more of such temper that is used, the less plastic the clay). Perhaps such claygrog or clay-calcite mixes could be finished on a slow wheel, as may well have been the case for the rims of calcite-tempered Palestinian cooking pots of the Late Bronze Age through the Iron I period. But those pots were essentially handmade. Calcite. Sometime during the Late Iron II period, ca. 750 B.C., the manufacture of calcite-tempered cooking pots disappeared, and Palestinian cooking

The same factors that led women in Mamluk times to start making other handmade painted pottery for themselves would have applied to the handmade cooking pot. In order to acquire wheel-made pots needed for holding water or oil, women had to purchase them either from some distant center or from traveling salesmen at elevated prices. As discussed above, wheel-made cooking pots were probably used only

30 Editors’ note: FRANKEN and KALSBEEK (Excavations at Tell Deir ‘Allā, 1:128) refer to the tempering material as a mix of quartz, limestone, flint, a little hematite, and crushed pottery (grog). According to more recent mineralogical research, calcite tempering continued at some but not all sites. For example, at Tell Hesban, Iron Age cookware can have pots with primarily (up to 90 percent) quartz or fine limestone or calcite temper, with or without grog, while other pots have a mix of finely ground inclusions. G. LONDON and R. D. SHUSTER, “Ceramic Technology Based on Chemical, Mineralogical, and Morphological Analyses,” in Ceramic Finds: Typological and Technological Studies of the Pottery Remains from Tell Hesban and Vicinity, ed. Y. Gerber, J. A. Sauer, and L. G. Herr, Hesban 11 (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University, Institute of Archaeology, 2012), 597–763. 31

Editors’ note: And they were still being made in 2019.

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Fig. 1.6 -. Woman at Beit ‘Anan cooking over a mōqade (U-shaped clay holder for a cooking fire)

within ovens and could not be placed over open fires. Metal pots made of copper, brass, or tin, which one could use over an open fire, were expensive. Therefore an inexpensive ceramic cooking pot to be used over an open fire was needed. The calcite-tempered cooking pot was reinvented out of this necessity. All hand-made Palestinian cooking pots were classically tempered with calcite. Calcite is a crystalline form of limestone; its typical form is rhombohedral crystals (fig. 1.7 a). Calcite is not found all over Palestine. There is none in the coastal regions, nor is it found in the geologically younger soft limestone formations of the low-lying foothills, the Shephelah. The only place where it occurs in any quantity is with the harder, older limestone deposits of the central highlands, and even there it is not always abundant. Although calcite is associated with some outcroppings of the Moza clay formation, it is largely absent from the outcropping of the Moza formation in the broad, agriculturally rich valley immediately to the east of Dura. Large nodules of pure calcite are found near al Jib and to the north. The women potters of al Jib, Beit ‘Anan, Qabalan, Qusra, and Kafr al Labad used calcite exclusively as their temper for the manufacture of cooking pots.

Although at Ya‘bad the women potters replaced calcite with grog for “cooking” pot manufacture, these pots were no longer intended for cooking but rather for the tourist market. At Ya‘bad, calcite was harder to obtain and scarcer. Larger pieces of calcite were often broken up with a hammer and then ground into smaller pieces with a crushing, rolling stone on a flat, clean stone or cement surface. The resulting fine material was then sifted with a leather or metal screen sifter. The 1–2 mm and finer sifted material was mixed with clay (fig. 1.7 b, c, d). In certain villages (Sinjil, Qabalan, and Qusra) the clay body was also ground with a rolling stone; but at Ya‘bad, as in the villages of the Hebron region, clay was slaked without being broken up into smaller pieces. Thus, the manufacturing sites for ancient as well as modern cooking pots would have been confined to those regions where calcite nodules could be found. In ancient times I suspect that cooking pots were fired in the same manner as in recent times, without a kiln (but see Monique Vilders for a different opinion).32 If the same division of labor—that is, men working on the potter’s wheel and women making pottery by hand—occurred in the past as in the 1970s, then the Bronze Age and Iron Age cooking pots would also have been handmade by women.33

32 Monique VILDERS, “Some Technological Features of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Cooking Pots from Tell es-Sa’idyeh, Jordan,” Newsletter of the Department of Pottery Technology 9/10 (1991–1992): 69–81. 33 Note by Hamed Salem: This statement by John is supported by the fact that most of the women potters around the globe today produce cooking pots in a similar manner, although some use the turntable or slow wheel.

MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

a)

b)

c)

d)

Fig. 1.7 -. a) The typical local Palestinian calcite used as a tempering agent b) Hammering calcite chunks c) Crushing calcite with a rolling stone d) Crushed fine calcite from al Jib, with a sieve on the left side

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Temper in Relation to Firing With kiln firing, the temperature is relatively uniform throughout the kiln, and the increases or decreases in temperature are relatively slow and gradual. This is certainly not the case for firing without a kiln, where the rise and fall of temperature are more rapid. The handmade pottery vessels that were most subject to thermal shock and therefore breakage were large items, especially the water jars. During open firings, when the temperature as measured near the ground was compared to that at the top of the pile, a difference of several hundred degrees Celsius could be observed. For smaller items this was perhaps of little importance, as there would be little temperature variation from the top to the bottom of the vessel. But with larger items such as water jars, even though they were set on their sides during firing, the distance between the lower and the uppermost portion of the pot could be between 70 and 80 cm and the temperature variation quite dramatic. One factor involved here is that the more the clay structure was broken up with tempering material, the greater the temperature gradient the pot was able to withstand. Cracks that had started moved only to a nearby grain of temper and were arrested. If it were possible to build and fire a pot entirely without any clay, perhaps there would never be any breakage. In fact, clay gradually loses its plasticity and workability with the addition of more temper. Beyond a certain point, there simply isn’t enough clay present to hold the pot together. Throwing clay on a wheel requires a greater degree of plasticity and therefore a higher percentage of clay than is needed for making pottery by hand. In kiln firings the temperatures rise and fall more gradually, and thermal gradients within a pot are smaller so that there is no need for massive quantities of temper, that is, the quantities used by traditional Palestinian women potters, where as much as 50 percent of the clay body was temper. Palestine’s women potters were working with a mix of clay and temper that was close to its maximum workability limits. Thus, one criterion as to whether a potsherd comes from a handmade or a wheel-made pot is the quantity of temper. If it is substantial, then the original pot would have been handmade. On this basis all Middle Bronze, Late Bronze, and Iron Age calcite-tempered cooking pots should be regarded as handmade even if perhaps finished on a slowly revolving wheel or tournette.

Most of the examples of Mamluk hand-painted pottery are jugs, which are smaller than jars. Perhaps only gradually did the early women potters learn how to increase the grog composition so that they could make larger jars that would survive an open firing. I venture the same explanation for the jars tempered with fine chaff that were found in the villages of the Hebron area. In general these jars were thicker than most grog-tempered jars. Organic chaff burned out during the firing, creating numerous small air spaces, which prevented excessive cracking caused by thermal gradients. Moreover, breaking up the structure of the clay with the addition of harder material enabled larger jars to survive under the higher temperature gradients of open firing.

Water Jars As stated earlier, the water jars of the Mamluk period were open-fired,34 as is evidenced by the color variations of the clay surface seen on the vessels themselves. One characteristic of kiln-fired pottery is the uniformity of color of a kiln-fired vessel, large or small. This is not so for open-fired pottery, where subtle variations in color on various surfaces of the same pot indicate the use of that firing method. Even if some marks were obliterated by rotating the pottery during the firing, inevitably some subtle color variations remained on most open-fired vessels, caused by variations in the maximum temperature reached on different parts of the pot or differences in the availability of oxygen. Black or gray areas on the surface of the pot were caused by carbon incorporated during firing. As we have noted, handmade Mamluk vessels were painted with geometric designs that bear a strong resemblance to the designs on the painted jars from twentieth-century Sinjil and Ramallah (fig. 1.8). Thus, despite a chronological gap in the excavated evidence, an artistic and technological continuity seems to exist from the Mamluk period down to modern times. I would also suggest that fuels of the past and the present were much the same, so that animal dung was probably used for firing waterstorage vessels in the past, and Sarcopoterium was used for firing cooking pots. Northeast of Nablus in an area near the Jordan Valley is a series of villages where water jars were made in the past. Until the late 1960s, in villages

34 Note by Hamed Salem: For evidence of complete workshops in this period, including kilns, see Marcus MILWRIGHT, “Pottery in the Written Sources of the Ayyubid-Mamluk Period (c. 567–23/1171–1517),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 62.3 (1999): 504–18.

MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

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openings; the rims were either flattened or simply rounded, and the walls were rather thick (1.8 to 3 cm). Cattail fluff was also used by male potters in Iraq as a component of their water jars. It may well be that in regions where the cattail grows, cattail fluff was used in ancient times for the very same purpose, especially—though not exclusively—in the manufacture of handmade pottery. For kiln-fired pottery this would more likely be in regions where highly plastic clays were not available. Thus, the addition of cattail fluff would enable the potter to use clay-deficient soils that otherwise would be unworkable for the making of pottery.

Cooking Pots

Fig. 1.8 -. A painted jar

higher up on the eastern edge of the central mountain range, jars were made at Tammun, 350 m above sea level, and at Tubas, 400 m above sea level. Later, until 1997, farther east and in the Jordan Valley itself, at Bardala (112 km south of Beisan/Beth Shean) and possibly at other hamlets in the same vicinity, handmade water jars were manufactured by the women potters. In the 1970s one could find households where these jars were still used for water storage. The red surface soil from lower-lying hills to the west was the source of their clay. This was sifted to remove impurities (for example, larger stones) and then mixed with grog obtained by crushing sherds from nearby antiquity sites with a rounded crushing stone (midris). Reportedly anywhere from one-half to two-thirds of the soil-clay grog mix was grog, and only one-third to one-half of the mix was red soil. Women from Bardala also used cattail fluff to strengthen the white soil-chaff mixture that they used to make tābūns (ovens for baking bread). The jars at Bardala had diameters almost as large as their heights (58 cm high and 55 cm diameter), (65 cm high and 58 cm diameter), (64 cm high and 56 cm diameter), (71 cm high and 55 cm diameter). They all had four vertical handles at the point of largest diameter and a necklace above the handles, like the jars of Salt and Beit ‘Anan. The bases of the jars were flat and had about the same diameter as the

The use of the handmade ceramic cooking pot in the twentieth century was clearly restricted to people living in villages. The villages in which cooking pots were built can be divided into those that manufactured cooking pots for both export and local consumption and those that manufactured cooking pots solely for local consumption. It is of interest to note that the villages that manufactured cooking pots for export specialized entirely in manufacturing cooking vessels and did not produce storage jars. Villages that produced cooking pots solely for local consumption also produced storage jars and other smaller vessels usually for holding water. Handmade cooking vessels were not manufactured to the south of al Jib. A possible reason for this might have been the availability of one of the basic raw materials for cooking pots, that is, calcite, which is found in the central highlands but not in the Shephelah; lower-lying calcite is also occasionally found between limestone layers. Certainly the most important Palestinian center for manufacturing cooking pots was the village of al Jib. Although one cannot date the beginning of the craft of handmade cooking pot manufacture at al Jib, the use of two rather specialized tools in its manufacture, the midrab (a paddle or stick) and a reed tool used in shaping or scraping the vessel, indicate a longer history of cooking pot manufacture there, as no other village where cooking pots were manufactured used such specialized tools. At al Jib in the past, the women potters’ husbands served as the traders in that they carefully loaded a donkey with a large number of cooking pots and then set off to sell them in more distant regional centers (fig. 1.9 a, b), reportedly as far away as Gaza to the

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west or even Amman to the east. Often they would make the rounds of the regional centers where local markets rotated on certain days of the week. Nearby villagers would come in order to sell whatever they might have and to buy supplies. Two other centers for manufacturing cooking pots, Kafr al Labad and Ya‘bad, sold their wares not only locally but also in Nablus and Jenin. A former cooking pot manufacturing locale was the village of al Bina in the Galilee.35 Three villages (Qabalan, Qusra, and Beit ‘Anan) made cooking pots as well as storage vessels. These three villages did not export their cooking wares but used them for local consumption only. Al Jib’s importance as a center for the manufacture of cooking pots was related to the presence of a rich supply of high quality clay nearby. Its clay was used by the male potters of Jerusalem and the potters in the Jericho refugee camps from 1948 until 1967. Calcite is found in abundance where the terrain is rocky. Usually the calcite occurs as round rocks on the earth surface of the region. Fist-sized and larger rocks are readily identified as calcite by those familiar with its crystalline nature. Occasionally rich calcite deposits are found as a sedimentary layer between certain limestone rock layers. However, deposits of this nature are encountered only when limestone layers are broken through, as, for example, in road construction or excavations or for building foundations. The details in the manufacture of cooking pots varied greatly from village to village. Qusra and neighboring Jurish are rather isolated high in the central north–south mountain range, some 27 to 28 km south and east of Nablus. Whereas Qabalan is located close to the main north–south road between Jerusalem and Ramallah, Qusra is located somewhat farther to the east. Qusra and Jurish are two villages that manufactured both water jars and cooking pots. Although their cooking pots and water jars were sold, bartered, or exchanged within the two villages, they were seldom if ever sold outside the immediate environs of Qusra or Jurish. In other words, these ceramics were produced for internal consumption only. This study of women potters has shown that certain villages specialized in the production of cooking pots for sale to a wider public. The most important

of these villages was probably al Jib, but also Kafr al Labad near Nablus, Ya‘bad, and possibly in the past al Bina—all of which were regional centers of cooking pot production. Al Bina would have supplied cooking wares to the southern Galilee, and Ya‘bad would have produced for Jenin and possibly Nablus, while Kafr al Labad would have supplied Tulkarm, Qalqilya, and the Nablus region. Each of these production centers would have to have had nearby suitable clay and calcite sources. At Kafr al Labad the clay source was some distance from the village. In contemplating this type of village specialization in the recent past, one must also consider such specialized production centers in earlier periods.36 Some of the earliest cooking pots, for example, granite-tempered cooking pots in southern Palestine’s Early Bronze city of Arad, were imported from the Sinai Peninsula.37 Palestinian cooking pots at least until around 750 B.C. were calcite-tempered and probably handmade. Such coarse tempers as were mixed with the clay for these cooking pots are not readily thrown on a wheel. The rounded bottom of such pots without an omphalos is also an indication of a handmade vessel. Although suitable clay may have been available, calcite sources are confined to the harder limestone regions of Palestine’s central mountain range. It should be noted again that the Gaza male potters used a clay body without temper to produce wheelmade cooking vessels. In general, these cooking wares were thinner-walled than handmade cooking pots and were intended only for cooking food, including a special festive Gaza dish, inside ovens.38 The bottoms of thin-walled, wheel-made cooking pots did not exhibit the carbon blackening visible on handmade, calcitetempered pots, which were placed directly over a flame. This also suggests that the use of wheel-made cooking pots was exclusively inside an oven. Before being used, a new cooking pot was cured by placing it on a small brush fire, with a bit of oil or even milk being added to the pot and swished around. The burnt oil or milk provided a seal of fine carbon that made a newly fired pot less porous. After curing, this handmade, calcite-tempered cooking vessel could be placed directly on a fire. It would usually be heated

35 The more correct spelling of al B’aineh appears to be al Bina. 36 John E. LANDGRAF, chap. 5: “Keisan’s Byzantine Pottery,” in Tell Keisan (1971--1976): Une cité phénicienne en Galilée, ed. Jacques Briend and Jean-Baptiste Humbert, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, Series Archaeologica 1 (Paris: Gabalda, 1980), 51–99, here 93–94. 37 AMIRAN, Early Arad, 48. 38 Editors’ note: Two common Gaza dishes are sumaqiyah and sayyadiyah.

MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

a)

21

b)

Fig. 1.9 -. Al Jib potter’s husband (a) filling a bag with cooking pots and (b) loading them onto a donkey to be distributed and sold in regional markets

on a special U-shaped unfired clay holder, where the fuel was placed immediately below the cooking pot and flames came into direct contact with the bottom of the pot. Unlike the bread oven (tābūn) used for baking bread, the fuel for which was animal dung mixed with hot dung ash, the fuel used for cooking with the ceramic cooking pot was usually brush: twigs or small pieces of wood. Cooking pots were never put in contact with flames from propane or kerosene, the more commonly used heating sources. The cooking pot could be placed inside the tābūn with some kind of cover, but the primary use of the tābūn was for baking bread. The brush fire had to be tended by a younger or older woman, not necessarily the cook herself. Instead of the U-shaped holder, three stones could be used to raise the cooking pot above the ground and to afford a space beneath for a fire. The U-shaped holder would

offer an advantage in that the fire on three sides was protected from wind, so that the heat from the fire was more contained under the pot and not as easily dissipated. One common characteristic of handmade ceramic cooking pots from earliest times was that they had rounded bottoms. That is, there was no distinct angle between the base of the pot and the wall; the base of the pot gradually merged into the sides with no distinct base rim. Thus, the pot’s base and walls, which were the parts more exposed to the heat, were of uniform thickness. As any potter knows, uniform thickness of an entire pot is highly desirable, since during the open firing process any marked change in wall thickness is subject to thermal stress and breakage. Again, this is especially true of larger vessels, whereas smaller items of varied thickness are much more likely to survive the open firing process.

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Firing A key difference between kiln firing and open firing without a kiln was that with a kiln a potter was able to control how fast the temperature would rise and fall, which was less the case for open firings without a kiln. At first glance, an open firing seemed to be completely out of the potter’s control and at the mercy of nature. In fact, however, the rate of temperature rises or declines in an open firing could be somewhat controlled by how the pots were set, how the fuel was arranged, and how the potter manipulated these factors during the firing. At the same time, in an open firing of a large pot, for example, a water jar 60 cm in diameter, the temperature of the vessel itself could vary hundreds of degrees depending on whether it was measured at the top or the bottom of the pot. Thus, thermal stresses within an open-fired pot increased as the size of the pot increased. The larger the pot, the greater the temperature gradient and the greater the thermal stress. In open firings, smaller vessels usually survived, whereas larger vessels had a greater chance of breakage. Although I was unaware of any published data on breakage rates in relation to temper density with an open-fired pot,39 three factors are involved: (1) temperature gradient, (2) temper quantity, and (3) vessel size. In order for larger openfired pots to survive such differences, the potter must increase the amount of temper, which lowers the risk of breakage. This can be achieved by adding either inorganic temper such as grog or calcite or fine organic material. Organic material burns out leaving voids, and any crack that begins is halted when another void is contacted, thus limiting damage to the vessel. Reaching a satisfactory solution to the problems involved in creating larger vessels before kilns were available undoubtedly required a certain amount of trial and error and the gradual acquisition of knowledge. Experience was needed to create a vessel that could withstand the temperature gradients of an open firing. Handmade, open-fired vessels intended to hold water (water storage jars) were usually tempered with either crushed potsherds gathered from antiquity sites (grog) or fine wheat chaff. These firings are to be distinguished from the firing of calcitetempered cooking pots.

Fuel. The dung used as fuel in most of the firings described here was from cows. Often it had been mixed with a certain amount of straw, formed into flattened round cakes, and dried by slapping the cakes onto a vertical stone wall. The last rains in Palestine usually end by mid-April and seldom begin before mid-November, so that the long, dry period from mid-April to mid-November is ideal for the drying of dung. This is in marked contrast to weather patterns in most parts of Europe and North America, where precipitation falls year round. Typically in Palestine, wheat and other grains are planted when the very first rain falls in November or December, and are harvested between late April and July. The harvest date varies depending on the elevation—the earlier harvests occur in the lower-lying regions (Shephelah), and the later harvests at higher elevations in the central mountain range; the lower elevations have higher mean temperatures. The reason given by potters for using dung as fuel instead of wood was that wood “does not give enough heat”; three different potters individually made this comment. Without adequate data on temperatures reached in their firings, and comparative experiments using wood fuel, there was no way to assess the validity of their belief.40 Wood was used as a fuel for other purposes, such as heating a tābūn, so it was available, although probably more expensive than dung, which usually cost the potters nothing. They either collected it themselves or villagers gave it to them. They insisted that the choice of fuel was not made on the basis of cost but on the basis of heating value. It is conceivable that potters in antiquity reached the same conclusion, even if wood was plentiful then. The pottery season for women usually began after the wheat harvest. Straw from the grain harvest and the finest chaff from winnowing were either mixed with the dung or added as temper to the clay. The firing season started in mid-August and ended by early November. West Bank Palestinian women potters all fired their handmade, straw- or grog-tempered pots (jars and bowls) in the open, using dried animal dung as fuel. Although a few variations occurred from village to village, dung firings were often carried out in the same place year after year. Repeated firings meant that a layer of light gray dung ash covered the ground. The pots were fired on the surface of the ground. The potters might dig a very shallow pit, at most ca. 15 cm deep (in one case, 40 cm).

39 Editors’ note: To our knowledge, no such study has been done since 1999. 40 The problem may have been that, soon after being lit, wood burns rapidly and at a high temperature, which would damage pots, whereas dung smolders and only slowly rises in temperature.

MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

First, a layer of dung consisting of loose pieces, not dung pads, was spread on the ground, and then the larger jars were placed on their sides over this dung layer. At Sinjil, these jars were oriented east to west, with the mouths facing east. The predominant wind in Palestine blows from the Mediterranean Sea inland, from west to east. The rim of a vessel was much more likely to crack due to thermal stresses than the base. Small bowls and jars were placed either between the larger jars or around the western edge of the pile. Occasionally very small pieces to be fired were placed inside larger jars. At Sinjil, a dung pad was used to cover the mouths of the jars. After placement, the jars were covered with several layers of dung pads. Flattened sheet metal scraps, often from old galvanized pails or garbage cans, were then stacked against the entire perimeter of the pile; they stood vertically 30 to 40 cm high, perpendicular to the ground. Old burlap bags were draped over the pile, and old rubber boots or plastic shoes were placed on top of these. Finally, a thin layer of straw was added, and the straw was lit with a bit of kerosene. The fire initially burned with a fair amount of smoke; the firing took four to five hours, and if started later in the day the pots were not removed from the pile until the next day. Three different types of dung were commonly used: cow, donkey, and sheep/goat. Cow dung was often mixed while damp with straw and formed into flat, round pads. Donkey dung, when available, could be mixed into the cow dung to form these pads, which were often slapped on a stone wall for drying. Goat and sheep dung was also often used as a fuel. It was usually gathered from corrals or caves where the herd was kept at night. If this dung was not gathered frequently, a compacted dung layer formed; compaction of dung affected the rate at which it burned, as did the type of dung used and the amount of straw mixed into the dung. Temperature. When measured over the course of the firing, typically the temperature rose about 10 °C per minute until a maximum was reached and then dropped at about the same rate, so that a bell-shaped curve was produced when plotted on graph paper; with a larger quantity of fuel, a plateaued curve resulted. When an open firing of pottery is compared to a kiln firing, there are several marked differences. One is that within a kiln the temperature rises much more slowly, and higher maximum temperatures are usually attained, sometimes leading to excess vitrification or even melting of the clay. In open firings one would never see pottery wasters caused by over-firing indicating that the vitrification or melting point of clay had been reached. Wasters can be created by other

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faults, especially cracking. Additionally, within a kiln there is very little measurable temperature difference between the top and bottom of a pot, even a relatively large pot. In an open firing this was not the case; we observed differences of several hundred degrees between the top and bottom of a larger pot at any one time during the course of an open firing. The cracks that did occur in open firings were mainly parallel to the coil line and perpendicular to the rim; we never saw a crack that split the entire vessel in half. Cracks were usually corrected by the addition of a thin layer of cement inside the jar at the point of the crack. Smaller vessels generally survived open firings without breakage. In fact, we never observed any breakage of smaller bowls or jars in open dung firings. The reason pots survived the thermal gradients that they were subjected to during open firings lay in the clay-temper mix that Palestinian women potters used. For example, one-third to one-half (by volume) of the clay body could be ground-up potsherds (grog), usually more highly vitrified than the clay of the final product, the jar itself. The same protection against breakage could be achieved with the addition of fine organic temper. The addition of any suitable temper prevented cracks spreading through the fabric of a vessel. In fact, a pot handmade by a woman potter and tempered in the traditional way could also be fired successfully in a kiln.

Firing Principles Analysis of firing data obtained from temperature measurements (fig. 1.10 a, b), using thermocouples, of several open dung firings indicates the following general principles: 1. Regardless of the fuel, the temperature rose most rapidly and reached the highest maximum when it was measured near the surface or top of the fuel/ pottery pile. Unless additional fuel was added (e.g., at Beit ‘Anan), this surface temperature dropped more rapidly than other points of measurement: those inside a jar, at the bottom of the pile, or in the middle of the firing. 2. The more compact the dung fuel was, the slower the rate of burning and the more prolonged the firing. The most compact dung fuel was likely sheep or goat dung (fig. 1.11 a, b). Depending on how compacted the dung was, maximum temperatures on the surface of a pile were reached five to eight hours after the start of firing. With less compact, straw-containing sheep/goat dung fuel, maximum

24

END OF A TRADITION

temperatures were arrived at sooner, and the rise and fall in temperature were less gradual than with denser fuels. Every evening before dark, sheep and goats were brought into a corral or cave for the night and led out to pasture again the next day. If the dung was not swept up daily, it accumulated and was compacted by the standing animals. The compaction increased during the rainy season to the extent that sometimes the manure had to be broken up with a pick. 3. Straw when added to dung increased the dung’s rate of burning. The more straw that was added, the more rapidly the fuel burned. Usually dung cakes, or disc-shaped pads, were formed by mixing straw with wet cow manure. These cakes were dried on a vertical stone wall. Sheep or goat dung was not used to form dung cakes. Without the addition of straw to cow dung, the temperature rose more slowly and reached a maximum four hours after the beginning of the firing. Grass-like loose brush burns very rapidly, as does loose straw, since oxygen is readily available to it. Any compaction of such organic matter, for example, into a bale, would reduce the rapidity or rate of burning. Thus, breaking up a more compacted fuel with straw increased its rate of burning.

4. The quantity of fuel influenced the rate of the firing. A smaller quantity of fuel burned more rapidly than a larger quantity of fuel. Thus, the temperature rose more rapidly and reached its peak faster in a firing that was done with less fuel than in one done with more fuel. If a potter continued to add larger quantities of fuel during the course of firing, the maximum or peak temperature attained might be delayed or prolonged. 5. The presence or absence of wind influenced open firings. There were differences in temperature between the windward and leeward side of the pile. At Sinjil on 26 September 1976, pots on the leeward, eastern side of the pile continued to glow after pottery on the western, windward side had ceased to glow. A lasting, strong wind during these firings dissipated the heat and lowered the temperature maximums. Under these conditions the surface temperatures varied erratically, which was also reflected to a lesser extent in temperature variations elsewhere. Unless the rate of temperature rise was due to the density of the fuel, high wind velocities helped to explain a lag time of up to four hours before the temperature began to rise significantly.

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Fig. 1.10 -. a, b) Firing graphs of firings at al Jib (two) and Qusra (one)

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MODERN CONTEXT AND TECHNIQUES

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b) Fig. 1.11 -. a, b) Dung cakes used as fuel by Sinjil potters

25

Fig. 2.1 -. View of the Dura region

WOMEN POTTERS IN TEN WEST BANK VILLAGES Dura, Fuqeiqis and Beit ‘Awwa Some 8 km west-southwest of Hebron, the town of Dura (fig. 2.1), with a population of 4,954, was the district center for a number of its villages farther to the west. It had been a regional capital since Roman times, and, unlike its villages, Dura itself had probably been continuously occupied for two thousand or more years. The reason for its original founding and longtime occupation was undoubtedly the broad valley (Wadi Abu al Qamrah) immediately to the east, which has many year-round, water-rich springs and deep fertile soil. Dura is located at an elevation of 865 m in the Judean central mountain range on hard Upper Cenomanian limestone, and its annual rainfall is ca. 500 mm. Most of its villages lie farther to the west in the lower-lying Eocene chalk foothills, ca. 450 m above sea level, a region known in the Bible as the Shephelah, which has an annual rainfall of ca. 350 mm.

on ancient Roman, Byzantine, and earlier sites, in the late twentieth century, these villages were scarcely fifty years old.41 Before that, the region was only seasonally settled by Dura’s inhabitants, who came for the planting of wheat, barley, lentils, and vetch in November and December, and remained until the harvest from mid-April through mid-June. During this time the inhabitants favored living places where they could find ready-made shelter in ancient caves hewn into the Eocene chalk and where others long before had dug cisterns and wells. After the harvest they returned to Dura, where they lived in their permanent homes until the next winter rainy season, when they once again repeated their annual migration down into the lowlands to the west. Others remained only long enough for the plowing and planting, and when that was over they returned to their permanent homes; they came back again for the harvest.

The residents of Dura and its villages were all interrelated and divided into two groups, the ‘Amairi and the ‘Irjan, and thirty-six clans (‫ۊ‬DPnjOH). Often located

Although some of the annual migration ended with the year-round settlement in villages in the 1920s, this migratory pattern continued for a large number of

41

Editors’ note: Thus these villages originated in the 1920s.

DURA, FUQEIQIS AND BEIT ‘AWWA

Dura’s villagers until 1948, when a considerable portion of Dura’s richest agricultural land in the western lowlands was confiscated and incorporated into the new Jewish state. Some of Dura’s permanent villages, for example, Dawaimah, fell within the Israeli territory, and so its inhabitants either fled or were forced to leave. These refugees today live mainly in Jordan. For the migrant agriculturalists, this territorial acquisition by the Israelis meant the loss of their winter land and their major form of livelihood but not their permanent summer homes farther to the east. Although Dura’s former land within Israel remained largely untilled from the 1940s to the 1970s, winter wheat and barley were grown by the frontier kibbutzim, Amazya, population 91; and Lahav, population 222. Kibbutz Amazya used some of its nearby land as pasture for cattle, while flocks owned by Beersheba Bedouin grazed on a portion of it in late winter and early spring. In the late twentieth century, this region’s main agricultural income for Palestinians was derived from winter wheat and barley along with some lentils, chickpeas, broad beans, and vetch, often grown on incredibly steep slopes. There were few olives, grapes, or fruit trees. In the valleys, annual summer melons, vegetables, sesame, and tobacco were also grown, while some of the inhabitants were shepherds of sheep and goats. As was the case for much of the West Bank, a large portion of this area’s income came from the male day laborers, who worked especially in Beersheba or Jerusalem.42 A municipal generator to provide electricity was installed at Dura in 1975, and the summer of 1976 saw a sudden avalanche of electrification by means of generators in a number of its villages.

Impact of 1948 and 1967 on Village Life Both Beit ‘Awwa and Fuqeiqis,43 the two Dura villages where pot making was studied, were especially affected by the events of 1948. In the 1970s, Fuqeiqis was a hamlet (‫ې‬LUEL) of some fifteen houses and 120 people on a high ridge, elevation 720 m, 4.5 km southwest of Dura overlooking the foothills and the coastal plain. On a clear day one could see the Mediterranean some 56 km due west. Two of the households were members of the Abu Sharar clan, while the rest belonged to the Al Awawda clan.

27

Until 1948 they had farmed during the winter in the lowlands, but after their winter land fell into Israeli hands, they settled here year-round in an attempt to find a new livelihood by the cultivation of Fuqeiqis’s very steep slopes. Beit ‘Awwa, at an elevation of 450 m, and with a population of 1,496, was the largest of a north–south string of Dura’s villages, with a total population of 5,595, which in the late 1970s were located just to the east of the “Green Line,” the border between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and pre-1967 Israel. Before 1967, of course, these villages were in Jordan. From many vantage points in Beit ‘Awwa, one can look into a broad valley a few hundred meters to the west, which was until 1948 its richest agricultural land. Since then it has been farmed by Kibbutz Ama਌ya, located on the site of the pre-1948 Arab village of Dawaimah, 4 km northwest of Beit ‘Awwa. In 1948, Beit ‘Awwa lost about 70 percent of its agricultural land and was left with its poorer land, located partially in narrow valleys but mainly on hillsides, where the soil was shallow and the moisture content less. In apparent retaliation against Beit ‘Awwa’s occasional resistance between 1948 and 1967 to the Israeli takeover of their land, on 11 June 1967, one day after the end of the June 1967 war, the majority of Beit ‘Awwa’s houses, as well as its mosque and school, were blown up by the Israel Occupation Forces (conventionally known as the Israel Defense Forces), and its inhabitants once again returned temporarily to living in its Roman and Byzantine caves or in tents provided by an international relief organization. Beit ‘Awwa comprised two clans, the Masalmi, who lived in the eastern part of the village, and the Sweity on the western side. In the late 1970s, this village became a wholesale center for used furniture, refrigerators, and stoves purchased in Israel, which were then resold to various West Bank used furniture dealers. A generator that could provide electricity for the homes in the village was purchased in 1976.

The Water Jar The handmade water jars in the villages to the south and west of Hebron, including Yatta, Samu‘, and Dhahiriya, and in Dura, were quite unlike those made to the north of Jerusalem. They had two large,

42 Vivian A. BULL, The West Bank—Is It Viable? (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1975). 43 The name of this village was known to Landgraf and Rye as the local dialectal form Ifqaqis. The official Arabic name is Fuqeiqis.

WOMEN POTTERS

28

thick handles attached between the shoulder and rim (fig. 2.2 a, b). Although they were never painted, they did sometimes have designs in raised relief or a series of finger indentations on their handles. In addition, these jars were much thicker, ca. 4 cm, and thus more durable and long-lived. They were tempered with about 50 percent by volume of fine wheat chaff, but at Yatta a woman related that she had tempered her jar with one-third donkey dung. Water jars here were kept outdoors, not standing upright on the ground but tilted on their sides and placed up on a wall or ledge or in special niches (mu‘arašīa). Beneath the jar a bit of brush (usually Sarcopoterium spinosum), which acted as a cushion, was placed so as to tilt the jar forward and thus enable one to pour water out of it. Often the jar’s rim was not round but oval to facilitate easy pouring. To keep pigeons and other birds from drinking out of the jar, a cloth might be placed over the opening. In the Dura area, a water jar used to be part of a woman’s dowry (mahr), and many of the jars still in use date back twenty or more years to a woman’s marriage.

Forms That Were No Longer Made In the late twentieth century, other handmade pottery forms were seldom seen, including a large bowl (sifel) used mainly as a container for tanning skins; a smaller bowl (PX‫ۊ܈‬ƗQ]LEGƯ\D) used for reconstituting the lumps of dried sour milk (kišik); the couscous bowl (qōr), a large bowl with a multiple finger-perforated bottom; and the foot bath (LP‫܈‬DOƯD), a bowl with a foot rest especially used for the five times daily ritually prescribed Islamic washing before prayer. Formerly an oil lamp (sirāj) was made together with a jar and then placed at the local shrine (weli), the burial place of a holy man, as a protection against the jar’s breakage. A rarity was the footed cosmetic palette (‫ܒ‬DEDT QDTã ‫ܒ‬DEDT‫ۊ‬HQQD), which was used at a girl’s wedding to hold her makeup. Also very seldom seen was a singlehandled, oval “duck”-shaped canteen (ED‫ܒܒ‬D); I saw but one example in a potter’s home in the village of Khursa, south of Dura.

Occasional Pottery Making In the 1970s, on rare occasions pottery was still made in Dura or its villages. Although no thorough survey was conducted, there were a large number of women still living who had in the past made their own water jars. None was younger than about forty-five years. At least one woman in Dura itself made a water jar in the summer of 1976, as did women from al Kom; and in those years women at Khursa and Khirbet al Salama still made pottery. In the late twentieth century, however, in most cases any pottery needed was purchased from the wide selection of wheel-made forms available in Hebron. Pot making in these villages was apparently never an annual event, and usually a woman made pottery for use within her own extended family. Pots were made only when they were needed and, as they were thick-walled and durable, there was simply no annual need to build them. Here in the past a larger percentage of the women were potters, but pot making did not become a supplementary source of income, at least to the degree that it did in other areas. In part this may have been due to a distinctive technique that enabled a less skillful woman to make and fire a pot successfully. Other reasons might include the area’s lower rainfall and more marginal agriculture, which resulted in lower family income, as compared with Palestine to the north. These factors forced the women here to be more self-sufficient.

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The surface rock in the region of Dura is composed of hard Upper Cenomanian limestone as well as the Moza formation outcrops in a number of places.44 The broad valley immediately to the east of Dura consists of a very thick stratum of high-quality Moza clay. As, however, it is covered by several meters of brown grumusols, for most potters during the years treated here it was too difficult to access. Occasionally when foundations or a wall was dug, women did gather this clay and use it for making either fired or unfired vessels. Other outcrops known to be used by potters in this region were found at al Tabaqa, ‘Ifnaini, and one other place located a few meters to the east of the Dura-Fawwar road.45 For the potter at Fuqeiqis, I gathered clay from ‘Ifnaini at about 1.0 to 1.4 m below the surface. This same deposit was used by a Dura woman

44 The Moza formation extends from Hebron to “north of Jerusalem”; with a base of limestone and marl thickly overlaid with clay, it is “a source of superior potting clay.” See levantineceramics.org/petrofabrics/32-moza-clay. 45 Fawwar is a Palestinian refugee camp.

DURA, FUQEIQIS AND BEIT ‘AWWA

a)

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Fig. 2.2 -. a, b) Beit ‘Awwa potter attaching a handle to a typical water jar between the rim and the shoulder

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WOMEN POTTERS

who made a jar in the summer of 1976. Usually women from Dura’s western Shephelah villages obtained their clay from one of Dura’s Moza formation outcrops. Some women did, however, use much closer deposits of Senonian marl/clay, which was found in the area between the harder Cenomanian-Turonian limestones and the Eocene chalk. Before and after firing, it was much lighter in color and was perhaps of a lower quality than the Moza deposit. The nearest Moza deposit to Beit ‘Awwa is some 7.5 km away and a hard uphill climb, whereas there is a Senonian marl/clay deposit near Deir Samit only 2 km away at a lower altitude. Near al Burj, there is another Senonian marl outcrop that was used by the women in that area. The jar made in 1976 at Beit ‘Awwa was made from clay gathered from the Deir Samit quarry (PD‫\ܒ‬DQD) at 0.7 to 1.0 m below the surface of the ground. At Yatta and in the Dura area, clay suitable for making pottery was called ‫ܒ‬ƯQLTDOƗOOL. The pottery from Yatta, Samu‘, and Dhahiriya used to be made of clay obtained from one of the Hebron region’s Moza formation outcrops. South of al Jib near Jerusalem, I was unaware of any usage of calcite as a temper. Indeed in the Dura region there was very little calcite to be found, as compared to other areas in the highlands to the north, where the rainfall is considerably higher. I discovered that one usually finds relatively abundant calcite in a region close to an outcropping of the Moza formation, including, for example, Beit Ummar to the north of Hebron. Although there is no literature on this subject,46 there may be some correlation between the Moza formation, rainfall, and calcite quantity. The clay for the pottery made at Fuqeiqis was collected by the author at Dura-‘Ifnaini at 0.75 to 1.4 m below the surface. As is often the case with other Moza formation outcrops, the upper portion of this deposit showed signs of calcium carbonate leaching and re-deposition on horizontal surfaces in the form of fine white powder. The Fuqeiqis potter prepared her clay in the following way: A large, shallow metal pan (VD‫ܒ‬LO), ca. 72 cm in diameter and 13 cm deep, was filled with thoroughly sun-dried clay. Water was added so as just to cover the clay (fig. 2.3 a). Usually the clay would have been soaked overnight; after only about one hour, the potter poured out fine sifted wheat chaff (IƗUnj‫ )ۊ‬onto a burlap bag and scooped some of the clay onto the chaff (fig. 2.3 b). According to the potter, barley chaff was not suitable. Although no attempt was made to measure the quantity of chaff, the amount was “according to rule” (bil qānūn); she judged the amount by feel and experience. The chaff was roughly one-third of the volume of the wet

clay. Ancient sherds collected at Fuqeiqis had previously been pulverized with a crushing stone (jiljal). The potter then took a handful of this grog, placed it in a 1-mm mesh flour sifter (munkhal), and sifted it directly onto the clay-chaff mixture (fig. 2.3 c). The grog amounted to no more than 1 percent of the total volume. She then wedged the mixture by grasping the clay with outspread fingers, squeezing her fingers together, and pulling the handful of clay up and into the center of the pile—which is exactly the way women kneaded bread dough here (fig. 2.3 d). After there was enough room in the metal pan, she sifted the grog onto the clay, poured in the chaff, and wedged the mixture directly into the pan (fig. 2.3 e). Any pieces of stone or other matter discovered by the potter during the wedging were picked out.

Clay Body Preparation Although the raw materials were different, the actual clay preparation at Beit ‘Awwa was similar to that at Fuqeiqis. Senonian clay/marl was collected from the quarry near Deir Samit from 0.7 to 1.0 m below the surface. Thoroughly dried clay was soaked overnight in a large tub. The next morning the excess water was poured off, fine sifted wheat chaff (Pǀ‫)܈‬ was spread on a cleanly swept cement floor, and the wet clay was scooped onto the chaff and wedged. During this process two scoops of a watery slurry of brown rendzina soil (VDPDTD ‫ۊ‬DPUƗ) were added. The potter had collected this soil from the southern edge of the village at a place known as Hallit Is‘aidi, but identical soil was found here wherever the soil lay above calcrete (marl). Such soil mixed with chaff was used to make objects of unbaked clay such as the bread oven (tābūn) and the brazier (kānūn). The total volume of chaff was roughly one-third that of the wet clay, and the brown rendzina was no more than 1 percent. Usually this potter wedged her clay twice, with a forty-eight-hour interval in between. Chaff and the brown rendzina slurry were added both times.

Forming Techniques The Dura region’s jars were made in full sun directly on the ground, and therefore from start to finish the pots themselves were never turned or moved. Furthermore, at no stage was any tool used for smoothing the surface, as was common in the villages in the north. At Fuqeiqis, the potter began by taking a large lump of clay, which she roughly formed

46 Editors’ note: Several petrographic analyses have been undertaken over the past three years (2016–2019).

DURA, FUQEIQIS AND BEIT ‘AWWA

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Fig. 2.3 -. The preparation of clay at Fuqeiqis a) Soaking clay in a metal pan b) Adding chaff to the clay c) Sieving grog using a very fine sieve d) Mixing clay and tempers in a way similar to the kneading of dough e) Adding the second portion of the tempering agents to the clay

32

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into a disc and placed on the ground. After patting and smoothing, it was 5 cm high and had a diameter of 25 cm. By pressing out its center and drawing out some of the clay, and occasionally adding small lumps of clay, she formed the base (qā‘a), which had the shape of a bowl 12.5 cm high with a diameter of 24 cm at the bottom and a diameter of 30 cm at the rim. Initially the potter sat on the ground with her legs crossed (fig. 2.4 a) but then, even during the building of this first layer, she stood and leaned over (fig. 2.4 b). At Beit ‘Awwa, the potter made her pottery on the flat cement roof of her new home. The floor was first swept, and then while squatting, she took a large lump of clay and rolled it out on the floor into a cylinder 14 cm in diameter and 18 cm high (fig. 2.4 c). The center was pressed down and the clay pulled out to form a shallow bowl-shaped base. It was 8.5 cm high and 40 cm in diameter at the rim, while the base itself had a diameter of 28 cm. The Beit ‘Awwa intermediate rim was drawn out into a point, whereas the rim at Fuqeiqis was rounder. Both at Fuqeiqis and at Beit ‘Awwa, the base was the first of seven horizontal layers. A layer at Fuqeiqis averaged 11.6 cm in height, plus or minus 3.1 cm, and was called a ‫ܒ‬ōf, whereas at Beit ‘Awwa a layer was 10.4 cm high, plus or minus 1.5 cm, and was referred to as a dōr (pl. dūrār), although apparently the two terms are interchangeable. It is interesting to note that the daytime drying time between each layer was twice as fast at Fuqeiqis (2 hours and 18 minutes), where the Upper Cenomanian Moza clay was used, as at Beit ‘Awwa (4 hours and 38 minutes), where Senonian clay was used. Thus, at Fuqeiqis the jar was completed in 2 days, or some 30 hours; at Beit ‘Awwa it was completed over 3 separate days in 54 hours. (fig. 2.4 d, e, f; fig. 2.5 a, b, c).

Fuqeiqis Firing on 28 October 1976 In preparation for this firing, a hole was dug about 40 cm deep and 2.0 × 2.2 m wide (fig. 2.6 a; the same procedure was followed at Beit ‘Awwa). The fuel consisted mainly of chunks of very compacted sheep/goat manure. A layer of this dung was added at the bottom, and the jar was set on its side on the dung layer. The jar’s mouth pointed to the west. Initially the wind came from the east, but 6 hours later the wind shifted and came from the west. Dung not only covered the sides and the top of the jar, but about half of the interior of the jar was filled with looser donkey or goat/sheep manure. Soft limestone boulders 30–40 cm high were placed as a wall around the perimeter of the pile. The fire

was started at 05:30 in the morning with the aid of a bit of Sarcopoterium and kerosene. (fig. 2.6 b) Three thermocouples were used, one at the top of the jar, one inside the jar, and one at the bottom of the jar. At the top of the jar, maximum temperatures were reached at three different times: about 7 hours, 7 hours and 50 minutes, and 11 hours and 30 minutes after the start of the firings. Thereafter the temperature slowly and gradually declined at a rate of 13 °C per hour. Inside the jar an initial maximum was reached about 7 hours and 15 minutes, and 10 hours and 30 minutes from the start time, after which there was a long, gradual decline in temperature of about 0.2 °C per hour. At the bottom of the jar, the maximum temperature was reached 4–5 hours from the start, while in the middle of the jar there were two maximums, one at 7 hours and 15 minutes, the other at 16 hours from the start. (fig. 2.6 d, e, f) One factor that distinguished this firing from the other firings that we witnessed was that the fuel consisted of very compact sheep and goat dung compressed by standing animals in a nighttime corral or cave, with probable exposure to winter rain. This dense fuel ignited very slowly so that, 4 hours after the beginning, the temperature measured around 100 °C for all three thermocouples: at the top, the bottom, and inside the jar. The Fuqeiqis firing began with a jagged curve of the uppermost thermocouple. The double maximums with drops in temperature between the peaks might be explained by a combination of the potter’s addition of fuel and her poking with a stick inside the jar (fig. 2.6 c). Another factor could be the strong wind on the first day, which arose in the early morning blowing from the east and then shifted to the west. It seems doubtful that the slow start of the fire would have been caused mainly by a slightly damp fuel. Four conclusions to be drawn from this firing are (1) the more compact the manure, the slower it is to ignite and the more prolonged the firing becomes; (2) straw when added to dung increases the rate of burning, which is true of dung mixed with any fine, loose, non-compacted organic matter; (3) the sheer quantity of manure used as fuel would prolong the firing and delay the point at which the maximum temperature would be reached; and (4) a strong wind delays the ignition of the fuel and dissipates the heat, thereby lowering the maximum temperature reached.

DURA, FUQEIQIS AND BEIT ‘AWWA

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Fig. 2.4 -. a, b) Forming the bottom from a thick disc (Fuqeiqis) c) Rolling a lump of clay into a cylinder d, e, f) Forming the upper part of the jar by coiling (d, Fuqeiqis; e, f, Beit ‘Awwa)

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Fig. 2.5 -. a, b, c) Stages of forming the water jar

DURA, FUQEIQIS AND BEIT ‘AWWA

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Fig. 2.6 -. a) Pit or hole dug before a firing at Fuqeiqis b) Starting a fire at Fuqeiqis c) Potter poking the fuel to increase the firing temperature at Beit ‘Awwa d, e, f) Three firing stages for a Beit ‘Awwa jar

35

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36

Life of Shepherds Shepherd villagers living in areas of extensive winter cultivation follow a slightly different migratory pattern, which was still followed in the late twentieth century. During the summer months a shepherd would frequently sleep outdoors with his flocks away from the village, yet close enough to bring his flocks daily into the village for water and to obtain his own food at home. When in the winter both the hillsides and the valleys surrounding the village were planted, the shepherd was forced to find more distant pastures in uncultivated areas. As soon as the spring forage was high enough, in February, he and some of his family would leave the village and live for the next several months in a sheltered cave next to a stone wall enclosure for their flocks at night.

Before 1948, the Dura region’s shepherd families usually migrated into their low hill country land, the Shephelah. After 1948, when they were prevented from crossing the new Israeli border, they went instead into the higher, uncultivated mountainous lands immediately to the west of Dura. A few other family members went too, as additional hands were needed for the milking season, which was in the winter and spring. (Sheep and goats, unlike cows, do not provide milk in the summer and fall.) The women did the milking, churning, butter making, and cheese making; they also swept up the manure from the corral for future use as fuel with bread ovens. Shepherding and shearing were done by the men. Sometime in May, after the wheat and barley had been harvested, they would all return to their village homes.

Beit ‘Anan At Beit ‘Anan, a village located 7 km due west of al Jib and on the same east–west road, both cooking pots and ceramic jars were made. Beit ‘Anan is the westernmost of three villages high up on an east–west ridge that begins with Biddu to the east, followed to the west by Qubaibah (one of the candidates for the New Testament site of Emmaus). The road ends at Beit ‘Anan, where the buses originated that served the villages along the way to Jerusalem, including the two just referred to plus al Jib and Bir Nabala. To the longtime residents of Jerusalem, Beit ‘Anan was famous for its delicious figs, which were sold in the summer along the Old City’s sidewalks by women from Beit ‘Anan. To the women of neighboring villages, Beit ‘Anan and Beitunia were known as places where some women would make baskets from the shoots of olive trees and other trees. Most of Beit ‘Anan’s agricultural land was in the form of terraces, and olives were its chief crop. In the 1970s, the majority of its male laborers worked in West Jerusalem. Electricity came to the village in the summer of 1976. Rather accidentally I learned of pottery making in Beit ‘Anan when I met relatives of one of the potters while waiting for a bus to al Jib in the summer of 1975. Late that same year I went to Beit ‘Anan and met a potter, Hajit Wazna Shahada, who showed me a number of large older jars in several of the houses. These, although similar in shape, were distinctly different from the jars made in towns or villages such as 47 Wazna passed away in 1982 at the age of 87.

Beitunia, Ramallah, or Sinjil, because the Beit ‘Anan jars were burnished and had a raised “rope” decoration (qilade, a large necklace) around the neck. In addition, they also had red-painted geometric and tree designs or raised decorative “trees.” Pot making at Beit ‘Anan, however, was of rather recent vintage; it began in the first quarter of the twentieth century when Wazna’s mother returned from an eighteen-year stay at Salt in Jordan. It was in Salt that Wazna was born ca. 1899 and there, from the women of Salt, that her mother learned to make ceramic water jars; she brought the craft back with her to Beit ‘Anan. Wazna47 herself learned the art of making pottery from her mother after her marriage at Beit ‘Anan, as did a number of Beit ‘Anan women. Wazna’s grandmother was from al Jib, the village renowned throughout southern Palestine for its cooking pots. She married a man from Beit ‘Anan, moved there, and taught her daughter, who in turn taught her daughter Wazna how to make the “al Jib” cooking pot. Thus, there were close family connections between Beit ‘Anan and al Jib, and at Beit ‘Anan the whole art of making pottery was acquired within a period of fifty to one hundred years either from the neighboring village of al Jib or from Salt in Jordan. If a woman at Beit ‘Anan wanted a water jar, she dug the clay, collected the sherds, crushed them into grog, kneaded the clay-grog mixture, and took it to the potter ready to use when the pot was to be built.

BEIT ‘ANAN

37

The potter neither burnished nor painted the jar herself; those tasks were left to the future owner. As soon as her pot was finished and had dried enough, the owner would take it to her home, where she continued to burnish it and eventually painted it. As will be seen, the jars were communally fired, but the jar’s owner supplied the fuel and supervised the firing of her particular jar or jars. The potter herself received a certain amount of money for making the jar. The 1976 potters’ fee was 20 Israeli lira (IL)48 (about $2.00) per large jar. Incidentally, the potter was paid even if the jar broke into pieces during the firing. Actually Hajit Wazna had not made any pottery in the decade prior to the mid-1970s, but she agreed to do so if I would bring the clay and pay her a certain amount in addition to somehow finding the necessary fuel. In this special case, she collected the sherds, ground them, kneaded the clay, and burnished and painted the completed jars.

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The clay was dug at al Jib’s traditional quarry by the women from Beit ‘Anan, who used to come with a donkey on which they carried the clay back home. By road the distance was some 10.6 km. In the 1970s, a woman accompanied by another woman or her son would often ride the bus from Beit ‘Anan to the road junction midway between Biddu and al Jib. From there she would walk the remaining distance to the quarry, dig the clay, put it into a burlap sack, and carry this on her head back to the bus route. Often one bag was not enough, so she returned to the quarry to bring back more clay. As soon as she returned home, she would empty the bags and spread the clay out to dry in full sun on her freshly swept flat roof or other clean surface. There the clay would remain for at least four days drying thoroughly; clay that is at all damp simply will not break up in water and remains a nonhomogeneous lumpy slurry. The dried clay was usually broken up into smaller lumps about the size of a broad bean, that is, about 2 cm in diameter, by rolling the crushing stone back and forth over it (fig. 2.7). In the meantime ancient sherds, sherds from modern Hebron or Gaza earthenware, wheel-made pot fragments, plus pieces from their own hand-formed jars were gathered together and washed if dirty. Actually Beit ‘Anan is the only place I encountered where sherds from potters’ own hand-built items were 48 Israel replaced the lira with the shekel in February 1980.

Fig. 2.7 -. Rolling a large stone to crush the clay chunks

ground into grog. In other places such sherds were explicitly avoided, for the potters said they were too soft or simply “binfash”—they “don’t work.” The sherds were crushed beneath a large stone (dirdās) 30 × 32 × 27 cm by either rocking it back and forth or rolling it around over the sherds. The well-worn, lower crushing surface of the stone was not cylindrical but oval in shape, which lent itself to a rolling motion. Not every household had its own crushing stone, and others often used the potter’s, which was down in her cellar, where the floor was paved with heavy flat stones. At times while the potter was upstairs potting, I could hear from down below the characteristic sound made by the rolling of a dirdās, and I knew that other women who wanted jars were preparing their temper. At Beit ‘Anan, sometimes two women would sit on opposite sides of the stone and push in unison. The grog was sifted through a double layer of 2-mm-mesh window screen that had been tied over the top of a tin can ca. 20 cm in diameter and was open at both ends. Calcite (‫ۊ‬DMDUDOPƗOL‫)ۊ‬, which was used for tempering cooking pots, was said to be easier to crush than sherds. First the stone slab floor was carefully swept so that none of the grog was mixed with the calcite. Then larger pieces of calcite were broken with a hammer into lumps ca. 10 cm in diameter. These were further reduced to pieces ca. 2 cm or less by hitting them with the broad surface of an oval chert nodule ca. 10 × 10 × 8 cm, then ground into fine granules with the crushing stone, and finally sifted as above.

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Clay Body Preparation

Forming Techniques

The thoroughly dried and slightly crushed clay lumps were placed in a metal container, and enough water was added to just cover the top of the clay. This was left to stand overnight. The following morning, the preparation of the clay-temper mixture began. Inside her house the potter would sit on the floor with her left leg bent at the knee and pulled into her groin, while her right leg was fully extended. At times both legs were crossed. For most Westerners accustomed to sitting always in chairs, these are impossible positions to maintain for any length of time; but the Palestinian village women would often sit and work in such a manner. And the straight-backed chair was actually a relatively recent introduction from the West.

One of the characteristic features at Beit ‘Anan was that the pottery was not made outdoors but rather inside. As a result, the pots dried more slowly and were never finished in one day, as was usually the case elsewhere for the large water jars. Instead, here the potter added only a single layer per day to a pot. In her heyday, the potter would start ten large water jars on the same day and build them up over a period of five days, for the water jar at Beit ‘Anan was constructed in five layers. The potter would do the initial drawing up and smoothing in the morning, and the final shaping and smoothing in the afternoon. On the sixth day, she would start all over again with ten more jars. Undoubtedly during the potting season, things would get a bit crowded, as her house consisted of a single room that served as a kitchen as well as a living, dining, and sleeping room. It was an old house with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, a single door, and no windows; in the summer it was always cool inside, even on the warmest of days. The slower drying of pottery made inside the house was advantageous for producing a good burnish, since one had to do this when the clay was at a certain stage of dryness. Outside, where in Palestine the skies are always clear in summer, it would be very difficult to catch the right stage of dryness with pots drying so quickly.

The potter placed a fairly heavy, tightly woven, worn-out men’s jacket or a piece of plastic on the floor in front of her. After spreading out a certain amount of temper on the cloth or piece of plastic, she scooped up and mixed the wet clay with the temper. In general, she did not measure the amount but judged the proportions by feel and experience. She said the proper mixture for the cooking pot was about half calcite to half wet clay by volume, while clay used to make the other pottery had slightly less temper mixed with it, about one-third grog to twothirds wet clay. Not all the clay and temper were mixed at once, but only enough to form a lump ca. 25 × 15 × 10 cm (GD‫ۊ‬EnjUD; pl. GD‫ۊ‬DEƯU). This lump was wedged by pushing the palms of both hands forward and at the same time squeezing the fingertips into the wet clay-temper mixture. The lump was returned to its original position, and the push– squeeze action was repeated (fig. 2.8). The lump was then turned 90 degrees and again wedged twice in the same manner. The lump was then set aside, and one or more piles of such lumps were built up until there was enough clay to complete the pottery to be made (fig. 2.9). When not being wedged or used, the clay piles were covered with either a cloth or a plastic sheet. Such wedging was repeated once each day for five consecutive days before the clay was ready to be used. One would not simply remove and wedge the original lumps each day, but would also scoop in three to four handfuls of clay from the side of the pile. In this way, the lumps were mixed together and the clay from the entire pile gradually became uniformly mixed. Only if the potter happened to run out of clay before a pot was finished, was less thoroughly wedged clay used.

Forming of the Water Jar Sitting next to the door, where the light was good, the potter placed a board on the floor that was a bit larger than the base she was about to make. On the board she spread a ca. 1-cm layer of tābūn ash and placed a sheet of plastic over the ash. She would take a lump of clay in both hands, squeeze it with her fingertips, and rotate and squeeze it again until a clay disc was formed (fig. 2.10 a). Its thickness was further reduced and its diameter increased by patting it between both hands. This whole process was somewhat reminiscent of the formation of a flat loaf of tābūn bread. The disc was placed on top of the plastic sheet and patted down; then the woman drew the fingertips of her right hand over the top, leaving grooves that were removed by wet-smoothing with her entire hand. She then trimmed the edge with her forefinger. This was the base (qā‘a) of what was to become a large water jar (zīr) with a diameter of 28 cm (fig. 2.10 b). The standard unit for the building of the walls of any vessel was a slab (hubās) ca. 30 × 14 × 2 cm (fig. 2.10 c). It was formed in much the same way at Beit ‘Anan as at Sinjil, Qabalan, and Qusra, except that

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39

Fig. 2.8 -. Wedging a lump of clay

Fig. 2.9 -. A pile of enough clay lumps made to complete a pot

here it was never grooved. The potter would scoop a certain quantity of clay off the pile of clay and would hold it in both hands. She would squeeze her fingertips into the clay, which pushed the soft clay out. Instead of rotating the lump, as in the formation of the base at the end, she would move her fingers up and once again squeeze. This process was repeated until the clay had been squeezed into a loaf (fig. 2.10 d). The side with the finger impressions was laid upright on her horizontally held left arm and patted down with her right hand. Three slabs were needed to go around the circumference of the disc, but of course as its size increased more slabs were needed to complete the circumference.

The smoothing of the walls was done in the following manner: (1) On the inside, the potter used the fingertips of her right hand to pull up the wet clay (fig. 2.10 e). This produced the characteristic diagonal striations, which were obliterated with subsequent smoothing. (2) On the outside the potter drew up the clay with a rectangular piece of wood, 19 × 3.5 × 0.8 cm (fig. 2.10 f). (3) Finally, she smoothed the inside with the rounded convex edge of a broken wooden spoon ca. 10.5 × 4.5 × 5 cm. Occasionally the potter trimmed the rim by pushing the lower edge of her right thumb forward against the edge of the wet clay (fig. 2.11 a, b). In all of these operations, her left hand was used to support the clay immediately

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Fig. 2.10 -. a) The first stage in forming the base as a disc b) Working from the formed base of a large water jar c) A slab added to the base for raising the walls d) Making a clay loaf e) Pulling up the clay to form the jar’s walls f) Using a wooden tool to help in drawing up the wall

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Fig. 2.11 -. a, b) Potter trimming the rim with her thumb c) Placing the pot in the sun for a short drying phase

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Fig. 2.12 -. a) Forming the upper part of the jar by pulling the clay upward and inward b) Finishing the flat rim with a flat stick

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Fig. 2.13 -. a) Forming a handle -. b, c) Drawing an incision line down the handle’s length -. d) Building the upper layers of a water jar -. e) Making the rim with a small piece of clay -. f) Applying the rope decoration to the wet clay

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a)

b) Fig. 2.14 -. a) Older jar showing tree designs above the handles -. b) Using a chicken feather to paint a jar

opposite to where she worked. The pot with its board base could now be placed on a flat, straw-woven tray (‫܈‬innīya) and carried outside to dry in the sun for a short while (fig. 2.11 c). There it was occasionally turned so that its shaded side would face the sun; in this way the pot would dry evenly. In the meantime, the potter busied herself with another pot or pots. If the pot had been placed in the sun for quicker drying, after no more than ca. forty-five minutes, two women would take hold of the edges of the straw tray and carry it back inside, where the potter would repeat smoothing and final shaping with the flat stick on the outside and the spoon on the inside. At this point she might rub over the entire surface, inside and out, with a moistened, well worn, and very smooth flint pebble (midlak) ca. 5.8 × 3.6 × 2.0 cm. The first stage of the water jar looked like a large bowl. If the potter wasn’t quite satisfied with the pot, she might once again repeat the smoothing procedure, but in general this was left until the next day, when the next layer was added. With the addition of each of the first four layers, the pot was built up by ca. 13 cm. The maximum diameter was reached with the third layer; at the beginning of the fourth day, before the fourth layer was added, the handles were attached. Handles. The handles were formed by rolling a lump of clay back and forth between both hands (fig. 2.13 a). The roll was patted down and smoothed slightly to give it an oval cross-section. With her thumbnail, the potter gouged out a bit of clay from the wall of the pot at the point where the handle’s lower end was to be attached. One end of the roll was attached to this point. The upper end of the handle was then fastened to the rim of the third

layer, and bits of clay were used to secure the joins. After shaping and wet-smoothing, the potter turned the pot 90 degrees counterclockwise. Continuing to sit, she then pressed in and drew her thumb down the entire length of the handle (fig. 2.13 b, c). In this way a vertical concave groove was produced that was characteristic of the jar handles at Beit ‘Anan. Four handles were attached to the jar. After the first one was attached, the opposite handle was added. Its centering was measured by hand spans around the rim’s circumference. Hand spans also measured the proper position of the third and fourth handles. Neck and rim. In building the fourth layer, the potter stood and leaned over while she worked; instead of first pulling her fingertips over the inside surface, she now drew them up over the outside, and in doing so she pulled the clay upward and inward, gradually closing the opening (fig. 2.12 a). Otherwise the jar’s fourth layer was smoothed as usual. Once the fourth layer had been added, the wall of the jar was turned inward and its diameter gradually decreased (fig. 2.13 d). On the fifth and last day, the vertical neck (raqaba) of the jar was added. As was done with the fourth layer, the fingertips were first drawn up over the outside of the jar. The clay was drawn up vertically some 20 cm, the outside and inside were smoothed in the usual way, and the top was trimmed. A bit of clay was rolled out between both hands to form a roll ca. 1 cm in diameter, which was stuck onto the inside of the rim (fig. 2.13 e). The top of the rim was flattened by going over it with the flat stick (fig. 2.12 b).

BEIT ‘ANAN

Decoration. Immediately after the rim was completed, the rope design, or “necklace,” was added (fig. 2.13 f). The potter rolled out between both hands a lump of clay ca. 1 cm and placed it as a horizontal ring around the jar’s upper shoulder. With her thumb and forefinger held together, she smoothed and pressed the roll into the wall. The indentations that gave the appearance of the “rope” design were quickly made by consecutively pressing around the entire circumference with the tip of her forefinger. Finally, a small lump was stuck onto the top of each handle, smoothed, and shaped to form their characteristic knobs. Some of the older jars at Beit ‘Anan were decorated with raised tree designs that sprang from the top of the handles (fig. 2.14 a). According to the potter, these raised trees and the painting (see below) originated not in Salt but in Beit ‘Anan. In the 1970s, however, such raised designs were not added. At my request, the potter did apply the raised trees to two of the large jars. On the sixth day, a thin roll was formed and pressed into the wall, and then firmly attached by using the V shape made by pressing her thumb and forefinger together. Instead of pressing in with her forefinger to produce a rope design, the potter took a matchstick and repeatedly pressed it lightly into the clay. Painting. The jars dried gradually from the part made first, the bottom, to the top, so that the proper stage of dryness for burnishing, the “leather-hard” stage, did not occur all over the pot at once; thus, just as the jar was made in stages, it also had to be burnished in stages. Shortly before firing, the jars were painted with red ochre, which could be purchased at a hardware store in Ramallah or Jerusalem. Shepherds also used ochre (miġre) to mark their sheep. One of the Beit ‘Anan women did not bother to make a special trip to the city to buy miġre but simply used a thin slurry of terra rosa soil (samaqa), which, after firing, was not red but brown. Traditionally a chicken feather was used as a brush (rīš ) (fig. 2.14 b). After being dipped into an aqueous slurry of red ochre, while not holding much paint, it produced a rather fine delicate line. Occasionally the potter would apply dots or even fill in triangles by simply dipping the tip of her index finger into the miġre and then using her finger as a brush (finger painting). In 1976, the potter’s older son purchased a rather stiff brush, ca. 0.5 cm wide, which she rather liked as it was quicker, though it produced a wider line than the chicken feather. Readily admitting that she was not good at painting, the potter asked several other women to paint part or all of some of her jars. Her older son also painted several smaller jars.

45

The younger generation of women, however, were not acquainted with the traditional designs and inevitably put on what they knew best—large flowers, which became the commonest motif sewn onto their dresses. The older jars at Beit ‘Anan were painted with motifs much like those embroidered on the older dresses—triangles, diamonds, and fine stylized trees. In the 1970s, the painting was a slightly garish mixture of simplified, wide-lined, traditional designs plus the large flowers that were usually painted by younger women. Here, as at Beitunia, the trend was toward a simple, quickly applied mixture of the new and the old.

Firing of the Water Jars On the morning of 24 October 1976, the pots were carried about 120 m from the potter’s home to a spot on the northern edge of the village that was used as a refuse dump. This was at the upper edge of the slope; immediately to the northeast the ground began to descend steeply into the deep wadi below (fig. 2.15). To the south was the fenced yard of the mosque with high pine trees, and on the southwest and farther west there were houses. In the dump ca. 2 m below the top of the ridge, a space was leveled with a hoe. It measured ca. 4.2 m lengthwise, in the east–west direction, and 2.2 m wide, that is, to the north and south. After one large pan of cold tābūn ash had been spread out, the jars were laid on their sides with their mouths facing west. Three stones with a diameter of ca. 15 cm were used to hold each jar up off the ground (fig. 2.16). Two of the stones propped up two adjoining handles, and the third supported the base. No fuel was placed beneath the pots but rather was piled over them. In this particular firing, there were three groups of pots: Three large water jars placed in a line on the west belonged to Umm Nasser and her sister-in-law, who were the potter’s next-door neighbors. My two large water jars plus several smaller items were placed at the east end of the pile. In between, the potter placed the third and largest group of various sized water jars. She had made these jars with the excess clay I had brought her, and most of them were destined for various women in the village. The smaller jars were not necessarily oriented east–west. My own arrangements with the potter did not include the firing, as the potter herself had no livestock and therefore no manure. So I had to pay another woman for the fuel; that woman, not the potter, added the fuel to my jars. Thus, there were three quite distinct fires in the same pile. Each woman would add a

46

WOMEN POTTERS

certain type and quantity of dung to her own jars, which were not identical to the others. After the jars were set in place, the respective owners added fuel to their particular jars. At the west end of the pile, Umm Nasser covered her jars with somewhat compacted sheep and goat dung (killis). This was the only type of dung added to the west end throughout the entire firing. At the east end of the pile, my jars were first covered with cow manure, which had been mixed while wet with chopped straw, formed into pads, and dried. Then non-compacted sheep and goat manure was also added. At the beginning, the potter herself did not add any dung to the middle section, but only trash gathered nearby consisting of paper, cardboard, chicken feathers, old clothes, shoes, and rubber boots. At 08:41 the fire was lit at the west and east ends with paper, whereas the middle section was lit by adding a large pan of hot tābūn ash. (fig. 2.17 a, b, c, d, e)

progressed. At 13:00 hours (approximately 4 hours and 20 minutes from the start) sheets of scrap tin ca. 30 cm high were placed at the west end of the fire to protect against the wind, and at ca. 16:00 hours (about 7.5 hours from the start) scrap metal from the surrounding junk yard was stacked around the edges so as to completely encircle the pile. By 17:15 hours (ca. 8.6 hours from the start), when the first rain of the year began to fall, sheet metal scraps were quickly gathered and placed over the entire pile (fig. 2.19). This accounted for the sudden ca. 100 °C rise in temperature at the top of the pile. Fortunately the rain was light and did not last long, after which the wind subsided. A little later the metal sheeting was removed from the top of the pile.

The day itself was somewhat overcast, and about 30 minutes after the beginning of the firing, a rather strong west wind came up which increased as the day

Although after the start the potter continued to add paper and other trash to the middle section, no dung was added until ca. 1.3 hours after the beginning of the firing. Then dung of mixed composition (donkey, cow, sheep, goat) kept being added gradually until about 5.3 hours from the start. The potter was following the advice of a male potter who had once visited Beit ‘Anan and had told her how to avoid breakage.

Fig. 2.15 -. Preparing the firing space

Fig. 2.16 -. Raising a jar above the ground using three stones

a)

b) Fig. 2.17 -. a, b) Various firing stages at Beit ‘Anan

BEIT ‘ANAN

c)

d)

e) Fig. 2.17 -. c, d, e) Various firing stages at Beit ‘Anan

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He urged her to begin the firing slowly and only later to add the main portion of the fuel. The woman tending the east end of the fire continued to add non-compacted sheep and goat dung as fuel for the first 3 hours of firing, after which she was seen no more, while at the west end Umm Nasser added her last compacted goat/sheep dung 4 hours from the start. All three women added various types of trash during the firing. The potter’s last addition of fuel was made some 7 hours after the start, and the added trash included an old rug, burlap sacks, and oily cloths (fig. 2.20). Once the fire was well launched, about 2 hours from the start, they had begun to add large quantities of dried cactus (saber) that they had gathered from the slopes below an area where there were large quantities of cactus plants in long rows. A female cousin of the potter and her daughter-inlaw, both of whom had jars coming to them, aided the potter in gathering the dead cactus branches, some of which were 2 to 3 m in length. They carried the branches up to the firing site on their heads (fig. 2.21). The Beit ‘Anan firing graph only partially reflects what was happening during the firing itself (fig. 2.18). Three thermocouples had been placed beneath, inside, and on top of the largest jar at the west end of the pile. A fourth thermocouple was placed in the middle of the potter’s jars, ca. 20 cm from the tops of the jars; unfortunately that one broke during the firing when I tried to remove it in order to measure the firing temperature of cooking pots that the potter had placed alongside the pile and fired with the dried cactus stems. The abrupt rises in temperature recorded at the top of the largest jar early in the firing were uncharacteristic of any dung firings recorded elsewhere, and were probably attributable to the cactus or miscellaneous debris rather than to the dung. Especially characteristic of a goat/sheep dung firing was the slow but steady fall in temperature after the maximum had been reached. In this case, the temperature fell by half a degree C per minute. The maximum temperature reached inside the largest jar was 727 °C (1341 °F), which is 108 ˚C below the highest temperature reached on the outside top of the jar: 835 °C (1535 °F). While at the east end the maximum temperature was reached in about 2.5 hours, in the west and middle sections of the pile the maximum was probably reached 8 or more hours after the start. For it was then that the interiors of the jars glowed with an orange-white color. Occasionally the potter and Umm Nasser poked into the fire with an iron rod to allow air into the interior. About 14 hours from the beginning, the smaller pots and jars were uncovered and turned to see if they had any black spots (fig. 2.22). If they did, the blackened

area was turned upright and covered with hot glowing dung ash, in an attempt to turn the black spots red. At the east end, the temperature at the top of the jar declined slightly faster (0.51 °C per minute) than the cooling rate for the interior (0.50 °C per minute); the cooling rate at the bottom of the pot was 0.37 °C per minute. After about 11 hours from the start and thereafter, the top of the jar became the coolest part of the jar and the bottom the warmest part. The interior remained at a temperature between that of the top and the bottom of the pot. Both the potter and Umm Nasser sat up talking almost all night, huddled close to the warmth of the fire. At about 03:30 both women finally went home, leaving me to guard the fire. At ca. 07:00 the next morning, women began to gather, and the metal sheeting around the periphery was removed. At about 08:20 the pots from the middle and east end were removed. The last jars at the west end were removed at ca. 08:55, just slightly over 24 hours from the start. The jars that were fired. The firing included six large jars for storing water or oil (hišše kibire and zīr referring to the largest); eleven smaller water or oil jars (hišše ziġire), which were made with two or three layers; one small two-handled pot for sour milk (bōše, also called qa‘aqura); one large bowl used for bread dough (karmiya or batiya); one smaller bowl (hanābe) with miscellaneous uses, including the rubbing down of the dried sour milk balls (kišik); and one lamp (sirāj; pl. asraja). Five of the six large jars were already accounted for. The potter kept the sixth for herself as a water jar. The eleven smaller jars were distributed in the following manner: Three of them went to the wife of the potter’s oldest son, who had helped in crushing the grog and fueling the fire; two were given to her oldest daughter in return for much of the dried dung; one was given in exchange for 3 kg of fresh olives and sewing done on a dress; and another was given to a woman who had brought and ground sherds. The remaining four were sold, one to an Israeli known to the potter’s son, and three to me for 30 IL ($3.00) per pot. Although the potter, Hajit Wazna, had not made any pottery for some twelve years, on her completion of this first group of jars, other Beit ‘Anan women became envious and persuaded her to make jars for them too. Thus, in 1976 the potter made a total of forty-five water jars, which were fired in three separate firings, the last of which occurred in early December, surprisingly late in the season. Measures taken to prevent breakage. After firing, any larger cracks were filled with cement. Sometimes as an insurance against breakage, a thin layer of cement

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Fig. 2.18 -. Firing graph for the water jars at Beit ‘Anan

Fig. 2.19 -. Metal scraps covering the pottery pile to protect it from rain

Fig. 2.20 -. Trash composed of fiber used as a fuel

Fig. 2.21 -. Potters carrying branches to the firing site

Fig. 2.22 -. Uncovering fired pots, which show black spots on the surface

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was applied to both the outside and inside of the base and lower walls. Before a jar was used, a brew was made by boiling the bark of the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) in water. The outer layer of the thick bark from older trees was collected and crushed into pieces less than 1 cm by pounding it with a stone (ca. 12 × 10 × 6 cm) on a cement floor. The pieces were then placed in a pot with water added, heated, and allowed to boil for about 15 minutes. Once cooled, the dark brown solution was poured into the jar, swished around the inside, and allowed to stand for two to three days. After the jar had been rinsed out with water, it was ready to use. This bark brew was said to seal any minute cracks in the jar, thus preventing it from leaking, and to give a pleasant flavor to the water. In some other areas of Palestine, the bark from the roots of the Palestine oak (Quercus calliprinos) was used for the same purpose; and at Dhahiriya, on the road between Hebron and Beersheba, I learned that eucalyptus bark could also serve this purpose. During use, the water jars stood upright on the floor inside the house. Often the potter’s water jar was located conveniently for filling next to the door. A jar containing oil was set upright in a more out-ofthe-way corner.

Forming of the Cooking Pot To make a cooking pot, the potter began by placing a cloth inside a large pottery bowl (batiya, karmiya) or round metal pan. She then took a large lump of the clay-calcite mixture, put it on the cloth, and punched her fist into its center. The clay was then spread out, and a wall perpendicular to the base was formed. The potter used her straight rectangular board to smooth and draw up the outside, and her wooden spoon tool for smoothing on the inside. Where the perpendicular walls met the flat base, the clay was left two to three times thicker than the thickness of either the base or the walls. Looking much like a cylindrical bowl, the initial form was left to dry partially. After the rim was firm enough to hold a second layer, two slabs were formed and added to the rim. The rectangular wooden board tool was then used to pull the rim up and at the same time inward, which both increased the height and narrowed the opening. After the two-layer rim was trimmed, it was turned outward and down over the outside to produce a thickened rim, and the whole exposed outer and inner surface was smoothed by hand as well as with the wooden rectangular board or the wooden spoon tool (fig. 2.23 a, b, c, d).

The resulting intermediate form was set aside to dry for a short time, after which the outer exposed surface was smoothed with a moistened stone pebble burnishing tool. To make the handles, the potter then formed a rectangular slab about 1 cm thick in her hand. A bit of clay was removed from one of its longer edges to form a slight concave indentation; this edge was stuck onto the side of the pot. The handle was wet-smoothed by hand and, when the desired shape was achieved, the potter punched in the characteristic hole with her forefinger. After likewise being shaped and wet-smoothed, the opposite handle was attached. (fig. 2.24 a, b, c, d) The top of the pot had to be fairly dry before it was removed from the bowl and turned upside down. The cloth was then pulled away. Holding it in her lap, the potter used a large spoon to trim the thickening at the junction of the base and wall. She then used her fist or fingertips to push outward on the inside bottom of the pot, giving the bottom added curvature. Any cracks produced by this pushing out were filled in with bits of the clay-calcite mix. After wet-smoothing, the pot was set upside down to dry. Once the base had dried and hardened somewhat, it was wet-smoothed with the moistened stone pebble burnishing tool. After further drying and before firing, the traditional puncture design (nquš ) was made with the end of a matchstick. Since the potter was not good at any type of decoration, she asked a young (twentyyear-old) dressmaker who happened to be present to add the decoration. The younger woman painted large-petaled flowers on the upper sides of one of the pots plus a zigzag line along the rims and outer edges of the handles.

Comparison of Cooking Pot Manufacture at Beit ‘Anan and al Jib Basically the forming of the cooking pot at Beit ‘Anan resembled the forming of the cooking pot at al Jib, which is the village from which the tradition was brought by the potter’s grandmother. At Beit ‘Anan, however, the forming process had been modified in several ways: 1 The initial form (consisting of the base and lower rounded walls) was not made on the ash-sprinkled, unbaked clay-chaff plate, as at al Jib, but in a ceramic or metal bowl serving as a concave mold, with a cloth placed between the bowl and the clay.

BEIT ‘ANAN

2 The clay-calcite lump was formed from the beginning within the bowl and not as at al Jib, where a ball of clay was first punched and drawn up over the potter’s forearm before being transferred to the plate. At Beit ‘Anan, the potter punched her fist into the center of the lump; with the wooden spoon tool she spread out the clay within the bowl and smoothed the inside. The exact shape of the exterior walls depended on the size and shape of the bowl used as a mold. The thickness of the curved part of the pot’s lower walls was two to three times that of the base or the more perpendicular walls as they emerged from the mold. The external walls of the pot, above the mold, were smoothed and shaped with the rectangular wooden tool and set aside to dry for a short time. 3 The potter at Beit ‘Anan used the same tools for the cooking pot as when forming her water jars, that is, the broken wooden spoon, the rectangular board, and the smooth stone pebble. At al Jib, where no water jars were made, the only tool used was a piece of reed (būs). The tools used significantly affected the outer surface finish. 4 The handle at al Jib was made by applying an inverted V-shaped roll to the pot’s side. Then in an intricate series of manipulations, this roll was drawn out and shaped. At Beit ‘Anan a rectangular slab more nearly approximating the final handle shape was applied. 5 At Beit ‘Anan the traditional puncture decoration was modified, especially with the motif of large-petaled flowers, and a similar design was made with red ochre paint. Comparison of the details of the manufacture of the cooking pot at Beit ‘Anan with its manufacture at al Jib reveals a remarkable transformation. One might have expected the al Jib tradition to be strictly adhered to at Beit ‘Anan. This, however, was not the case. While Beit ‘Anan villagers passed through al Jib on their way to and from Jerusalem, al Jib residents would have had little reason or occasion to travel west to Beit ‘Anan, since it was located at the end of a dead-end road. At al Jib, the presence of other al Jib women potters favored a certain adherence to a long and successful tradition, whereas at Beit ‘Anan the craft of pot making had been more recently acquired, so that there was no reason for such a strict adherence to tradition. Many of the innovations at Beit ‘Anan were the result of applying to the cooking pot the finishing details of Beit ‘Anan’s likewise newly acquired craft of making water jars. Thus, the

51

Beit ‘Anan cooking pot, burnished and painted, represented an amalgamation of the burnished pottery of the Salt region and the al Jib cooking pot.

Firing of the Cooking Pots On the afternoon of 24 October 1976, the potter placed her cooking pots on their sides in an east–west line along the north edge of the water jars that were also being fired (fig. 2.26) (see above, p. 45). She propped the cooking pots up off the ground with fist-sized stones. She then placed pieces of dried cactus leaves (Opuntia ficus-indica) on top of the pots and lit the leaves by sprinkling hot ash from the adjacent firing over them. Gradually papers, old burlap, feathers, and more cactus leaves were added. After about 50 minutes, she inspected the pots and found them not sufficiently fired, as they were still black (samra). Because my thermocouples were in use measuring the adjacent firing of jars, no measurements were made of this firing. However, the next morning after the water jars had been taken away, the potter once again propped up her cooking pots along with two grog-tempered large bowls that still had blackened areas on them, and re-fired them on top of the still warm ash from the dung firing (see fig. 2.22). Initially cactus was added and ignited at 09:25. It burned rapidly with many flames. About 11 minutes later, she added some burlap bags, which also quickly burst into flame. At ca. 33 minutes from the start, more cactus was added; and at 40 minutes a straw mat was added, which burned rapidly. At about 45 minutes from the start, the potter began to cover the pots with large old metal pans or metal sheeting (fig. 2.27). After they were completely covered at about 60 minutes from the start, she went home, leaving me to guard the pots. Shortly after 13:00 hours she returned, removed the pans, and took the cooking pots and two bowls home. As on the previous day, rather strong winds came up shortly after the firing began and increased in intensity as the day progressed. Regarding temperature changes, during the first 10 minutes there was a rapid temperature rise of 71  °C per minute, which was much more gradual on the inside and bottom of the pot at 27 °C and 10 °C per minute, respectively. In general, the temperature increased immediately with each addition of fuel. The most marked rise was with the addition of cactus at 33 minutes, when at the top of the pot for the next 2 minutes there was a rapid increase of 95 °C per minute. Between the outside top and bottom of the pot, there was a difference of 266 °C (480 °F) in the maximum temperature reached.

WOMEN POTTERS

52

a)

c)

b)

d)

Fig. 2.23 -. a, b, c, d) Stages of building the intermediate form by hand and with a wooden tool

BEIT ‘ANAN

53

a)

c)

b)

d)

Fig. 2.24 -. a, b, c, d) Stages of attaching the handles to the cooking pot

WOMEN POTTERS

54

Firing 800 700

TEMPERATURE °C

1 600 500

2

400 300 200 100 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

TIME (Hours)

Fig. 2.25 -. Firing graph for the cooking pots at Beit ‘Anan

The 595 °C (1103 °F) maximum inside the pot was undoubtedly a more representative median for the pot as a whole. The fall in temperature inside and at the bottom of the pot was more gradual for cactus than for Sarcopoterium, but the rate of temperature decline was undoubtedly influenced by the addition of the sheet metal covering. The maximum temperature of the cactus firing was comparable to that of Sarcopoterium and again well within the limits of minimum calcination (fig. 2.25). At Beit ‘Anan and Kafr al Labad, to the west of Nablus, dried-out cactus stems were sometimes used instead of Sarcopoterium for cooking pot firings.49 The cactus Opuntia ficus-indica (Arabic, saber) is not

indigenous to Palestine or the Mediterranean region but is native to Mexico, from where it was brought sometime after the European discovery of the New World. In this region it has had two major uses: In the late twentieth century in midsummer, its fruit was picked and sold especially in the Arab markets of the Middle East. In the past it was also planted as a very effective thorny barrier, growing to a height of about 3 m. Easily propagated by cuttings, once established it is difficult to eradicate. In pre-1967 Israel and on the Golan Heights, it was often the only remnant of former Palestinian (or Syrian) villages that were systematically bulldozed away by the Israeli government.

49 Grace M. CROWFOOT, “Pots, Ancient and Modern,” Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1932): 179–87, here 185.

BEIT ‘ANAN

Fig. 2.26 -. Arranging the water jars before firing

Fig. 2.27 -. Covering the pots with metal pans

55

WOMEN POTTERS

56

Fig. 2.28 -. A distant view of al Jib

al Jib Until the 1970s, the village of al Jib was a regional center for the production and distribution of cooking pots (qidra) for much of the area between Jerusalem and Nablus (fig. 2.28). The women would stay in their households to make these pots, which the men then fired.50 After firing, the men loaded donkeys with as many as thirty-two pots and sold them in distant towns and villages. In the case of storage jars, however, the women not only fired the jars but also gathered and prepared all the fuel for their firing. The cooking pot—in its temper, the technology of its manufacture, and its firing—was quite distinct from the storage jar.

dwellers, but it was also a center where the women of al Jib would meet women from other villages surrounding Jerusalem who came into Jerusalem to sell fruits and vegetables. On Fridays and on the Muslim feast days, the market was even more expanded with the influx into Jerusalem of pilgrims from villages beyond the immediate environs, coming to pray at the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Thus, because of its proximity to an important commercial center, where its wares could be bartered or exchanged for cash, al Jib had an incentive to produce cooking pots.

Al Jib developed as a regional center for the production of cooking pots for a number of reasons, one being its proximity to Jerusalem. The women of al Jib were frequently seen even in the late 1970s selling vegetables and fruit, especially fresh figs, at the Damascus Gate into Jerusalem’s Old City. In the past, the Damascus Gate was also the place where these women would sell cooking pots. Even in Palestine prior to the advent of the automobile, al Jib may have been close enough to Jerusalem by foot and donkey to reach the city in time to unload and sell their wares outside the Damascus Gate and return to the village by nightfall. Thus, not only was Jerusalem an important commercial outlet for city

Clay Source Another important reason why al Jib became the center for the entire region’s cooking pot manufacture is the widespread local outcropping of the superior kaolinitic clay of the Moza formation. Wherever one digs down about 1 m in the plains around al Jib, one encounters a band of yellow clay ca. 1.5 m thick that lies immediately above bedrock. Al Jib was recognized as a source for high-quality clay since at least Roman times. Neutron activation samples of Roman cooking pots found in Jerusalem indicate that al Jib was the source of their clay. 51 In modern times,

50 Ibid., pl. 2, fig. 8. 51 Isadore PERLMAN, Jan GUNNEWEG, and Joseph YELLIN, “Pseudo-Nabataean Ware and Pottery of Jerusalem,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 262 (May 1986): 77–82.

AL JIB

pre-1967 potters in Jerusalem obtained clay from al Jib. When Palestinian male potters from al Ramla, Faluja, and other ceramic centers in territory that became Israel were driven from their homes in 1948, they settled in the refugee camps north and south of Jericho. There they set up workshops and obtained clay from al Jib. In the 1970s, the Palestinian male potters near Ramallah and at ‘Irtah, some 3 km south of Tulkarm, as well as Jerusalem’s Armenian potters, purchased pre-dug al Jib clay delivered by truck.

Decline of the Cooking Pot In the late twentieth century, however, the ceramic cooking pot became a tourist item that was little used. In most homes, aluminum pots and pans replaced the unglazed ceramic cooking pot, the use of which had declined even during the period of the British Mandate (1922–1948), when the pressurized kerosene burner, the primus, was introduced and spread throughout the country. In the late 1990s, propane gas was used more often than the kerosene primus. Especially for modern indoor kitchens, propane is cleaner, has no odor, and is quicker to ignite. Brush or wood must be used as the fuel with ceramic cooking pots, because the intense localized heat of the primus or propane gas quickly cracks them. Yet memories of the handmade cooking pot persisted in that often villagers would recall the taste of food that came from these pots and would praise it highly, saying that food cooked in aluminum vessels just did not taste like food cooked in the ceramic pot. A further blow to al Jib’s once flourishing ceramic industry was the encounter following 1967 with Israel’s first-world technological society.

Two Potters In the summer of 1975, I found two women potters at al Jib. One was Umm Hamdan, Warda ‘Ali Amina al A‘abna, a thirty-eight-year-old married woman in the northeast section of the village proper, who made cooking pots for local village consumption. Another potter, Umm ‘Abdalla, Debe Mohammed Dagash, a sixty-five-year-old widow, lived to the west of the village on the road to Biddu. She sold both cooking pots and braziers (kānūn) of unbaked clay to a tourist shop on the Wad Street within the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

57

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The women potters from al Jib and the villages of Beitunia and Beit ‘Anan used one particular clay quarry ca. 1 km east of the village; they dug their clay by hand with picks and carried it back to their homes either in cans on their heads or in sacks on the back of a donkey. The clay, which was usually obtained in chunks ca. 5 cm wide, was spread out on a clean hard surface in the potter’s courtyard and allowed to dry for at least four to five days. If the clay was not thoroughly dried, it would not readily slake in water but would remain in lumps. If the clay chunks happened to be larger than 5 cm, the potter would break them down to this size with a hammer (fig. 2.29). She prepared only enough clay for her immediate needs. The day before the pots were to be made, she placed the dried clay in a large can or pan and then added enough water to cover the top of the clay. By the next day the clay had completely slaked. Calcite (‫ۊ‬DMDU DO PƗOL‫ )ۊ‬was gathered from the environs of al Jib to serve as temper. Pulverized calcite was obtained by breaking up larger calcite pieces with a hammer until they were at most ca. 2 cm in diameter. It was then crushed with the crushing stone (midris) and sifted with a 1-mm mesh flour sifter (fig. 2.30 a, b). The stone disc grinder (‫ܒ‬Ɨ‫ۊ‬njQH) used at Sinjil and Qusra for temper preparation was not used by Umm Hamdan, since she did not own one. The prepared temper, equal in volume to the amount of clay, was dumped out onto a clean cement surface, and the center of the pile was scooped out. The fairly wet clay was poured into the depression in the calcite pile, mixed, and rolled into a thick cylinder. The potter then proceeded to knead the mixture. Leaning over with both arms extended perpendicular to the ground, she used the entire weight of the upper part of her body to simultaneously plunge both fists into the clay. A cylinder was re-formed, and this action was repeated several times until the clay was uniformly mixed with the temper. As she added an extra handful of temper, Umm Hamdan explained that the more calcite she used the less likelihood there was of breakage during firing. She then proceeded to make pottery.

WOMEN POTTERS

58

Forming of the Cooking Pot The cooking pot at al Jib was made in five separate steps over a period of about four days. The exact length of time required depended on the weather, for the temperature and humidity affected the drying rate of the clay. In the first stage, the basic form of the body was completed. The top of the pot with its opening and upper walls dried first, whereas the base dried last, since its edges were thicker and its bottom was against the plate (see next paragraph) and so not exposed to air. The potter first completed those parts of the pot that dried first, and lastly worked on the bottom. Thus, in subsequent stages the rim was finished and the handles were added (stage 2). The walls were smoothed and the decoration was applied (stage 3). Finally, the base was trimmed (stage 4) and wet-smoothed (stage 5). After each stage the pot was placed inside to dry gradually. If, however, the potter wanted to hasten the drying, she might keep the pot outside in the shade for several hours. As a drying chamber, Umm Hamdan used a small cooking room adjoining her baking room (tābūn). In the center was a U-shaped fireplace (mōqade) made of sun-dried clay and chaff, on which food or water-filled pots were placed for cooking over a brush or wood fire. The unfinished cooking pots were kept out of the way in a corner of the room. The other potter, Umm ‘Abdalla, used a low rock-hewn cave next to her house, possibly an ancient Bronze Age tomb, as a drying room. The five stages can now be described in greater detail. Stage 1. A lump of the kneaded clay was formed on the ground into a hemisphere ca. 25 cm in diameter (fig. 2.31). The potter then thrust her left fist downward into the center and kept it there. Using her right forefinger, she pulled the clay to about halfway up her left forearm, creating a crude, tall, cup-shaped form (fig. 2.32). Then for a moment she held her claycovered arm and fist upright before bringing her fist to rest on the upper surface of a plate (PL‫ڴڴ‬UDE) covered with a thin layer of tābūn ash (sakan). The plate, ca. 28 cm in diameter and 2.2 cm thick, had slightly upturned edges and was made of sun-dried, unbaked clay and chaff. It was used exclusively by the al Jib potters as a holder for the cooking pot in its initial stages of manufacture (fig. 2.33). It rested on a square block of wood or cement for easy turning. When the potter released her fist and pulled out her left arm, the upper edges of the clay were moved outward, leaving a form that looked not unlike a lily in bloom. Using her right hand inside and supporting

Fig. 2.29 -. Breaking down the dried clay using a hammer

the outside with her left hand, she proceeded to widen out the form gradually to the edge of the plate until the body shape was achieved (fig. 2.34 a, b, c). No attempt was made at this stage to bring the rim to its final thickened form, as the edge was evened to a simple rounded profile of the same thickness as the upper walls. The pot, at this stage called in Arabic the qā‘a, was placed inside to dry gradually and stiffen until the next day. Stage 2. In shaping the rim, the potter did not add any clay but simply used her wet thumb and forefinger to push the upper wall down somewhat (fig. 2.35 a, b). At the same time, she pulled the clay back at the edge to thicken the rim. To make the handles (‫ڴ‬ƗQ), the potter rolled a piece of clay between both outstretched hands. The resulting ca. 25-cm-long roll was bent at the middle, and the inverted V-shaped roll was pressed lightly against the side of the pot (fig. 2.36 a, b). The handles were formed with deft rapidity in a series of movements and intermediate shapes that are difficult to recount; Umm Hamdan’s impressive dexterity was clearly demonstrated in their formation (fig. 2.37 a, b, c, d, e). First the inverted V was formed into an inverted U, and then, by using her left hand as a support against the inner side of the U, she used the fingertips of her right hand to draw the inverted U-shaped roll vertically upward to an intermediate form that resembled the fanned-out tail feathers of a strutting male turkey. After the finger marks had been smoothed over, the vertical fan form was bent until horizontal by pushing it down and smoothing back and forth with the entire wet palm of her right hand to produce an arching ledge handle. Her forefinger was inserted to produce the hole (fig. 2.38). The pierced ledge was drawn up slightly, and the entire upper and lower surfaces were wet-smoothed with the lower surface of her thumb or forefinger (fig. 2.39). The rim was also once again wet-smoothed. Again the form was set inside to dry until the afternoon.

AL JIB

59

b)

a) Fig. 2.30 -. a, b) Tools for grinding and sieving the calcite

Fig. 2.31 -. A lump of clay used to form the lower part of the cooking pot

Fig. 2.33 -. The al Jib potter’s exclusive use of a plate in the initial forming of the cooking pot

Fig. 2.32 -. The roughly shaped cup created in the first stage of forming the cooking pot

WOMEN POTTERS

60

a)

b)

c)

Fig. 2.34 -. a, b, c) Stages of raising and forming the lower part of the cooking pot body

b)

a) Fig. 2.35 -. a, b) Shaping the thickened rim

a)

b)

Fig. 2.36 -. a, b) Making a handle from a clay roll, or coil

AL JIB

a)

61

b)

c)

e)

Fig. 2.37 -. a, b, c, d, e) Stages of attaching the handle from the V-shaped roll

d)

WOMEN POTTERS

62

Fig. 2.38 -. Potter using her forefinger to make a hole in the handle

Fig. 2.39 -. Wet-smoothing the cooking pot

a)

b) Fig. 2.40 -. a, b) Applying an incised decoration

Fig. 2.41 -. A pot with incised decoration complete

AL JIB

Stage 3. In the late afternoon of the second day, the outer walls were smoothed by the potter with the edge of her right forefinger. The inner walls were also wetsmoothed at this time. On the inside, the base was still quite uneven, as everywhere there were small dabs of clay trimming that the potter used for patching. The decoration was now applied by lightly pinching into the clay the tip of a broken matchstick or twig (fig. 2.40 a, b; fig. 2.41). And again the pot was placed inside the cooking room overnight (fig. 2.42). On the morning of the third day, the pot, which up until now had been resting on the plate (PL‫ڴڴ‬UDE), was lifted off and set right-side up on the ground outside. Stage 4. Around noon of the third day, the potter sat down with her feet outstretched inside the cooking room. After spreading out a burlap bag on her lap, she proceeded to even out the interior bottom and lower walls. Her thumb pressed the clay down, and her right index finger evenly distributed the clay (fig. 2.43). Then she turned the pot upside down and trimmed the thick lower outer edges with the sharp edge of a kitchen knife (fig. 2.44). She judged the thickness of the walls by placing her left hand against the inside wall, opposite the point where she trimmed on the outside. The trimmings were saved for later use. Finally, she turned the pot rightside up on her lap, scooped up a little water with her right hand from the water can sitting beside her, threw it inside the pot, and completed the final wet-smoothing of the inside with her fingers (fig. 2.45). The pot was then placed on its side against one of the cooking room’s walls. Stage 5. As the rim, handles, upper outside walls, the entire interior, and the shaving of the lower surface had been completed in previous stages, now only the underside’s surface remained to be smoothed. At the very center of the bottom, there was a circular area ca. 10 cm in diameter where no scraping had been done, since the wall thickness there approximated the desired thickness. On the morning of the fourth day, the potter sat, as in the preceding stage, and used the dull side of a kitchen knife to scrape across the entire undersurface. She then dipped her right hand into water and rubbed the scraped surface with her palm and outstretched fingers. The next smoothing was done with a reed tool (TD‫܈‬DED), which was made by slitting the stem of a reed lengthwise (būs), Phragmites communis. In cross-section it was slightly curved and was roughly 15 cm long and 0.8 cm wide (fig. 2.46 a). By going over the entire wet surface with the rounded outer edge of the lightweight reed tool,

63

the potter gently reworked, remoistened, and smoothed the clay surface so that the roughness of the dry scraping was obliterated. The surface was remoistened and gone over with the reed tool a second time. However, the final wet-smoothing, which produced the marks that could be seen on the rounded bottom of a fired cooking pot from al Jib, was done in a rapid series of radial movements with the tip of her little finger (fig. 2.46 b, c). A day or two later the finished, yet unfired cooking pots were moved to the warm baking room (tābūn) until the day of their firing.

Sarcopoterium Firings at al Jib and Qusra Just as manure was the fuel for firing grog-tempered jars at Sinjil, Qusra, and other Palestinian villages, for the calcite-tempered cooking pot a spiny dwarf shrub (netish in Arabic) was the fuel.52 Netish, or Sarcopoterium spinosum, was the dominant species found on uncultivated, unwooded Mediterranean mountain and hill country slopes that had terra rosa and humiferous rendzina soils, where the annual rainfall was at least 350 mm.53 The shrub was relatively easy to pull up yet regenerated fairly quickly, and its thorns made it resistant to the most intensive grazing. Netish has since ancient times been used by villagers and Bedouin as one of the most common forms of fuel. It is thought to be the hedge referred to in Isaiah 5:5, and in the late twentieth century was often used as a fuel in limestone kilns. Villagers would collect it during the drier months of the year, and often stuck it on top of stone fences as a very effective barrier until it was needed for fuel. When ignited, netish burned very rapidly, and temperature changes of as much as 180 °C per minute were recorded, which was in marked contrast to dung firings, where the changes usually were from 2 to 7 °C per minute. Two Sarcopoterium firings were observed, one at al Jib and the other at Qusra. In both places the unfired pots were carried at least 1 km outside the village to a spot where the potter had piled up her fuel. At al Jib, a shallow pit ca. 13 cm deep and 85 cm in diameter was hurriedly dug with a pointed hoe, and the pots were raised off the ground by setting them on their sides, in pairs mouth to mouth, upon stones about 12 cm in diameter (fig. 2.47). A single

52 Although CROWFOOT (“Pots, Ancient and Modern,” 185) reported that cactus (prickly pear) was the fuel for calcite-tempered cooking pots at Kafr al Labad, I learned in an interview at Kafr al Labad in August 1975 that Sarcopoterium and wood were also used for this purpose. Reportedly the last cooking pots were made there in late 1972. 53 M. ZOHARY, Geobotanical Foundations of the Middle East, 2 vols. (Stuttgart and Amsterdam: Gustav Fischer, 1973), 384.

64

WOMEN POTTERS

Fig. 2.42 -. Cooking pots placed upside down in the cooking room to dry overnight

Fig. 2.43 -. Evening out the lower walls of the cooking pot by finger-pressing the clay

Fig. 2.44 -. Trimming the outer ridges with a knife

Fig. 2.45 -. Wet-smoothing the surface of the pot with her fingers

AL JIB

a)

b)

c) Fig. 2.46 -. a) Smoothing the bottom with a reed tool b) Final wet-smoothing with radial movements using one fingertip c) The bottom of the pot after the final wet-smoothing

65

66

WOMEN POTTERS

layer of Sarcopoterium was laid on top of the pots and set alight with a match. The fuel quickly blazed up and quickly died down (fig. 2.48 a, b, c). At both al Jib and Qusra, five separate additions of fuel were made at intervals of 4.5 to 10 minutes. At al Jib, the potter used a fig branch to swish off the accumulated ashes during and after the firing. Here the entire firing or fueling period lasted only 25 minutes, and after another 80 minutes for cooling the potter took her pots home; thus the entire time from the starting of the fire to its finish was 1 hour and 45 minutes. At Qusra, the total fueling time was 32 minutes, with the potter taking her pots home 2 hours and 45 minutes after the initial lighting of the fire. No shallow pit was dug at Qusra, where the pots were simply stacked on their sides with all their openings facing west. Here each time the fire died down, and before new fuel was added, the pots were turned with a pitchfork and placed either on their bottoms upside down or on their sides. A total of nine pots were fired, and they occupied a space of ca. 1 m in diameter. Before use, a cooking pot must be “re-fired.” At Qusra, I observed the potter re-firing a cooking pot on her small U-shaped fireplace (mōqade). Although Sarcopoterium was initially used to light the fire, thereafter grape or mainly fig branches were used for this purpose. The outside bottom of the pot at first blackened, but shortly thereafter the black carbon deposit turned white. This occurred with each addition of fuel, and Sarah the potter said the blackening must take place three times before the pot would be ready for the final step—the addition of olive oil to the inside of the hot vessel. About a quarter of a liter of olive oil (milk could also be used) was poured into the pot. This produced some smoke. The potter grasped the pot by the handles with her bare hands and swirled the oil around the inside so as to cover the entire surface. She then set the pot back on the fireplace and dropped a small rag into the oil. She removed the rag with a stick and rubbed the area

near the rim. Finally, the rag was dropped back into the pot and soon ignited. After the ashes had been shaken out of the rag and the entire inside of the pot was blackened, the pot was ready for use. The hot oil, which had to a certain extent penetrated the walls of the pot and partially oxidized, formed a seal that made the pot impervious to water. At Qusra, where both grog-tempered jars and calcite-tempered cooking pots were made, one would never think of interchanging the fuel: with calcitetempered pottery one always used Sarcopoterium, and with grog-tempered pottery one always used dung.54 Not only during the firing but also later when in use, a cooking pot had to be able to withstand rapid temperature alterations. For some reason the calcite-tempered pot was able to withstand large thermal gradients, which apparently grog-tempered pots were not able to take. Calcite was used as a temper for cooking pots from at least the middle of the second millennium B.C. and probably long before. In the third millennium B.C. in southern Palestine and the Sinai, cooking pots were tempered with granite,55 which has a much higher thermal expansion than calcite, enabling granite-tempered clay to better withstand thermal shock. The widespread occurrence in Palestine of Sarcopoterium, which was collected with relative ease, made it an ideal fuel if the clay mixture was able to withstand large thermal gradients. Manure pads, on the other hand, were more difficult to obtain and prepare, and not every villager had a cow or even a sheep or goat, while donkey dung reportedly burned at a lower temperature. However, calcite, while plentiful in certain areas of the central mountain range, was scarce in others and was entirely absent in widespread regions covered by soft limestone or by Pleistocene deposits such as the entire Shephelah and the coastal plain.

54 Although no complete dung firing was observed at Qusra, I did see a pit filled with pottery already fired but before removal. The pit was in front of the potter’s home and appeared to be deeper than the Sinjil pit. The grog-tempered jars were seemingly not oriented in any special direction, and no metal sheets were placed around the edge. 55 AMIRAN, Early Arad, 48–50.

AL JIB

67

Fig. 2.47 -. Pots being raised off the ground in a shallow firing pit

b)

a)

c)

Fig. 2.48 -. a, b, c) Sarcopoterium covering the pots, blazing, and fading quickly

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WOMEN POTTERS

Beitunia The village of Beitunia, with a population in 1976 of 2,500, was located about 3 km west of Ramallah, its district capital, and about 4 km north of al Jib with its clay quarry, which was also used by the Beitunia women potters. For a number of years Beitunia had had both running water and electricity, and its broad streets, houses, new city hall, and mosque gave evidence of wealth not encountered in the other West Bank villages where pot making by women still took place. Most of the money for development endeavors had come from numerous emigrants to North and South America, but especially to Chicago, where some three thousand Beitunians lived. On retirement, many returned to their quiet, scenic, modern village to dwell in new, spacious, flat-roofed, stone-faced concrete houses built with their savings from abroad.56 Emigration had begun in 1913, when many left to escape being drafted into the Turkish army. Some of the houses had red tile roofs, which were also evidence of a certain level of prosperity during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, when such tiles were in vogue. The more usual roofs during this period were domes covered with soil or flagstones.

Pot making by Beitunia women was actually of rather recent vintage, for they learned this skill only in the 1940s from itinerant women potters from Ramallah, who came each summer and made pottery for them. One such itinerant potter still remembered by the Beitunia women was Halwe, a Christian woman from Ramallah. Any woman who wanted a jar would have to provide the potter with prepared clay; thus, the Beitunia women would have to dig the clay, gather and crush the temper, and knead it together with the clay. They would also have to provide the fuel. The potter herself was paid a certain amount of money or, if not, received half of the pottery she made. Thus, the pottery made in Beitunia was integrally tied to the traditional craft as practiced in Ramallah itself. Ms. Lydia Einsler has provided us with such a priceless and insightful account of pot making as it was practiced many decades ago in Ramallah that my English translation of the German article she wrote is inserted at this point as an introduction to the present-day potters of Beitunia.

Excursus

Handmade Pottery of the Peasant Women from Ramallah and Surroundings [1914] John Landgraf ’s translation of an article published in German by Lydia Einsler 57 Right after Easter the women of Ramallah begin to gather clay, as around this time the ground has become fairly dry. They often must gather it from afar, since one does not find suitable clay everywhere, that is, clay that can be made into containers for water or oil. Furthermore, collecting the clay is not without danger, as it is not unusual through careless digging

for the holes that have been made to access the clay to cave in. The women call the place where usable clay is found a “mitrabe.” In a squatting or sitting position, they pick away, swinging at the earth from top to bottom until they have made a small hole. Then they enlarge the

56 Editors’ note: Since the 1970s, Beitunia’s fortunes have declined, partly as a result of two factors: the Oslo Accords, after which two Israeli settlements were constructed on expropriated land; and the route of the Israeli Wall, which cuts the city center off from the remaining lands around it. Beitunia’s population has grown to more than 27,000. 57 Lydia EINSLER (SCHICK), “Das Töpferhandwerk bei den Bauernfrauen von Ramallah und Umgegend,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 37 (1914): 249–60, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27929200. Note that the transliteration system for Arabic terms used by EINSLER is not the same as the system used in this volume. In the original German article, there are three plates containing a total of fourteen figures. The plate-figure references in the Landgraf translation are to the plates with figures in the German article.

RAMALLAH AND SURROUNDINGS [1914]

hole horizontally by breaking pieces away from the sides of the opening. The tool used for this purpose is a short-handled narrow hoe (kaddūm) which is also used for trimming (kanneb) olive trees and grapes. The women take care to leave supports for the roof in the form of columns at certain intervals. The deeper the hole is dug into the side of the hill, the more unpleasant the work becomes due to the lack of air circulation. Therefore, usually only three or four women enter the hole at any one time. If more women gather, the ones who come later must wait until the first group of women has collected its loads. They are permitted to enter the cave only after waiting their turn, similar to drawing water from a spring. A few years earlier, a number of women gathered together at such a hole near al Bireh. In order to make their work easier, two of them broke up one of the supporting columns and the roof collapsed. The women waiting outside immediately ran to al Bireh and Ramallah to get help. After strenuous work, the men rescuers succeeded in pulling the buried women out; one was still alive, the other dead. When such a tragedy occurs, the men destroy the entrance to the cave so as to avoid further accidents. Then the women dig a new opening into the proven layer, since it isn’t easy to find a good clay layer that is free of impurities. Mixed clay has the disadvantage that pots made from it are not watertight; they are also easily breakable and crack during firing. Indeed, women have heard a popping noise during firing and afterward have seen that the entire bases of some vessels have broken away or that cracks have appeared in them. Such failures are blamed on the clay that was used, which they say was mixed with impurities (katamōn).1 After a number of women were questioned, it was understood that this term signifies a kind of calcium carbonate (limestone) which has to be removed from the clay after water has been added to it. If an enlarged hole does not seem safe enough to the women, then a group gathers on the surface above the hole and there they stamp around for a while with all their strength. If the roof of the cave doesn’t collapse, they regard it as safe. Recently the women from Ramallah and al Bireh have been going to a place south of the antiquity site Kafr ‘Aqab, where they have found a good clay layer. They call the place where they gather the clay the mitrabet Kafr ‘Aqab. When their baskets are filled with clay, the women in groups carry their heavy loads home on their heads. In the village the baskets are emptied and the clay is spread out in the sun to dry fully. According to her

69

needs, a woman gathers five or six baskets of clay for eventual use. In addition to the clay, the women also need sherds (schakaf ). They visit antiquity sites in groups for the purpose of laboriously looking for sherds together. One might think that in the course of the year they could gather enough sherds from their own failures or broken pots. But the sherds from their own handmade pottery don’t work. They use these sherds only for making entirely unfired objects like ovens (tābūn; pl. tawābīn). Sherds for making pottery must be old sherds (schakaf churab), that is, from antiquity sites. As soon as they are gathered, they are spread out on a flat stone surface. Then the women roll a fairly large, heavy round stone called a dirdās back and forth over the sherds until they are crushed into almost a fine powdery dust. After this powder is sifted through a fine sifter, it is called grog (homrā) and is ready for use. Having collected the two materials, the women must also be sure that the necessary fuel is on hand so that they can fire their pots. For this purpose they use dried cow manure (dshalle) and goat manure (killes).2 Fresh cow manure (lati‘ bakar), which the women find in the fields, on slopes, or in caves is formed into cakes and stuck onto the mortarless fieldstone walls of a farmer’s courtyard. Frequently, however, the women must gather the manure from great distances because they need a larger quantity than is found nearby. Anyone familiar with this country knows that after the first penetrating rain has fallen the land is plowed and, as the fields are usually far from the villages, people often spend the night with their animals in the nearest cave for weeks at a time. During this time the animal manure is only superficially collected by the women potters from the cave or not at all. Thus a layer of manure 20 to 30 cm thick is gradually built up which the women break loose by means of a pick and use as fuel. The large quantity of manure that accumulates in such caves is produced not only from the villagers’ animals during the time when the land is being prepared for planting, but also from shepherds’ herds of sheep and goats sheltered there during rainy weather. As an example showing that the manure has to be brought from a great distance, a woman from Ramallah told me the following: Knowing that one of her relatives had a small herd of cows in a pasture, she asked him where the cows were currently pasturing. After he told her the location, she set out with a few friends on a strenuous walk to reach a stony donkey trail. Continually ascending and descending, this hilly path led after three hours to the pasture. Yet when they had finished collecting all the available manure there, their sacks were still far from full. After

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WOMEN POTTERS

someone advised them that they would find more manure in a cave an hour away, they went there and indeed in a short time they filled their sacks. With this heavy load they had to return to Ramallah, a journey that took not less than eight hours. Their rich find was envied by the other women in the village, since often an expedition of women seeking the desired fuel with great effort is almost entirely without success because others have combed the place before them. After repeated questioning, the women revealed the name of the place that had produced the rich yield. The next day a considerable number of women from Ramallah set out for the place and didn’t stop to rest until they had brought back the supply found there. After these laborious preparations, the women go about their work of pot making (el-hishsh) during the months of July and August while the men are busy with threshing. It is a beautiful sight to see how the men thresh the harvested grain with their animals on the threshing floor while the women up on the roofs of their houses are busy with pot making (plate 45A). At first they prepare the material (ettin), the clay from which the vessels are made. This is done in the following way: The well-dried clay (trābe) is first moistened and stirred in a wooden bowl (hanābe or bātje) with a diameter of at least 23 cm until it becomes a paste. Then enough grog is added (about two-thirds grog to one-third clay) so that the mass becomes like dough, which is thoroughly kneaded on a stone plate. The women are happy when, during the kneading, an air bubble produces a pop. They say, “The clay pops because of its good elasticity.” The clay has to stand for five or six days so that the surplus water evaporates; it is then ready for forming. If it loses its stiffness during the preparation, now and again the women sprinkle a bit of mūs on it, which they keep in a small basket (kub‘a; plate 47B). Mūs is the finest chaff obtained by winnowing and being carried farthest away by the wind.3 It is gathered by the women for this purpose. They say, “We add the fine chaff to the sweet clay so that it retains its elasticity.” For coarser objects like the bread oven (tābūn; pl. tawābīn; plate 47F), chicken huts (kunn or chumm; plate 47C), small bowls (ku’od; plate 47D), cooking stoves (tabbāch; plate 46F), grain containers (chabije; pl. chawābī; plate 46A), and other similar objects, they use coarse chaff (tibben), comparable to a fine chopped straw. Only for the vessels that should be watertight is mūs considered necessary. The important thing is the construction and shaping of the vessels. The younger women and girls sit on the flat roofs of their houses in order to see how the older women form the vessels. Not every village

woman understands this art, for it requires visual judgment, some taste, and a sense of beauty. As an example of this work by the women potters, I want to describe how a large jar for water or oil, called a zīr, is built. The potter places two much-used and usually wornout straw trays (sīnīje; pl. sawānt; plates 47A and 47E) with a diameter of 45 cm or more, one on top of the other on the ground. Fine tābūn ash is then sprinkled over the uppermost tray. Then she takes two handfuls of clay (tīn), dips it into the fine chaff (mūs), kneads it, and pats and smooths it on her flat left hand by hitting it with her right hand until it has the form of a round cake with the diameter of a plate. This is then placed on the ash-sprinkled straw tray and forms the base (kā‘a) on which the vessel is built. Again she takes clay, dips it into the chaff, kneads it, and forms a roll with the thickness and length of an arm. Then she places this on the edge of the round base and joins the two parts together by pressing the roll against the base while she pulls up the clay. She builds on this work by again forming a roll and then by forming a notch on its under-rim by pressing in with her finger tips and the edge of her hand. This second roll is placed on the edge of the first-stage layer so that the roll’s notch fits into the rim. She then presses and smooths the object with her hands until the desired form is achieved. This lower part of the vessel is called el-badu, or el-badwe, the beginning. With a small piece of a broken wooden spoon (makshata, from kashat,4 “to smooth or to rub”; plate 46D), the potter strokes and smooths the form. She supports the vessel with her left hand sometimes from the outside and at other times from the inside while, using her right hand, she strokes and smooths it partially with the wooden tool and partially with her flattened hand. Then she forms another plate-sized disc as in the beginning, lays it inside on the base of the vessel, presses it firmly, and binds it with the earlier base and side walls. I heard a woman say to the potter that she shouldn’t press the base into a point but rather leave it wide so that the vessel would stand firmly on a flat, broad foot. She dips her hand often into the water, smoothing continually outside and inside. When the form is two or three layers high, a number of women take hold of the straw tray, carry the half-finished vessel into the sun, and let it dry there for an hour. In the meantime, the potter begins work on a second vessel. Following this the first vessel is smoothed for a second time. She says, “baruddhā,” possibly “I will go over it again.” She repeats this word four times. Then she begins to build the second half of the first pot in

RAMALLAH AND SURROUNDINGS [1914]

the same manner as she made the first half. This second part of the pot up to the neck is called the es sidr, or es sadr, the chest, or nusshā, its half. The potter attaches four handles (dinēn, or danēn, literally, “ears”) to the pot so that, even though it is very heavy, it can be carried by two women. From this point on, the circumference of the vessel narrows and forms the neck, el halk. The opening is called el-bāb, the door or gate. The vessel is then set out in the sun’s heat to dry for a number of days. During this time the woman finishes all the other bowls, jugs, and so on (plate 45B). As soon as the first vessel is dry enough, it is worked over again. In a bowl (karmīje) moistened clay slip stands ready for use. The woman dips her hands into the slip and strokes the outside of the entire vessel with the flat of her hand so that it is freed of all unevenness and takes on a smooth appearance. The women say, “The clay has dissolved, and we will paint it with sweet dough without grog sherds.” At last the potter forms small oil lamps (sradsh) and places them in each vessel for the makām el-khalīl, the blessing of Abraham on the firing. At a later opportunity, the future owner of the jar fills the lamp with oil and brings it to the holy place. The vessel remains standing for a few days, after which it is painted. The women say, “binzeijinhā,” which means, “We want to decorate it.” The painting is done in the following way: Damascus “Rotel” (mighra or maghra shāmīje) is bought from a storekeeper and mixed with water in a jug (mughtas). A few drops of oil are added to darken the color. Some tail hair is cut from a donkey, horse, or mule and tied onto a small stick, thus producing a brush (mughtāt). The brush is used to paint the newly made vessel with a red-brown color according to taste. Now ready for baking, the finished clay vessels are carried to the place of firing (al-mishwā). In an unplanted garden (hākurā) outside the village, a shallow hole is dug and in it dried dung (dshalle) is spread out. The pots to be fired are carefully placed on the dung, and in between them various kinds of fuel: dung, straw, straw saddles (from beasts of burden), straw mats, and old baskets, especially those through which oil has been pressed. The women say, “We put on dung in order to fire it.” Wood should not be used, as it easily produces flames; one wants a glowing, smoldering mass that produces a strong, even heat. After the pile is thoroughly covered with dung so that no breeze will come close to the pots, it is set on fire by sprinkling the glowing ash from the bread oven (tābūn) or by lighting Sarcopoterium (netish), which is interspersed among the fuels. It is of great importance that enough fuel be on hand, for it has happened that half of the vessels turned out to be unusable because of an inadequate supply of fuel.

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After two or three hours, when the pile has cooled down somewhat, the women poke with sticks to dig out the pots and look to see whether they have been well fired or have black flecks. In the latter case, they call the pot “unfired” (bāwī) and say, “We will add more dung in order to fire it.” Then the firing pit is again covered over with dung. At such firings I have counted about thirty larger and smaller vessels. Almost every household needs annually: two large storage jars (zīr; pl. zijār, and other terms; plate 45B middle); three medium-sized jars (‘aslīje; pl. ‘asālī; plates 45 left and 46E); five bowls, including the butter bowl (zibdīje; pl. zabādi; plate 46C); ten small jugs (mughtās; pl. maghātīs; plates 45B right and 46B); four cooking pot covers (ghatāt tundshere; pl. ghutī tanādshir); and five to six ovens (tābūn; pl. tawābīn; plate 47F). The wheat bins or grain containers (chābije; pl. chawābi), which in farmers’ houses stand next to the wall at a height of about 1.5 meters and serve to store wheat, barley, and other grains, are produced from coarse material when a new house is built (plate 46A). As far as I am aware, these ceramic vessels are made only in Ramallah and Silwad. But the women from these two towns go into the surrounding villages, where they make such vessels for different households for pay. Six years ago [translator’s note: thus about 1908], I asked a woman potter about her wages. She answered that she charged for the smallest piece one ashara (5 Pfennigs), and for the largest piece 3 piasters (50 Pfennigs) apart from the materials, which must also be provided. In one day she made four large pots or two large pots in addition to smaller vessels, so that her daily wage amounted to 12 to 13 piasters. Today, however, the wages have changed completely. For a large jar one pays twice the amount, which means that the wages have doubled over the past six years. If no money is paid, the potter is allowed to take for herself half of the pots that she makes. These pots do not find their way to the open market but are given as gifts or traded to friends in distant villages where the craft is not practiced. Otherwise in those villages ceramic vessels from Gaza or Hebron are used. The old household industry herein described is apparently not as widely practiced as in the past, for which various factors are responsible. In recent times in the villages, a number of cisterns have been dug, so that the women don’t have to carry water in smaller jars from the often distant springs to store it in larger jars for household needs. In addition, from the active petroleum trade a quantity of larger, watertight tin containers have entered the country; they are used in

WOMEN POTTERS

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a great variety of ways in the home and have completely replaced the formerly common ceramic vessels. The tinsmiths make from this cheap tin all kinds of household utensils. Furthermore, the easier transport from abroad makes it possible to obtain cheap glass and porcelain items for household use; their attractive and utilitarian forms suppress the old pots. Also in the past decade considerably less farming has been practiced in the mountains of Palestine, because numerous villagers have immigrated to America to improve their economic situation. At the same time there are fewer livestock, so that the women have difficulty finding dung for firing their pots, and indeed recently women have had to buy dung from the herd owners. Finally in the past few years people have returned to the old practice of using rock-hewn, cemented cisterns as oil containers. As a result families no longer need the large ceramic vessels.

fine and soft enough to be used as animal feed. A third type is called ‘erek (meaning stalks, or fibers). It is coarser and harder but without the nodes or fruiting stalk and is used only as livestock food in emergencies. The fourth kind, kaswal, contains the hard portions of the stems and ears of the grain. It is used with glutinous clay for making ovens and grain containers, or added to the moistened earth with which one repairs roofs.

Our time is bringing about great changes in Palestine. The hand mills are disappearing, and in many places motors have been installed and people find that it is easier and sometimes also cheaper to buy flour. The women have begun to replace their hand sewing with machine sewing. Similarly the handmade pottery of the village women will soon disappear. For this reason I have considered it worth the effort to publish this article as a memorial in the Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins.

In 1976, three potters were living in the center of the older, upper part of Beitunia, all of whom were in their late forties: Safia Talib (Umm Taiasir), forty-nine years old and left-handed; Sabha Shaqer; and Miriam Jaber (Umm Yusuf), a refugee from the village of ‘Ajjur who learned pot making in Beitunia. All three women made pottery in the summer of 1975, but in 1976 only Safia did so. In the following discussion of the pot making at Beitunia that I observed, I will point out the differences from, and in certain cases elaborate on, Lydia Einsler’s observations made during the early years of the twentieth century.

1

The word katamōn is known only in Ramallah and its nearest surroundings; in Jerusalem the term bandūka is used, and in Lifta the term bizri is used. 2

The author emphasizes that she has heard the word killes pronounced somewhat differently by different women. The women in the village of Abu Dis near Jerusalem say kires. According to the dictionaries, kils means calcium, whereas kirs is animal dung. 3

Mūs corresponds to the Hebrew mōs, which Luther translated as “Spreu,” chaff-like, almost dust-like, as in Psalm 1:4. Somewhat coarser is tibben, which is still

4

The meaning of this expression (la tza‘emtīsch ka‘hā) is not clear. It could mean, “don’t scratch the base” (but leave it smooth and thick enough).

END OF EXCURSUS

Three Potters

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper For grog (‫ۊ‬RPUD), hard red “Roman” sherds (šaqaf rūmī) were gathered from nearby antiquity sites or from Beitunia itself, where two Roman columns standing along the main street attested to ancient occupation. However, the modern red ceramic roof tiles (karmīda; pl. karmīd) were preferred, if they were available.58 Here two women usually sat opposite

58 The importing into Palestine of red ceramic roof tiles from Marseille began sometime during the nineteenth century, perhaps around 1850, and probably coincided with the first use of the steel beam as the means of support for a ceiling. By about 1897, the Steinberg factory was set up at Moza (Colonia) near Jerusalem, which produced these tiles until 1966. Until 1948, the Steinberg tiles were exported to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Such tiles were also made between 1933 and 1940 at the Schneller School in Jerusalem. The clay quarry (now closed) was located at Merkaz Ha Kleta, which is the original Israeli type source for the Moza formation. The Marseille tiles, however, continued in use well after the local factory was established; for example, the roof tiles at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in East Jerusalem, built in 1925, are all from Marseille. After the division of Palestine in 1948 between Israel and Jordan, some of these tiles continued in use in Israel, and later even cement tiles were produced. In Jordan, however, the 1948 division brought an end to their use. Eventually the shortage and rising cost of the wood that was needed as a support for the sloping tile roofs ended their use in Israel too. It might be noted that the Ottoman period is not the only time when roof tiles were imported into Palestine. The petrological analysis by Jonathan Glass of Byzantine-period roof tiles from the sixth–seventh centuries from Tell Keisan reveals that they were also imported some thirteen hundred years ago. LANDGRAF, “Keisan’s Byzantine Pottery,” 51–99, including Glass’s analysis (87–89).

BEITUNIA

each other while rolling the crushing stone (dirdās) back and forth over the tiles or sherds. The coarse grog was then ground up in a stone disc grinder (‫ܒ‬Ɨ‫ڪ‬njQD) and sifted through a mesh flour sifter of ca. 1 mm (munkhal). The Beitunia potters used the same clay quarry (PD‫\ܒ‬DQD) as did the women potters at al Jib (PD‫\ܒ‬DQD ‘ajlūn), which is about 4 km from Beitunia. The clay was usually carried by donkey back to Beitunia, where it was spread out and allowed to dry in the sun for about a week, after which it was soaked in water and left to stand. Grog was then spread out on a clean floor; a portion of the wet clay was placed on the grog, kneaded slightly, and formed into a large lump (KREƗ‫ )܈‬30 to 40 cm in diameter. A number of such lumps were formed, stacked together inside in a pile, covered with a cloth or plastic sheet, and left to stand for a few days. Although some grog was added in the initial preparation of the clay just described, most of the temper was added during the final kneading. With a large lump of clay, a pan of water, and a pan of grog at hand, the potter took a 10–15-cm lump of clay in both hands and squeezed her fingertips into the lump. The handful of clay was rotated and the squeezing was repeated. The lump was dipped into the grog and rolled around in it until the lump became completely covered, and the squeezing was repeated several times. Occasionally the potter added water by dipping one of her hands into the pan of water and dripping a bit of water over the lump or even by completely immersing the clay in the water. There was no set rule for the number of times the clay was dipped into the grog, though it usually seemed to be twice; and just how much temper was actually incorporated into the clay varied considerably, depending on who was doing the kneading. This procedure was continued until the clay and grog were uniformly mixed. Any stones or other impurities discovered during the kneading were picked out. An experienced potter would take about two minutes to knead a single handful of clay. Once a woman standing nearby said that chaff should also be added to the clay, but the potter herself answered that she had never done this. All of the final clay preparation took place in a shaded area near to where the pottery would be made. Although the potter herself began kneading the clay, as soon as a few handfuls were ready, she started pot making while two small girls and a neighbor woman for whom a pot was also to be made continued the kneading (bajbil or jabbal, to knead or wedge clay).

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Forming of the Water Jar The first stage. The potter began by setting an old, worn, straw tray (‫܈‬LQQƯ\D) on the ground and sprinkling a thin layer of grog on the central part of the tray, where the base itself would rest. She then took a lump of the prepared clay and rolled it between her two hands into a round ball ca. 18 cm in diameter. This ball was placed at the center of the tray, patted down, and wet-smoothed to form a flat disc (qā‘a) ca. 1 cm thick and 35 cm in diameter, the disc being the flat base on which the walls of the jar would be built (fig. 2.49). Rolls of clay (ba‘abūl; pl. ba‘ābīl) were then made and placed around the disc’s outer edge. The potter formed the rolls by taking a lump of clay and rolling it between her two hands. The rolls averaged ca. 28 cm in length and 6 cm in diameter; three of them were needed to go around the disc’s circumference. The rolls were then drawn up and thinned out to form the walls of the first stage of the vessel. On completion, this first intermediate form looked like a large bowl (fig. 2.50). The transformation of the roll into a smooth flat wall was achieved in a series of three steps: (1) The potter drew the edge of her curled forefinger upward and toward herself against the clay while her opposite hand supported the wet clay wall from behind. (2) The potter performed the initial working over of the outside by pulling her cupped fingertips up over the clay and toward herself while supporting the opposite inside wall with her other hand. (3) For more finished smoothing, the potter drew a broken wooden spoon (muqšāt; pl. maqāsīt) up toward herself while her other hand supported the opposite wall. In all three of these actions, either her fingers or a spoon was pulled up toward the potter and, to a greater or lesser extent, diagonal marks remained (fig. 2.51). If the potter was sitting, these marks were less vertical than they were if the potter stood as she worked. With a righthanded potter, the marks sloped upward to the left; with a left-handed potter, they went in the reverse direction. Most of these marks were obliterated in the final stages of smoothing. When a right-handed potter stood and worked on the inside of the jar, she backed around the jar counterclockwise, but she moved in the opposite direction while smoothing on the outside. These directions were reversed for a left-handed potter. Usually a potter would sit while working on the first and lower stages of a jar, turning the tray on which the vessel was sitting. In contrast, at Beitunia, the potter stood and leaned over while working, walking around the form already at this early stage. Occasionally

74

WOMEN POTTERS

when the walls of the jar had been drawn up, she would place her moistened, outstretched hands on either side of the wall and push and pull them together back and forth while pressing into the wet clay lightly. At the end of the first stage, the potter sprinkled a handful of grog on the inside of the base and patted it lightly into the clay. Finally, the upper edge was trimmed evenly in a rapid series of repetitive pinches along the entire circumference of the rim. During this process, the potter pressed the tip of her thumb against the tips of her index and middle fingers, thereby squeezing off the excess clay and producing a “serrated” margin (fig. 2.52). From one stage to the next, the walls of the pot had to dry for a certain length of time and so become firm enough to support, without collapsing, the addition of more clay to the rim. From start to finish the pot was made in full sun and, in order to enhance even drying, the tray on which the pot rested was occasionally turned so that the pot’s shaded side was exposed to the sun. During the time interval required for drying the first jar at its first stage, the potter busied herself by starting one or more additional pots. The second and later stages. The second and subsequent layers (radda; pl. raddāt) were formed much like the first (fig. 2.53 a, b, c, d). In all, for a large water jar there were a total of six separate horizontal layers. Each layer was smoothed and trimmed in the same fashion, and each stage required a certain drying period before the potter could build the jar higher, that is, add another layer. In all but the first stage, however, the rolls were made with grooves that were 1 to 2 cm deep along their whole length, which fit down over the rim. Usually before beginning a new layer, the potter would moisten the entire edge of the rim. In the second and third stages, the jar’s circumference continued to increase and correspondingly more rolls were added. At the end of the second stage, the potter prepared another disc of clay in exactly the same way as she had initially made the base (qā‘a). Having been sprinkled with grog, this disc (TXU‫܈‬D; pl. TDUƗ‫ )܈‬was placed on top of the inside base and then pressed firmly down and smoothed. Thus, the bases of the jars at Beitunia were made in two layers and were twice as thick as the walls. The maximum diameter of the jar was reached with the third layer, and in fact its upper edge curved back in slightly. As soon as the walls of the third layer were completed, the four handles (‫ڴ‬ƗQ; pl. ‫ڴ‬DKƝQ) were attached while the clay was still relatively wet. The handles were also formed by rolling clay between the palms

of both hands (fig. 2.54). To form the first handle, while holding the roll on the outstretched palm of one hand, the potter patted it down slightly and smoothed it with her other hand. Its size was ca. 15 cm long with an oval cross-section measuring ca. 3 × 4 cm. The middle of each end was then pressed in a little with a forefinger, which resulted in an indentation and the widening of the ends. The upper part of the handle was attached first by pressing it onto the rim. The lower part was then stuck onto the wall. The attachment was strengthened by adding small lumps of clay to the underside of the upper join, and then just above and below the lower join (fig. 2.55). These lumps were then pressed and smoothed to join the handle firmly to the wall, and finally the whole handle was wet smoothed. The distances between the remaining handles were measured by hand spans. After the handle immediately opposite the first handle was attached, the remaining two handles followed (fig. 2.56). The diameters of the fourth and fifth layers gradually became smaller. The fifth layer was known as the throat (‫ۊ‬DOLT; pl. L‫ۊ‬OnjT), the sixth and last layer was called the neck (raqaba; pl. raqabāt), and the opening or rim was literally the “gate” (bāb; pl. ibwāb). A great deal of care was given to the form of the sixth layer. At first the walls were vertical, but gradually the rim was shaped to curve outward. After asking the opinion of several women onlookers and adjusting the rim to meet their tastes, the forming of the jar was finally complete (fig. 2.57). The potter went on to make a variety of other smaller vessels. Slip. Some twelve days after completing the large jar and immediately before painting it, the potter applied slip to her completed vessels. The slip was simply a watery slurry of a whiter and more calciumrich fraction from the top of the same clay deposit. A rag was dipped into the slip and rubbed over the entire outside of the jars. Then the inside of the neck was also slipped. The slip dried rapidly, leaving the jars a light cream color. Painting. The potter then prepared several brushes (rīš; pl. rīšāt) for painting. A thread was wrapped several times around a bunch of hair from a donkey’s tail that was ca. 30 mm thick. The thread that bound the hair together was tied to one end of a straight twig that was ca. 10 cm long. The hair was then trimmed with scissors to allow ca. 2 cm of hair to extend beyond the end of the twig. The hair on the opposite side of the knot was cut off fairly near the knot. All of the jars and footed jars were quickly painted in the late afternoon in no more than two hours, and the next morning they were fired with

BEITUNIA

their mouths oriented to the east. In the past, the upper three-quarters of the jars were painted with triangular or diamond-shaped motifs with crosshatching and linear, stylized trees. Such designs were not unlike those formerly embroidered onto women’s dresses.59 By the 1970s, however, the traditional repertoire of designs had changed completely so that large flowers were embroidered on dresses and painted on jars. Large flowers were quickly sewn by machine, whereas the traditional intricate geometric designs with their sharp angles did not lend themselves to machine work. Beitunia even had a sewing center where six-month sewing courses were given, and many women (especially younger ones) sewed by machine to supplement their family’s income. Thus, at Beitunia within a very few years, the centuries-old repertoire of traditional designs was replaced by new motifs imported from the West. While changes in the patterns painted on jars at Beitunia were virtually complete, at Beit ‘Anan, a village ca. 6.13 km to the southwest, similar changes were just beginning (see above). At two other villages, Sinjil and Qusra, unaltered traditional designs were still being painted on their jars.

75

Comparison of Jar Forming in 1976 with Jar Forming Observed by Einsler Now I turn to some changes in the actual building of the jar compared with Einsler’s descriptions. Minor alterations that probably would not affect the quality of the final product included the following: (1) The 1976 jars were built on a single straw tray, whereas in the time of Einsler two trays were used, one on top of the other (see Einsler, p. 70). (2) In 1976, the tray was sprinkled with grog instead of tābūn ash (Einsler, p. 70). Possibly upon examination of the base this difference could be detected, as the grog would probably stick to the wet clay or leave a slightly rougher surface than the finer ash. (3) No fine chaff was added to the clay in 1976, as was done by the potters observed by Einsler (p. 70). (4) The 1976 pots were built in full sun. In the early twentieth century, they were built in the shade and moved into the sun for drying (Einsler, p. 71).

• 1 lamp (sirāj)

In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the jars were apparently started and finished all in a single day (Einsler, p. 71), whereas in 1976 the jars were made over a period of three days, thus on 8–10 August. On the first day, working from about 10:00 to 17:00, the potter started three large jars (one zīr and two hišše) plus several footed miniature jars (hišše ba jirīn). The large jars were built up in three layers, and their handles were attached. On the second day, the potter did not start until 14:00 because she had spent the morning picking grapes and black-eyed beans, which were to be sold the following morning at the Ramallah market. Thus, between stages 3 and 4 there was a 21-hour wait on a warm summer day! Even though the pots had been covered with burlap or cloth, their rims were very dry and hard. The potter attempted to soften the rim somewhat before adding the new clay but, as any potter knows, wet clay must be added to clay that is still fairly moist or cracks will develop during drying or firing. In addition to the problem of cracking, if the potter added wet clay to a dry rim, often a rather angular transition was left between the two layers. This was especially true if the newly added layer was at a place where the sides of the jar curved, for there the potter was no longer able to adjust the hardened clay of the lower layer. The fourth and fifth layers were added on the second day.

• 1 single-footed bowl (‫ܒ‬DEDK) ca. 17 cm in diameter with eight holes pierced ca. 4 cm below the rim; this bowl was used for the charcoal roasting of meat on a spit.

Breakage in 1976. On the third day, as the potter spent the entire morning selling her produce, she did not return to pot making until 15:00, some twenty hours later. When she lifted off the cloths from her

The vessels that were fired. Although I did not witness this painting or firing, I noted that the following pots were fired: • 1 large jar (zīr) with a 60- to 80-liter capacity (i.e., 3–4 tinneke) • 2 slightly smaller jars (hišše) with an approximate capacity of 40 liters (2 tinneke) • 9 miniature four-footed jars (hišše ba jirīn) with a total height of ca. 30 to 40 cm • 12 covers (ƥD‫ܒ‬ƗD; pl. ƥL‫ܒ‬Ư; or isdāda; pl. sadāīd) made to fit these 12 jars, each similar to a shallow bowl with a handle from the rim to the inside center • 1 larger bowl (PL‫ܔ‬UDGD; pl. PD‫ܔ‬ƗULG) ca. 30 cm in diameter • 6 smaller bowls (‫܈‬D‫ۊ‬LQ) ca. 20 cm in diameter

59 Shelagh WEIR, Palestinian Costume (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), 112, 118, 140, etc.

76

WOMEN POTTERS

Fig. 2.49 -. Building up from the flat base of a water jar formed on a straw tray

Fig. 2.50 -. The walls of the jar drawn up into a large bowl

Fig. 2.51 -. Diagonal marks left after pulling the walls up with the help of a spoon tool

Fig. 2.52 -. The serrated margin formed by trimming and pressing the upper edge

a)

b)

Fig. 2.53 -. a, b, c, d) Adding a series of layers to build the upper walls

BEITUNIA

c)

d)

Fig. 2.54 -. Handles that have been formed

Fig. 2.55 -. Attaching a handle to the jar’s middle part

Fig. 2.56 -. Two handles attached to the jar’s maximum diameter

Fig. 2.57 -. The completed jar

77

78

WOMEN POTTERS

jars, she found long horizontal cracks extending around the jars at the point where layer 3 joined layer 4. A number of vertical cracks also extended up from this join into layer 4. These she smoothed over and filled in by rubbing them with the inside of a watermelon rind, which was a special trick employed at Beitunia. Finally, she added the sixth and last layer to the large jars. The next day many of the same cracks reappeared in addition to new cracks between the junction of layers 5 and 6. The potter spent considerable time over the next several days rubbing with a watermelon rind and adding bits of clay to these cracks, which kept on reappearing. If, however, a jar did crack during firing and did not completely shatter, cement would serve to fill the crack. Needless to say, many of these same cracks reappeared during firing, but the potter saved her jar by filling them with liberal quantities of cement. In a number of places cement was also added to the outside and inside of the entire

base as an insurance against breakage. In several West Bank villages, the entire outside and inside surface of all new jars was coated with cement to strengthen the jars and fill any cracks. These jars remained functional, although, alas, any aesthetic quality had completely disappeared. The use of water jars. While in use, the water jars at Beitunia stood upright and were found more often inside than outdoors (fig. 2.58), where there was the danger that a stray stone thrown by a boy might break the jar. Also I was told here that, after a water jar had been in use for ten or more years, it no longer cooled the water as a new jar did. Undoubtedly its pores became clogged with microscopic scum, resulting in less surface evaporation and cooling. Because of this, an older water jar was often used for the storage of oil, having been replaced by a new water storage jar.

Fig. 2.58 -. Water jar placed inside the house

SINJIL

79

Fig. 3.1 -. View of Sinjil from the north

Sinjil Clay Source The village of Sinjil is situated on the northern slope of an east–west ridge (fig. 3.1). On the upper southern slope of this same ridge, there is an outcropping of the light yellow Moza formation, which most of the Sinjil potters regarded as superior and, in the 1970s, still used as their clay source. At a point ca. 20 m west of a round stone watch tower and immediately below a terrace wall, there was a depression ca. 10 m in diameter, the result of quarrying over a long period of time. The landowner, Mohammed Abdul Kader Elwan Abu Bazruk, attempted to fill in this depression to little avail, as the Sinjil potters kept returning to the same spot year after year to extract clay. For some unknown reason, the potters were reluctant to reveal the exact location of this clay source, and I learned of it only when the landowner accompanied me there. The clay was found ca. 1 m below the surface, while the material above it was the lighter, calcareous marl (‫ۊ‬njZƗU) that the potters also used for slip (latۚa). The only access to this quarry (matraba), located about half a kilometer south of the village, was by footpath. Alternatively, a few of the Sinjil potters obtained their clay and marl from the cut immediately east of the main Jerusalem–Nablus road, about 1.6 km north of Sinjil. In 1975, at least two of the Sinjil potters

obtained their clay from that source. I also collected Moza clay northeast of Sinjil along the west side of the Jerusalem–Nablus road where a cistern was being dug.

Clay Body Preparation After the clay had been mined with a medium-sized pick, it was gathered into a basket (TnjIID) ca. 35 cm in diameter and 20 cm high, made from discarded automobile tires, and thence into a burlap bag, and loaded onto a donkey for transport back home. It was then unpacked and spread out in the sun to dry for several days. One of the most laborious chores of the woman potter was the actual preparation of the clay itself. A crushing stone (midris) was used to break up the chunks of clay into fine particles. It was most often a rectangular stone with a rounded bottom, measuring ca. 50 cm long, 25 cm wide, and 20 cm high, but with variable size and shape; some of these stones were more cylindrical or oval (fig. 3.2). The rocking back and forth was easier if the stone was a bit heavier on one side, in which case when pushed forward it readily rocked back into its original position by itself. The dried clay was placed underneath it and crushed by rocking the stone back

WOMEN POTTERS

80

and forth on a hard stone or cement surface. The clay was then sifted (QDۚHO; pl.ELQDۚDO) through a gut string sifter (ƥXUEƗO) whose screen (ca. 2-mm mesh) was attached to a round wooden hoop ca. 50 cm in diameter. These gut string sifters were found in every village kitchen, where they commonly served for cleaning lentils and wheat, among other foods. They were made by gypsies (QDZDU). Temper. All pottery at Sinjil was tempered with crushed, ground, and sifted pottery, that is, grog. The sherds themselves were never from the potters’ own discarded pots but were always hard red ancient sherds gathered from nearby antiquity sites. The potters said that their own pots were not good for temper. The collected sherds were crushed with the rocking stone, sifted with the gut sifter, and then ground in a basalt or sandstone grinder (‫ܒ‬Ɨ‫ۊ‬njQH) (fig. 3.3). This grinder was also a standard village kitchen utensil. It consisted of two discs with a small hole in the center of the lower disc, into which a metal spike fit. The upper disc had a larger central hole (ca. 6–8 cm in diameter) into which was placed the substance to be ground, and an additional depression near its perimeter into which a handle fit. One would put a cloth beneath the grinder in order to catch the ground pottery. After grinding, the powdered pottery was sifted through a fine flour sifter (munkhal) with a fine mesh metal screen (1-mm mesh). The ground clay and pottery were then measured out in equal proportions, one part clay to one part grog, into a large pan (lakan) or tin can. Halima, the potter I observed the most, used her two hands as a measuring scoop. After mixing the dry clay and grog together, she added water and continued mixing and adding water until the right consistency was reached. She then took the mixture out of the pan and kneaded it enough on the floor to form a large lump ca. 30 cm in diameter, which she placed on a pile. The problem of sticking while kneading was prevented with a thin layer of powdered grog. The pile of these lumps, always in a closed room, was covered with burlap bags or cloth to prevent evaporation; after two days, the clay-grog mixture was ready for final kneading and pot making (fig. 3.4). Usually a potter would prepare all the clay she needed at one time.

Forming Techniques All Sinjil pottery was made on flat straw trays (‫܈‬innīya, ‫ܒ‬abaq), usually two trays, one on top of the other. These trays were ca. 50 cm in diameter, but often the smaller forms were built on trays of lesser diameter (fig. 3.5). Straw basketry was a craft practiced by women

in most Palestinian village households. Trays and low straw baskets (MnjQL) were the commonest items made and were most often used for some aspect of food preparation or serving. (At Qusra the round-bottomed cooking pots were set in ash-filled, low straw baskets while the upper part of the pot was being formed.) The potters did not use new trays but rather old worn ones that had seen long household service. The flat tray enabled the potter to turn the pot while she was working on it or to move it aside while it was still wet without damage to the base. A small mound of dung ash (VDNDQ) was formed in the center of the tray, and the base was actually built on this mound. Therefore, the bottom of all Sinjil bases was slightly concave, whereas the inner bottom surface was usually convex. This was a characteristic peculiar to Sinjil; in contrast, the bases of the handmade pottery in other Palestinian villages were flat.

Forming of the Water Jar Stage 1. By taking a lump of clay in both hands, forming it roughly into a ball, and then pressing in with her fingers (minus thumbs) all around its periphery, the potter Halima formed a clay disc (TƗµD) (fig. 3.6). The resulting finger impressions were then removed by patting and revolving the disc between her flattened hands. (The formation of this disc was similar to the initial step in the building of the cooking pot at Qusra.) The potter then placed the disc on the low mound of dung ash, pressed it down, and finally wet-smoothed it with her moistened hand (fig. 3.7). Clay slabs (IƯGƯ) were then made and added to this foundation (fig. 3.8). As in the formation of the disc, Halima again took a lump of clay in both hands. This time she pressed the tips of the four fingers of both hands into the clay, vertically squeezing it out until the desired thickness was attained (fig. 3.9). She then released and pressed again into the unworked lump, repeating this process until the lump was squeezed out into a loaf ca. 40 cm long with a roughly semicircular-to-U-shaped cross-section (fig. 3.10 a, b, c). The inside of the U had a series of distinct fingertip impressions. The potter set the loaf with the fingerimpressed side upright on her horizontally outstretched left forearm and patted it down with her right hand until the form was flattened out into a rectangular slab ca. 40 cm long, 10 cm wide, and 3 cm thick. This was the standard building block of the Sinjil potters. The uppermost surface of the slab, having been patted down and wet-smoothed, was flatter than the slab’s underside and, in pot making, was always placed so that it faced the inside of the vessel.

SINJIL

Fig. 3.2 -. Crushing clay using a rolling stone

Fig. 3.3 -. Potters’ tools, including a sieve and grinding stone

Fig. 3.4 -. A mixture of clay and grog ready for use

Fig. 3.5 -. Forming tools, including a straw tray

Fig. 3.6 -. Forming the flat base

Fig. 3.7 -. Wet-smoothing the base

81

82

WOMEN POTTERS

Fig. 3.8 -. Adding a clay slab to the foundation to build the wall of a pot

Fig. 3.9 -. Kneading a lump of clay before making a clay slab

a)

c)

b) Fig. 3.10 -. a, b, c) Making a clay slab

SINJIL

If the slab was to be added to an already existing wall of a pot, the potter would make a lengthwise groove on the inside edge of the slab with her right forefinger. The smallest forms at Sinjil, however, were built with smaller slabs made by the potter rolling a clay lump between her two horizontally held hands to produce a roll. These rolls were also flattened and grooved as described. Handles were rolled out in a similar fashion. Halima sat on the ground in the shade of a north house wall while working on small pots, forming slabs, or during the initial stages of producing larger forms. In the midafternoon, she moved to the shady east side of the house. She wore the local traditional woman’s clothing with long baggy cotton pants that narrow at the ankles, and a long wool dress. While making pots, however, she wore no shoes. Her right calf and foot were bent against her right thigh and rested on the ground, while her left leg was either fully outstretched or bent upright in varying degrees as her left foot was drawn closer to her body. Her partially upright bent left knee acted as a support for her outstretched left forearm when she was flattening out the clay loaf. A slab that was longer than half of the disc’s circumference was placed around the edge of the clay disc. A second slab of equal length completed the circular wall, overlapping at both ends beyond the edge of the first slab (fig. 3.11). These overlapping ends were first smoothed over on the inside by the potter, Halima, horizontally pulling over the join with the outside edge of her right index finger (fig. 3.12 a, b). The excess clay at the overlap was scraped off and used to seal the inside juncture of the slab and the disc. This same step was repeated on the outside. The potter then pushed the clay all along the outer wall of the slab down onto the straw tray with her right forefinger, thus both welding the slab-disc juncture and producing a flaring out of the very lowest part of the base (fig. 3.13). Finally, after dipping her hand in water, with her curled-up right forefinger, she pulled the form horizontally toward herself to wet-smooth the outside of the base. While still seated on the ground, Halima drew up and thinned out the thick slab walls with her right index finger (fig. 3.14 a, b, c). In doing so, she pulled the clay upward and toward herself and thereby produced diagonal striations that slanted upward to the left. Such striations were often characteristic of handmade pottery formed by right-handed potters. By horizontally pulling the clay on the inside with her right forefinger, she smoothed the inner walls and drew them up slightly. She rolled a piece of clay between her

83

two outstretched hands, and the resulting thin roll (ca. 1 cm in diameter) was placed around, pressed down, and smoothed into the junction of the base and the inner wall. Two wooden tools were then used for final shaping. The concave inner wall surfaces were further drawn up and smoothed with the convex surface of a broken wooden spoon. (The wooden spoon was also a tool used at Qusra.) The convex outer wall was finished with the concave surface of a broken piece of a wooden hoop, originally a piece from a round sifter (fig. 3.15). Finally, the edge of the rim was evenly trimmed. The end of the first stage in the production of the large water jar at Sinjil was a shallow bowl whose upper rim was ca. 40 cm in diameter and 16 cm high (fig. 3.16). Stages 2–4. The body of the large water jar was made in four distinct layers. After each layer was finished, a certain amount of time was needed for the clay to dry and stiffen to enable it to support additional weight. The jar was set aside in the sun and occasionally turned to facilitate even drying. As two large jars were usually made in one day, the potter turned her attention to the second while the first was drying. The first layer’s manufacture has just been described. The second layer was built by adding three grooved slabs to the shallow bowl’s rim (fig. 3.17 a, b). Each slab’s grooved edge fit onto the wall’s simple rim, and Halima smoothed the inner overlap against the wall with her right forefinger. After the addition of the third slab, she added small globs of clay on the outside to the three points where the slabs met. First with her right forefinger and then with the wooden tools, she thinned the added clay and drew it up and out to form a deep bowl, with a rim that was 54 cm in diameter and 32 cm high (fig. 3.18). Four grooved slabs were added to the deep bowl’s rim and, from this point on, except while forming slabs, Halima worked while standing (fig. 3.19 a, b, c). The clay for the third layer was drawn upward and inward, with occasional pauses required for the clay walls to dry. The final height of the three-tiered form was ca. 42 cm, and the top opening had a diameter of 40 cm. When the walls of the three-tiered form had dried sufficiently, 3 and 1/3 slabs of slightly smaller dimensions were needed to complete the circumference. After the clay was drawn upward and inward, the final smoothing of this fourth layer completed the body of the jar, which now had a height of 48 cm and an opening with a diameter of 23 cm (fig. 3.20). Handles, neck, and rim. Before forming the neck, Halima attached the four handles (‫ڴ‬ān; pl. ‫ڴ‬ahēn) to the midpoint of the body, that is, at the point of

84

WOMEN POTTERS

Fig. 3.11 -. Joining the first slabs to the clay disc

b)

a) Fig. 3.12 -. a, b) Pulling the clay to smooth the lower walls

Fig. 3.13 -. Building the pot’s lower wall, with view of flared-out base

SINJIL

a)

85

b)

c) Fig. 3.14 -. a, b, c) Thinning the walls by hand and with the help of a wooden tool

Fig. 3.15 -. Potter using a broken piece from a wooden hoop

Fig. 3.16 -. The final product of the first stage, shaped like a shallow bowl

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WOMEN POTTERS

a)

b) Fig. 3.17 -. a, b) Building the second layer from the grooved slabs

a) Fig. 3.18 -. The walls of the water jar drawn up to form a deep bowl

b)

Fig. 3.19 -. a, b, c) Forming the upper walls from additional clay slabs

c)

SINJIL

87

Fig. 3.20 -. The completed body of a jar

maximum diameter; each vertical handle was attached to the body at two points, one above the other. Before each handle was added, she roughened a small circular area at each of these points by making a number of light gouges in the wet clay walls with her fingernail. She formed the handles by rolling out a long roll of clay between her flattened hands sufficient for several handles. She broke off a shorter piece of the roll and further rolled it between her hands, placed it on her outstretched left hand, and patted and wet-smoothed it to produce an oval-sectioned handle (fig. 3.21 a, b). Next she pressed first the top and then the bottom of the handle into the pre-roughened spots on the body. She rolled out a small roll of clay, ca. 1 cm in diameter or less, between her hands and placed it around the upper handle–body join (fig. 3.22 a, b, c). She used the thumb or forefinger of both hands to press in and smooth around the join. This process was repeated for the lower part of the handle. Next she attached the opposite handle, that is, the handle 180 degrees away. The remaining two handles, located midway between the first two handles, were then attached; their exact placement was measured with a series of hand spans (fig. 3.23). Halima placed the tip of her right forefinger against the handle to her right and the tip of her left forefinger on the opposite handle. Holding her forefingers in place, she stretched her thumbs out horizontally to their maximum extent. Then, while keeping her thumbs in place against the wall of the pot, she brought the tips of her forefingers up to her thumbs. Again, with her forefingers held in

place against the pot, she stretched out her thumbs. This process was repeated until she reached the middle of the pot, whereupon she made a mark. The neck (rās) of the jar was then added. Halima put two shorter slabs around the top opening (fig. 3.24 a, b, c). First she pushed the added clay down onto the body with her right forefinger. Then she brought the walls up by hand and did the final shaping with the wooden tools. Since she was standing and drawing upward, the striations were nearly vertical. If necessary, globs of clay were added to the top (fig. 3.25). She produced the flat rim simply by drawing the bottom of her right thumb over the upper edge. The pot was set aside in full sun to dry, but often a tray or burlap rag was placed as a cover on the top to keep it from drying too quickly. (Another potter, Jamila Yusuf Khalil, who made her pottery in October, when the first winter rains may fall, dried her wares inside a tent that had been set up next to the place where she built her pots. After about two days, the trays on which her pots had been made were removed and used for building other vessels.) Slip. The jars were allowed to dry for at least four to five days before they were slipped. Usually just before slipping, the bases were trimmed with a kitchen knife. The outward-sloping, beveled edges of the base were trimmed so that the angle between the bottom and the side was greater than 90 degrees. Afterward the potter used her moistened hand to rub over the trimmed area.

WOMEN POTTERS

88

a)

b)

Fig. 3.21 -. a, b) Making a handle with an oval section

a)

b)

c) Fig. 3.22 -. a, b, c) Attaching the handle and strengthening the join with extra clay

SINJIL

89

Fig. 3.23 -. Measuring the handles’ placement with hand spans

a)

b)

c) Fig. 3.24 -. a, b, c) Forming the neck from two short slabs

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WOMEN POTTERS

The cream-colored slip (latۚa) was made from marl (‫ۊ‬ūwār), a whiter, more calcareous (calcium carbonaterich) fraction that is found immediately above the clay in the Moza formation. It was crushed and sieved like the clay itself. Shortly before beginning, the potter would put several handfuls of ground marl into a can and add water. Two slip samples that were collected, weighed, and dried were found to contain 62 percent water. First the insides of the vessels were slipped. Either the slip was poured into the pot and swirled around, or a slip-moistened rag was used to rub around the inside (fig. 3.26). Then the outside was rubbed with a slip-moistened rag. After drying overnight, the vessels were ready for painting. Painting. The pottery made at Sinjil had painted designs (zīna), and if the patterns varied at all from potter to potter, they did so only minutely. While each type of Sinjil pot—for example, jars, bowls, jugs, and other vessels—had its own specific painted design, only the painting of the largest and most characteristic of the vessels made at Sinjil, the large water jar (zīr), will be described here. Painted water jars were found in villages between Jerusalem and Nablus, and each village apparently had its own characteristic designs. Although in most villages traditional handmade pottery was no longer produced in the late twentieth century, in many villages jars were still being used that had been made by villagers’ mothers or grandmothers some twenty or more years earlier. At Sinjil, I was told that the red paint (miġre) had been brought in by Bedouin from the northern Jordan Valley rift. However, another potter said it was from Salem, a village east of Nablus. At Beit ‘Anan and Qusra, the paint was purchased in powdered form from the Jerusalem market (sūq al ‘attarīn) or the Nablus market. The Sinjil paint came in chunks of ca. 1 cm and was probably a naturally occurring form of iron oxide. The chunks were placed in a bowl with water, and sometimes a stone was rubbed around the sides of the bowl to bring the color into suspension (fig. 3.27). The Sinjil potters made their own brushes from the hair on the mane of a donkey. A tuft of hair ca. 2 cm long was bunched together and tied onto one side of a stick ca. 8 cm long with a string or thread. (The same type of brush is described above on pp. 71 and 74.) The end of the hair was trimmed diagonally. The brush produced lines that varied from 3.5 mm to 6.5 mm in width. At Beit ‘Anan the feathery end of a

chicken feather was used as a brush, so that finer lines were achieved. Halima sat on the ground while painting the pots she had made (fig. 3.28 a, b, c). Her fifteen-year-old granddaughter, although not a potter, also painted some of the pots. The first step was to delineate the neck from the body by drawing three parallel horizontal lines (1) at the point where the neck begins. Two U-shaped parallel lines (2) were then drawn around the handles, and the detailing on the handles was completed. Then two parallel horizontal lines (3) were made at the point of the body’s largest diameter; first the section above these lines (4) was completed, after which the lower panels (5) were executed. Halima tipped the jar up with her left hand while painting the lowest border, which, because of the awkward angle, was the most crudely painted section. The entire body of the jar was completed before the neck (6) was begun, and the final painting, made by the painter while standing, was a series of curved lines (7) on the upper inside wall. The lower quarter of the large water jar was left unpainted. It took the potter approximately 2.5 hours to complete the painting of one large water jar. As soon as the painting was finished, the pottery could be fired. The potter Jamila finished painting a large water jar on the very morning of her firing.60

Firing and Fuel Throughout the West Bank, handmade pottery was fired with dried dung as a fuel. The dung could be either cow or goat/sheep manure. Ideally firings took place on flat ground away from any trees or buildings. The same spot was often used year after year, but it might also be planted with crops during the rainy season. Plowed into the soil, the ash served as a fertilizer. After a layer of loose dried dung ca. 10 cm thick had been spread out, over the dung all the larger jars were laid next to each other on their sides with their mouths facing east (fig. 3.29). The prevailing wind in Palestine blows from west to east, and so the mouths of the jars were protected from the west wind. A single dung pad was stacked against each mouth, and smaller items were stacked around the perimeter of the east end of the pile. The pots were covered with dung cakes and loose dried dung, and then old burlap bags were thrown over the pile. Discarded clothing and shoes were also added. At

60 Owen Rye notes that if the paint was composed of iron oxide or ochre, the painted area would be powdery after firing, and therefore some form of sealing must have been applied to it after firing.

SINJIL

Fig. 3.25 -. Adding small clay pieces to form the top

Fig. 3.27 -. Painting jars with red paint made from miġre

Fig. 3.26 -. Rubbing the inside with a slip-moistened rag

91

92

WOMEN POTTERS

b)

a)

c) Fig. 3.28 -. a, b, c) Stages followed in painting a jar

SINJIL

Fig. 3.29 -. Laying the jars over the first dung layer and beginning a second layer

Fig. 3.30 -. After covering the pots with dung, placing metal pieces at the edges

93

94

WOMEN POTTERS

Sinjil, scrap metal pieces were stacked upright against the edges of the pile (fig. 3.30), which served to hold the heat in and protect against a sudden gust of wind. Smaller stone boulders kept the metal pieces in place. A bit of straw was spread over the pile, and the pile was lit with a match (fig. 3.31). The temperature rose at about 10 °C per minute until a temperature of about 800 °C was reached. It then dropped at about the same rate. The remarkable thing about these open firings was that the temperature at the top of the pile could be several hundred degrees hotter than that at the bottom. For smaller vessels, the difference was not great, but for larger jars, which could be nearly 80 cm in diameter, the temperature gradient was marked. In a kiln, this gradient would be minimal, but not so in an open firing. To prevent breakage, Sinjil clay was mixed with grog, as described above. The grog mixed with the clay protected the jar from these temperature gradients. Without grog, the larger pots would have cracked under these firing conditions.

Three Firings Three firings were observed at Sinjil. Each firing was carried out by a different potter, and they varied enough from one another to warrant separate descriptions (fig. 3.32). Halima’s firing. The first of the firings was carried out on 31 August 1975 by the veteran potter Halima. She was assisted by ‘Asha, the woman who had supplied the prepared mixture of clay and grog, the slip, and the fuel. When I arrived at 05:30 in the morning, they had already carried the unfired pots some 100 m to the west of the courtyard where they had been made to a place behind ‘Asha’s home, a broad treeless terrace that was plowed and planted during the winter rainy season but now was free from even any stubble. The same spot had been used in previous seasons for firing, and three later firings by Halima in addition to a firing on 16 October 1975 by Safia Shahada al Fuqa, another Sinjil potter, were also done there. First a shallow hole or pit (mišwār) was prepared with a pointed hoe. It measured ca. 2 × 2.5 m in diameter and ca. 15 cm deep. A layer of dried mule manure ca. 10 cm deep was put down (fig. 3.33). The largest jars (zīrs) were then laid on their sides with their openings pointed toward the east, away from the prevailing west winds (fig. 3.34). The smaller pots were placed in between, and a small quantity of remaining mule manure was spread over them. Then the dung pads were added, the potter being careful to cover every bit of exposed pottery. These dung pads were made

primarily from cow manure, although other animal manure might be mixed in with the cow dung. Old pieces of scrap-metal sheets, mainly pieces from large tin cans, were placed upright around the sides of the entire pile. Often they were held in place by a stone. This low wall of scrap metal was said to keep the fuel from sliding down off the edge of the pile. Then, after the addition of the remaining dung pads, the exposed dung was covered with old burlap bags and clothes, and finally a few old rubber shoes were put on the top. The pile was now about 65 cm high. Finally, a small amount of straw and a piece of Sarcopoterium (netish) was spread over the top, and the straw was lit. The time was 06:35 A.M. Before the addition of the dung, but after the jars had been set in place, I inserted the thermocouple tip in the middle of the pile between two large jars. The straw quickly burned, serving effectively to ignite both the burlap and the underlying fuel; initially a fair amount of smoke was given off, which only slowly diminished. Although the outside of the pile was very hot, there was no registry of temperature rise until about 25 minutes after the fire was started, but then there was a steady rise of ca. 8 to 10 °C per minute until a maximum temperature of 895 °C was registered at 1 hour and 56 minutes from the beginning. The peak lasted only about 7 minutes, after which the temperature began to fall at an almost equal rate (9.9 °C per minute). Thus, the temperature curve was very symmetrical. Note that because the maximum temperature of the firing was above the temperature at which calcite decomposes, the use of grog rather than calcite makes sense; the grog was as stable as the basic clay. Forty-five minutes after the firing started, Halima added a single dung pad to the upper rim of a large jar because it had become exposed. She walked around the fire occasionally to see that all the jars were covered. At 1 hour and 25 minutes, the outside of the jars had an almost white glow, which Halima said was good. At 90 minutes, she added a few more burlap bags and uttered a short prayer while continuing to walk around and inspect the fire. Then ‘Asha came over to the fire and also said a few prayers while walking around and inspecting it. About 2 hours after the beginning of the fire, Halima walked around it and, with her right hand raised, she said, “Salli al nebi, salli an Muhammad” (“Pray for the prophet, pray for Muhammad”). After 2.5 hours, Halima went back to her house while ‘Asha went over to the nearby roof of her house and swept clean the place where her dung cakes had

SINJIL

95 SINJIL '81*675$:&$.(6 600

895° MAXIMUM

Fuel added 400

a3 1A ug 75

300

lim Ha

16 O

200

fia

Fig. 3.31 -. Lighting the straw to start the fire

786° MAXIMUM

ct 75

7(03(5$785(Ü&

500

Sa

75 ov

a mil

100

7N

Ja

0

50

100

150

180

TIME (Minutes after start of firing)

Fig. 3.32 -. Firing graph of three firings at Sinjil

Fig. 3.33 -. Halima’s jars placed over the dung in a firing pit

Fig. 3.34 -. The largest jars being placed on their sides facing east

Fig. 3.35 -. The top of the dung pile covered with a large amount of straw

96

WOMEN POTTERS

been piled. After about 4 hours, the scrap metal wall was pulled back somewhat, and after 7 hours ‘Asha brushed away some of the fuel from the pots. After 8.5 hours, the local tourist shop owner at the Turmus Ayye crossroad appeared, and then finally Halima made her entrance, returning from her home. First some of the smaller vessels were removed, and soon thereafter the large jars. Two of the large jars had vertical cracks on their rims, and a third had a crack on its lower side. Musa said this didn’t matter since it could be repaired with cement. I bought one of these large jars and two of the smaller two-handled jars (ba‫ܒܒ‬a), and Musa purchased everything else except the one bowl and three two-handled small jars; one of the small jars was for Halima’s domestic use, and ‘Asha took the other two. At 16:00, which was 9.5 hours after the lighting of the fire, the firing was all over and the last large jar was being carried away on the head of a woman. Several other women who then arrived complained that everything had been sold—they had wanted to buy large water jars. Safia’s firing. On 16 October 1975, I observed a second firing at Sinjil, carried out by Safia Shahada al Fuqa, a fifty-five-year-old woman who was making and firing pottery for the first time. She was assisted by a younger woman, her brother’s wife. At the beginning and end of the firing, both of their husbands were present, and no photographs of the women were allowed. I arrived only a few minutes before the firing began and so did not observe the placement of the fuel. The thermocouple tip was put in the middle of the stacked pottery about 35 cm from the top of the jars. The large jars were oriented on their sides with their openings to the east, and all of the bowls were placed upside down. Scrap metal was propped up around the outside of the pile, as it had been in the previous firing. Initially at least, the only noticeable difference between this firing and the other two firings (on 31 August and 7 November) was that no burlap or rags were used and a much larger quantity of straw was spread on top of the pile (fig. 3.35). Then, unlike the previous firing, where all the fuel was added before lighting the fire, here the potter added additional dung cakes at 20, 50, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and 95 minutes after the fire’s start. The total amount of fuel used was considerably more than that used by Halima. There was a very rapid increase of 35 °C per minute from 50–55 minutes after the start, which might have been due indirectly to the straw. This was followed by a slow rise of 2.8 °C per minute between 55 and 145 minutes until the maximum temperature of 786 °C was attained. The double peaked curve was probably

due to the extended period of fuel addition. It is not yet understood why a maximum temperature closer to the other two firings was not reached, but this may have been due to a different type of animal manure being used in her dung pads, which measured 30–40 cm in diameter and were only 1.5 cm thick. These dung cakes were somewhat larger and thinner than usual. In any case, such variations are not unusual with this type of firing. The day was windier than that of the previous firing. The vessels fired in this firing consisted of 5 large jars (zīr), 2 smaller jars (jarrah), 2 foot baths (ZD‫ڲ‬ƗƯD), 1 two-handled jar (ba‫ܒܒ‬a), 7 bowls (zibdīya), 1 strainer bowl (kōr), and 6 drinking jugs (šarbeh). All the vessels were made for various members of the family or relatives, and none were for sale. (fig. 3.36) The breakage included vertical cracks on the rims of the easternmost two zīrs and one smaller jar. The sharp angularity of these rims made it difficult to keep them covered with fuel during the course of the firing, for the fuel often slid off at the east end of the pile, exposing the jars there to greater temperature gradients and thus greater cracking on their rims. Even Halima’s large jars at the east end of the pile had similar cracks, though fewer, on their rims. The use of burlap acted as a cover that to a certain extent retained its form after burning, and thus partially hindered the sliding off of the fuel. One of the larger bowls was cracked in a circle at the point where the base’s edge joined the bottom. This was also one of the most frequent places where Sinjil vessels were susceptible to breakage, as, despite the trimming of the edge of the base, this point was often twice as thick as the bottom or the walls. Jamila’s firing. The third firing recorded was probably the last at Sinjil during the 1975 season, taking place on 7 November. The firing was postponed by at least a week because the fifty-three-year-old potter, Jamila, had been sick. On the morning of the firing, she finished painting her largest zīr. On the previous day she had made a small drinking jug (šarbeh), which was still wet. At first there was some question as to whether they would fire that day, but when her daughter saw some white clouds in the blue sky, they feared a change in the weather and decided after all to go ahead. As her house was situated on a steep hillside at the northeast edge of Sinjil and there was no nearby treeless area, she fired immediately to the west of her house on a knoll used as a manure dump. Here no shallow pit was made at all. First, two large pans of tābūn ash (sakan) were spread out in order to prevent the underlying manure from catching fire (fig. 3.37). Because Jamila’s oldest son was a sheep and goat

SINJIL

97

Fig. 3.36 -. Some of the pots that were fired

Fig. 3.37 -. Jamila spreading a layer of ash on the ground to prepare for firing

Fig. 3.38 -. Jamila’s son with his goats, providing enough dung to cover the pots

Fig. 3.39 -. One of Jamila’s daughters carrying a jar to the firing place

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WOMEN POTTERS

herder whose animals slept in a yard adjacent to her house, large quantities of sheep and goat manure were available (fig. 3.38). Then a layer of sheep/goat manure was laid down along with some broken pieces of manure pads (predominantly made from cow manure). The unfired pots had been made nearby at the edge of an orchard and, when completed, had been placed inside a tent, as this late in the season there was a high likelihood of rain. Jamila’s daughters carried the large jars on their heads over to the border of the firing area (fig. 3.39). One of these jars tipped over when it was set down, which resulted in a small section of the rim breaking off. The large jars (zīr) and smaller jars (jarrah) were placed on their sides with their openings oriented to the east away from the prevailing wind. Goat manure was added around and in between the jars, and the smaller pots were interspersed or placed at the edge of the pile (fig. 3.40). A few of the miniature forms for the children were placed inside the large jars. The manure pads were placed on the top of the jars. I counted sixty-two pads, which were composed of more than 50 percent cow manure. As in the two previous firings, tin cans and flat pieces of metal sheets were set upright around the edges, and more goat/sheep manure was added in between vessels. Jamila added considerably more fuel than was used in either of the two previous firings, and threequarters of this fuel was not in the form of manure pads (jelle) but simply dried sheep and goat dung without chopped straw added to it. The other quarter did consist of manure pads plus some mule manure. Jamila stated that mule manure does not produce as hot a fire. Finally, she added old burlap bags, of which she had a plentiful supply (fig. 3.41). She said that more fuel was needed for firing in the cooler weather than if she had fired earlier in the season. The finished pile was about 2.5 m in diameter and 0.9 m high. The thermocouple tip had been inserted through one of the handles of the largest jar, about 25 cm below the top of the jars in the center of the pile. (Later a large horizontal crack developed on this jar near the tip of the thermocouple.) After pouring

a small amount of kerosene onto the west side of the pile, she lit the fire. The time was already 11:00 A.M. Jamila’s firing differed from the previous two firings in that she continued to add burlap bags and occasionally other things such as a rubber basket, old clothes, a piece of dried cactus, an old straw tray, and more rarely some sheep/goat dung to spots where the fuel had slid off the pottery. The last such addition occurred some 4 hours after the start of the fire. Two and one-half hours after the start, one of her daughters came out and threw a handful of salt on the fire! The weather was cool and at around 15:00 hours, about 4 hours after the start, Jamila, along with several neighbor women, sat down about a meter from the fire and began talking among themselves. The maximum temperature of 934 °C was reached at 5 hours and 10 minutes after the start, thus shortly after 16:00 hours. From about 10 minutes into the firing, the temperature rose gradually at a rate of 3.0 °C per minute until the maximum was reached. After a peak period of about 20 minutes, the temperature dropped at a rate of 5.1 °C per minute for about the next 3 hours, after which the rate of cooling became slower. By 17:00 hours it was almost dark and, as the jars were still very hot, they were left overnight in the pile and only removed at 06:00 the following morning. Jamila’s production included 3 large jars (zīr); 4 of the smaller, medium-sized jars (jarrah); a total of 5 drinking jugs (šarbeh), one with two horizontal ridges (raf raf ) and one of miniature size; one bowl (zibdīya); and, for her grandchildren, 2 cups (murtas), 2 teacups (finjan), which were modern imitations, and 1 camel with glass beads for eyes. These last items were all fired inside the large jars. One of the large jars, one of the smaller jars, and the bowl all had circular cracks at the point where the thick part of the base joined the flat bottom. Her largest jar had a horizontal crack 3 cm wide about one-third of the way around the middle; such a fault was rare at Sinjil (fig. 3.42). The neck of one of the large jars had a vertical crack, which, however, did not extend to the rim. All of this pottery was made for Jamila herself or for her sons’ households, and none of it for sale.

SINJIL

Fig. 3.40 -. Placing jars and adding dung around and between the jars

Fig. 3.41 -. Used burlap bags added to the firing

Fig. 3.42 -. A jar that cracked during the firing

99

WOMEN POTTERS

100

Fig. 3.43 -. Landscape with quarry near Qusra

Qusra Like Qabalan (see below), Qusra is also located southeast of Nablus, its district capital (fig. 3.43). In the 1970s it was at the end of a single-lane, asphalt road that connected with the main Jerusalem–Nablus highway to the west. Other villages that were reached from this same road were Qabalan, Usarin, Talfit, Jalud, Qaryut, and neighboring Jurish. In the late twentieth century, Qusra had ca. 2,500 inhabitants divided into three clans (hamūle): Hassan, Ode, and Abu Rede. An almost equal number of inhabitants lived outside Palestine, especially in Kuwait. Qusra had a boys’ school with classes up through the ninth grade. Thereafter, a considerable number of its young men commuted daily to al Sawwiya, Huwwara, or Nablus to finish their high school education. The girls’ school offered classes through grade 6. A municipal generator to provide electricity was installed in 1976. Olives and wheat were the chief agricultural crops. The olives grown on the hard limestone hills covered with terra rosa were harvested from mid-October until early December, and there were two olive presses in the village. Wheat, barley, and legumes, grown in the valleys, were harvested in late June and July.

characteristic of northern Palestine, for in the Ramallah region and farther south the dresses of village women had embroidered designs.61 When outside on the street, the Qusra woman wore the traditional long black or dark blue woolen abaya over her head.

The women here wore long, usually plain-colored dresses without embroidery, with a cloth sash tied around the waist. Such dresses were clearly more

Similar to the arrangement at a number of other West Bank villages, if a woman wanted a water jar, she did all the gathering and preparation of the clay and

61 WEIR, Palestinian Costume, 88–138.

Three Potters I met three women potters here, all of whom were in their mid to late forties. Apparently there was also a fourth potter, whom I did not meet. The three potters were Wasile Hassan Ode (Umm Fathi); Sabha, mart al Šukri, a widow; and Sara Musa Abu Rede (Umm Nassar). In the village of Jurish, north of Qusra, there was one woman who occasionally made pottery, Hajit Zainab. The jars and cooking pots made at Jurish were nearly identical to those made at Qusra, and their clay was gathered from the same quarry.

Raw Materials and Clay Body Preparation

QUSRA

the grog herself, including the wedging. The potter received 30 IL ($3.00) for making a water jar. At the time of the firing, the potter supervised the placement of the pots and the addition of the fuel. The potter did not provide the necessary fuel, but instead each woman who had a jar to be fired had to come up with her share of the fuel. If she did not have access to animal dung, some kind of deal would have to be made with those who did. Once the clay had been mined from the local quarry (matraba), it was carried home and, after thorough drying in the sun, it was crushed into fine granules with the crushing stone (midris) and then sifted with the woven leather thong sifter (ġurbāl), which usually had a ca. 3-mm mesh (fig. 3.44 a, b). Ancient sherds gathered from nearby antiquity sites were also crushed in this manner, but often the final stage of grinding them was done with the stone disc grinder (‫ܒ‬ā‫ۊ‬ūne). The grog was sifted with a finer, ca. 1-mm-mesh flour sifter (munkhal). The moistened clay-grog mixture had to stand at least two days before the final wedging, which incorporated fine sifted chaff (idmal) into the clay-grog mix. If the supply of clay body ran short before a jar was completed, more sherds were hurriedly ground, mixed with the clay and water, and wedged, all within an hour or two. The clay was always wedged immediately before use. One would take a handful of the moist clay-grog mix, dip it into fine wheat chaff, and roll it around in the chaff so that the entire surface was covered. The lump, held in both hands, was wedged by pressing the fingertips into the clay. Then it was rotated and squeezed again. This process was repeated until the chaff was uniformly mixed into the clay-grog mixture. Each lump was dipped three times into the chaff and so wedged. Once the chaff had been added, the clay was ready for pot making; with the chaff added, such a mixture should not stand around for any length of time, as bacterial and fungal growth would soon begin. The jars were made outdoors, though not in the potter’s own yard because, aside from her yard being rather small, she feared that her donkey might break the pots. Her neighbor next door did not have any large animals; since her yard was larger and shaded with a number of almond trees, it was there that the potting was done. Apparently in the spring of the year, the soil had been plowed and something had been planted under the trees. The potter did not sit while pot making but squatted, and, as the jar grew larger, she stood and bent over it. As in a number of other villages, the jars were built on two straw trays (‫܈‬innīya), one on top of the other. The upper tray was somewhat smaller (37 cm) in diameter than the lower

101

one (47 cm). The central portion of the upper tray, where the base would rest, was sprinkled with a thin layer of fine chaff. At times so little chaff was used that the base was left with impressions from the spirally woven straw tray. At the nearby village of Jurish, I saw a number of older pots with such mat impressions.

Forming of the Water Jar The potter began a large water jar by taking a lump of clay in both hands, squeezing it with her fingertips, and rotating while squeezing until a circular pad was formed, which was then further enlarged and flattened by patting it between both hands (fig. 3.45). This pad or disc, ca. 25 cm in diameter and ca. 1 cm thick, was placed on the chaff-covered tray, patted down, and smoothed; it became the jar’s base (qā‘a). The standard building blocks of the walls were slabs (ba‘abūl; pl. ba‘ābīl ). They were made much like the disc, but instead of rotating the lump, as the clay was squeezed out, the potter moved both of her hands up and again pressed her fingers into the clay. This process was repeated until the whole lump had been pressed out (fig. 3.46). After patting it down between both hands, she stood the slab lengthwise on edge along the base’s perimeter. About three such slabs were needed to go around the base’s circumference (fig. 3.47 a, b, c, d). Once the slabs completely encompassed the perimeter, the potter used the outer edge of her curled-up, right forefinger to repeatedly pull up the clay and thin it out all the way around the outer wall. Occasionally a small pinch of clay was added to a thin spot. She used three different wooden tools for smoothing the walls (mellis; pl. bimellsi) (fig. 3.48). One was a straight rectangular board (16 × 6.5 × 1.2 cm), used exclusively on the outside. Another tool, more frequently used on the outside but occasionally also on the inside, was likewise a straight board (22 × 6.5 × 1.2 cm), but two of its opposite corners were rounded. A third tool, used mostly for smoothing the inside, was a piece of a broken wooden spoon (mašake). After the initial pulling up on the outside with her forefinger, the potter further smoothed the outside with the straight board. Lastly, the inside was smoothed with the wooden spoon. After the form dried slightly, both the outside and the inside were smoothed again and shaped with the respective wooden tools. Once the potter finished this first stage, two women, usually those for whom she was making the pots, lifted the double straw tray on which the jar was resting and

102

WOMEN POTTERS

a)

b) Fig. 3.44 -. a, b) A crushing stone and sieve used in clay preparation at Qusra

Fig. 3.45 -. Making a clay disc from a clay lump

QUSRA

103

Fig. 3.46 -. Forming a clay slab used to build the walls

a)

b)

c)

d) Fig. 3.47 -. a, b, c, d) Stages of building the lower walls of the jar

104

WOMEN POTTERS

carried it into full sunlight, where it stayed until the walls had dried somewhat and become firm enough for the next stage to be built. No special effort was made to keep the rim perfectly straight. While the form was drying, the potter worked on another jar. The water jar at Qusra was built up in five consecutive layers (radda; pl. raddāt). After the first layer, the potter made a slight groove in each slab by drawing her forefinger along the slab’s lower edge. A grooved slab was easier to join to the lower layer, as the groove fit down over the previous layer’s rim. The maximum diameter was reached with the third layer and, after its walls had been completed and dried a little, the handles were added. Handles and neck. At first, four lumps of clay were added to the third layer’s rim at the points where the four handles were to be attached. Each lump projected about 4 cm above the rim and was about 12 cm long. The potter made the handles by rolling out a cylinder of clay between both hands. She patted this cylinder down and smoothed it slightly with her right hand while holding it horizontally on the outstretched palm of her left hand. Small indentations were then made at either end of the flattened roll. Before attachment, the handles were 18 cm long, 4.5 cm wide, and 3.3 cm thick (fig. 3.49). The upper end of the handle was first stuck onto one of the just-described lumps at the top of the third layer’s rim. Then the lower end was fastened to the wall. First at the lower, and then at the upper, point of attachment, bits of wet clay were added to the inside of the join and smoothed with her forefinger (fig. 3.50 a, b). The second handle was added opposite the first, its proper spacing being judged by eye. Hand spans were used to measure the proper spacing for the two remaining handles, and, if necessary, the lumps of clay on top of the third layer’s rim were adjusted. The walls of layers 4 and 5 sloped inward almost to the same degree that the walls of layers 1 and 2 sloped outward, but they did so in reverse (fig. 3.51 a, b, c, d). At Qusra, there were two types of jars (called jarrah or zīr), those with a short neck (raqaba) and those without (fig. 3.52). Up to and including layer 5, both types were identical. If the short neck was to be added, clay was rolled out between both hands to form rolls ca. 4 cm in diameter and 36 cm long, which were stuck onto the perimeter of the fifth layer’s rim, thinned out and smoothed in the usual manner, and then drawn upward a little so that the profile of the exterior wall changed from convex to slightly concave. Lastly in both cases—that is, with or without a neck—a roll ca. 2 cm in diameter was

fastened to the rim’s exterior, which was smoothed to form its characteristic thickening. Qusra’s jars were very symmetrical, as the upper half was practically the reverse of the lower half, and their bodies appeared oval to round in profile. Between the two types of jars, the height of the jar and its maximum diameter were often almost the same, as was the diameter of the rim and the base. Wasile Hassan. Wasile Hassan made more water jars than the village’s other potters. Fairly young and strong, she was skilled and worked with an air of proud assurance. On 2 October 1976, I saw her make two jars in one day and finish the fourth and fifth stages of two other jars. This was her last day of pot making in 1976. She said that she usually made four jars in one day. In the morning she started making two jars, which she completed by the end of the same day. She then started two more jars in the afternoon, built up three layers, and added the handles before dark. The fourth and fifth layers were added the next morning, when she started the whole process over again. Only a fairly young and robust woman could keep up this pace, and then only when the clay was provided ready to use and other women were on hand to carry the jars in and out of the sun as needed. In 1976, Wasile Hassan made a total of twenty jars.

Firing and Fuel The last firing of the year at Qusra took place on 19 October 1976 in the center of a vacant lot near the northeast edge of the village. A shallow pit, ca. 10 cm deep, 1.75 cm long in the east–west direction, and 1.5 m wide, was prepared at 07:00, and at around 08:00 the women brought the manure, carrying it on their heads in large metal pans (lakan) ca. 70 cm in diameter and 15 cm deep (see fig. 3.54 a, for a metal pan). Eight pans were brought, each pan containing from 30 to 45 cakes of cow manure. Prepared by mixing moistened cow manure with chopped straw (qasal), these cakes were then slapped onto a vertical stone wall until they dried. The normal-sized cake was 30 cm in diameter and 5 cm thick. The dried cakes were set in a pile about 10 m away from the firing pit. A sack of dried cow manure was also brought. At 09:00 the women carried the jars on their heads to this spot. We all then waited in the shade of a nearby tree until 11:00, when the potter, who had been busy with something else, finally showed up. She brought her own jar to be fired and a can containing crushed

QUSRA

granules of the whiter, more calcium-rich marl (traub abyad), which was found above the clay deposit at Qusra’s quarry. After adding water to the can and stirring the mixture around with her hand, the potter scooped up a bit of the slip (latۚa) and spread it over the outside of the jar with her hand (fig. 3.53). At times she tipped the jar to better enable her to cover the lower walls. Neither the bottom nor the inside was slipped, and it took only about 1.5 minutes to slip each jar. The potter had no qualms about the fact that the slip was rather uneven. Several of the jars had cracks on their bottoms, as did one bowl. To repair the cracks, she first moistened the area with a bit of water. Then she picked a pebble up off the ground and rubbed the vicinity of the crack. The hole was then smeared over with wet clay. Finally, a small piece of wet rag was stuck over the repaired area. This was done on both the outside and the inside. At 11:35, a layer of dried cow manure and some of the broken cakes were spread out in the shallow pit. The jars were laid on their sides with their mouths to the east (fig. 3.54 a, b). The potter’s own jar was in the center surrounded by five others. My four thermocouples were then placed at various spots around the potter’s jar: (1) at the outside of the bottom, (2) outside the jar at a point approximately midway between the bottom and the top of the pile, (3) at the top of the jar, and (4) in the middle of the inside of the jar. Manure pads were then placed on the tops of the jars, and scrap tin or large stones were set against the outside of the pile. Finally, a pan of chopped straw (qasal ) was dumped on top of the pile, and the fire was lit at 12:05 with the aid of a match and several pieces of Sarcopoterium (netish) (fig. 3.55 a, b, c). At about 12:30, a west wind came up and continued for about two hours, after which it died down. At 45, 60, 70, and 80 minutes after the start, the potter covered with cow manure pads those spots where the fuel had slid off the jars, leaving the jars exposed to the air. The potter then departed, leaving the other women to watch the fire. About 3 hours and 20 minutes from the start, the scrap metal and stone edging were removed, and by 3.5 hours from the start the women had removed the jars. Two of the jars with necks had vertical cracks on the rim. In both cases the cracks had occurred at the uppermost point where the rims were exposed to the air, which therefore would have undergone the greatest temperature variation. This particular firing at Qusra was the shortest of any cow-dung firings that I witnessed anywhere. Possible factors that contributed to this short

105

duration included (1) the composition of the dung cakes, especially the quantity of chopped straw mixed with the dung; (2) the wind; and (3) the quantity of fuel. At the top of the jar at 13 to 19 minutes from the start, there was a marked rise in temperature of 110 °C per minute, measuring 167 °C per minute for the three minutes between 15 and 18 minutes from the start. It was also here at the uppermost point that the first maximum was reached. The maximum temperature varied from 946 °C at the jar’s outside midpoint to 855 °C underneath the jar—a spread of 91 degrees between the upper and lowermost part of the jar. The mean of maximums was ca. 900 °C. The temperature rise for all but the uppermost section varied from 16 to 35 °C per minute, while the initial cooling rate varied between 20 °C per minute at the upper level of the fire to 8 °C per minute inside the jar, which was comparable to the initial cooling rates from cow dung firings observed elsewhere.

The Vessels That Were Fired In this firing, there were six large jars (zīr), whose maximum diameters were nearly 60 cm. Three of these jars had necks (ma‘a raqaba) and averaged 65 cm in height. The other three were without necks (bidūn raqaba) and were 57 cm tall. One additional jar (‘aslīa), also 57 cm high, was differently proportioned, with a longer drawn-out neck and a more slender body (fig. 3.56). These jars were subclassified by the women according to their liquid-containing capacity, that is, how many 20-liter rectangular tin cans full of water they could hold. The largest jars held five cans of water, that is, 100 liters. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such cans were first imported into the country containing the new fuel kerosene. The empty kerosene cans quickly became the most common containers for transporting water from the spring or cistern to the home. In the late twentieth century, such cans were still made by tinsmiths here, especially for the transport of olive oil. Also included in the firing was one bowl (kud‫ۊ‬īya, to‫ۊ‬īya) 37 cm in diameter and 12 cm high, which was used in the kitchen for a variety of purposes including reconstituting the lumps of dried and salted, fat-free sour milk (kišik), as well as one perforated bowl (kōr, kasrīa) used for the preparation of couscous (maftūl ), a dish frequently served at Qusra. Other, now rarer, grog-tempered items made here included a very large bowl (sifel ) for washing clothes and babies, the foot washing bowl (wa‫ڲ‬āīa), a single-handled pitcher for milking (‫ۊ‬alūb), covers (ġa‫ܒ‬āa) for jars and cooking pots, and a one-handled drinking mug (muġ‫ܒ‬ās).

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106

Fig. 3.48 -. Tools used for smoothing the walls

Fig. 3.49 -. Making a jar handle

QUSRA

a)

107

b) Fig. 3.50 -. a, b) Attaching the handles by adding bits of clay

a)

b)

c)

d) Fig. 3.51 -. a, b, c, d) Stages of forming the upper body of the jar

108

WOMEN POTTERS

Fig. 3.52 -. The two finished jar types made with or without a short neck

Fig. 3.53 -. Applying slip to the jar exterior

a)

b) Fig. 3.54 -. a, b) Jars laid over a layer of dung cakes, and a pile of dung cakes ready to cover the jars behind it

QUSRA

a)

109

b)

c) Fig. 3.55 -. a, b, c) Stages of firing the water jars

Fig. 3.56 -. The fired forms

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110

Painting. After firing, the jars were carried to their respective owners’ homes. If there were any cracks, they were filled in with cement. Often the base was strengthened with a coat of cement. In the 1970s, it was the vogue at Qusra to whitewash the jars after firing and then to paint geometric designs on them with red ochre (miġre). I was told that in the past the jars were neither whitewashed nor painted. Occasionally the painted pattern was applied without whitewashing, and at Jurish the new jars that I saw were painted but not whitewashed. I was told that the red ochre paint was applied with a chicken feather. Both the red ochre and the whitewash (šīd ) were purchased in Nablus. The jar was usually divided by four horizontal lines into three panels, roughly corresponding to layers 3, 4, and 5. Then a consecutive series of X’s was painted on each panel, and the resulting triangular portions were cross-hatched or sometimes even filled in solidly. The diamond shapes were left blank. A zig-zag line was applied to the rim and the lower edge of the lower panel (fig. 3.57). It should be noted that either the jar’s owner or a talented relative, but not the potter, did the whitewashing and painting. The basic pattern of cross-hatched triangles did not seem to vary from painter to painter. Yet small, though traditional, embellishments were found that did vary from painter to painter. Apart from the jars, only the drinking mug (muġ‫ܒ‬ās) was painted. As in a number of other villages, a tanning solution (dbar), made by boiling the bark of oak roots in water, was applied to the inside. This treatment was said to seal any small cracks.

hands into water, with the wet palms of her hands she spread the clay out over the entire bottom and sides of the mold up to the midpoint of the cooking pot (fig. 3.60 a, b, c). Where needed, she added a bit of additional clay or removed some with the side of her forefinger. She checked the thickness of the bottom several times by punching the tip of her forefinger into the clay down to the cloth covering, which enabled her to see the actual thickness. At this stage she made no attempt to keep the edges even. Finally, she again dipped her hands into water and wetsmoothed the entire surface with her palms and fingers. The form was then left in the sun to dry (fig. 3.61). About 45 minutes later, it was turned 180 degrees to ensure even drying in the sun.

Forming of the Cooking Pot

First the pot that was used as a mold, and then the cloth, was separated from the clay form. At this stage it looked like a round-bottomed bowl with upright walls and irregular upper edges (see fig. 3.61). The entire interior was covered with cloth impressions, and marks of cloth folds were evident on the inner sides (fig. 3.63). The potter then removed the deeper (cloth-fold) grooves by filling them in with small pinches of clay (fig. 3.64). Every trace of the cloth impressions was removed by smoothing the surface with a broken wooden spoon (maššāqa). Its rounded convex edge was used as a smoothing tool, usually but not always for the inside concave surfaces, while the potter used the edge of her slightly bent right forefinger to smooth the outside convex surfaces (fig. 3.65 a, b). She did this by drawing the pot upward and toward herself, thus producing diagonal marks that sloped upward from right to left. The irregular upper edges were then brought to a uniform height by adding pinches of clay. Finally, the potter smoothed the edges and made them slope slightly inward with either her forefinger or the spoon tool. Whenever she

The materials used to make the Qusra cooking pot were local yellow clay combined with temper composed of chaff and calcite. The first step in the manufacture of the cooking pot at Qusra was the production of the base. An old cooking pot, used as a convex mold, was turned upside down, and a piece of cloth or plastic was placed on its bottom (fig. 3.58). The potter took a lump of clay in her two hands and formed it into a round ball. Then she pushed the fingertips of both hands into the lump, turning and pressing it until she had created a disc-shaped form, which she put between the flattened palms of her hands and patted and turned, in much the same manner that Palestinian village women formed the disc-shaped dough for tābūn bread. The result was a flat, even, disc-shaped pancake (qā‘a) 30 cm in diameter and 4 cm thick (fig. 3.59). This pancake was placed on the bottom of the cloth-covered cooking pot. Using her knuckles, the potter hit the wet clay and then, after dipping her

After another 45 minutes, the potter filled a large, low, straw-woven basket (jūni) or metal pan with tābūn ash (sakan) and scooped out a hole big enough to accommodate the base of the cooking pot. The partially dried base was then turned over and set into the ash (fig. 3.62 a, b). Sakan is a soft, light gray, powdery ash produced from the burning of a mixture of sheep or goat dung and chopped straw (qasal ) in the typical village bread oven (tābūn). As sakan absorbs little water, it was ideally suited to prevent wet clay from sticking to the surface on which it had been set. Sakan was used by most Palestinian women potters much as flour is used to keep dough from sticking to a bread board. Alternatively, one of the Qusra potters who did not have a tābūn placed her pots in shallow baskets filled with chopped straw and covered with burlap.

QUSRA

worked a freestanding wet clay wall with her right hand, her left hand supported the opposite side in order to keep it from buckling. This practice is followed by any potter, modern or ancient, who works by hand or on a wheel. About an hour later, after the walls had dried and stiffened somewhat, the potter hurriedly kneaded some of her prepared clay. With her right hand, she took a handful of clay and squeezed it with her fingers into a cylindrical lump. Then, while holding it in her flattened left hand, she patted it down with her right hand. In this way, she formed a rectangularshaped slab with rounded corners about the length and width of her outstretched hand (ca. 20 cm long, 8 cm high, and 2 cm thick). She took the slab and stood its long edge upright against the edge of the wall. She needed five such slabs to go completely around the circumference (fig. 3.66 a, b). (Another Qusra potter, who grooved the bottom of each of her slabs, needed only four slabs to complete the circumference and form a vertically standing ring.) Up to this point, the potter had made everything while sitting on the ground. Now, however, she stood, bent over, and slowly walked around the pot while, first on the outside and later on the inside, she used the wooden spoon to gradually draw upward, thin out, and pull the added clay inward until finally the desired shape and opening were achieved. The edge around the opening was initially trimmed, and she wet-smoothed the outside with her fingers (fig. 3.67).

Fig. 3.57 -. A painted jar

111

Handles and rim. Next, taking a lump of clay, the potter held it between her two outstretched hands, moving them back and forth to produce a roll ca. 20 cm long and 3.5 cm in diameter. She flattened the roll slightly by placing it on her left palm and then pressing down and wet-smoothing it with her right hand. The two horizontal handles (‫ڴ‬ān) were attached at the point of the pot’s maximum diameter (fig. 3.68 a, b). The center of each handle was lifted up to give it an inverted V shape. Bits of wet clay were added at the juncture of the wall and the handle, and she smoothed them over with her forefinger. The tops of the handles of most Qusra cooking pots were actually higher than the rim. The upper walls of these cooking pots slanted at an angle of ca. 45 degrees, while the rim was thickened on the outside and flat on top. The outer thickening of the rim was achieved by the addition of small pinches of clay to it. The potter used the bottom of her right thumb to flatten the top of the rim. Finally, with her right thumb and forefinger held close together, she smoothed and shaped the inside of the rim. The pot was left sitting upright in the basket of ash for about two days; it was then removed and placed in her baking room (tābūn) until all the pots were fired together. There the constantly smoldering dung-straw mixture provided an ideal environment for drying. The pots that I studied were made on 13 August 1975 and were fired ten days later on 23 August 1975 (fig. 3.69).

Fig. 3.58 -. Using an old cooking pot as a mold

WOMEN POTTERS

112

Fig. 3.59 -. Making a clay disc to form the cooking pot base

a)

b)

c) Fig. 3.60 -. a, b, c) Forming and smoothing the cooking pot’s lower walls and base

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113

Fig. 3.61 -. Drying the finished base in the sun

a)

b) Fig. 3.62 -. a, b) Metal pan with hole scooped out of the ash, and pot then set in the pan

Fig. 3.63 -. The interior of the base still covered with cloth

114

WOMEN POTTERS

Fig. 3.64 -. Filling the grooves with extra pinches of clay

a)

b) Fig. 3.65 -. a, b) Smoothing the lower surfaces with the help of a wooden spoon tool

a)

b) Fig. 3.66 -. a, b) Clay slabs used to form the walls

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115

Fig. 3.67 -. The interior surface after being wet-smoothed

a)

b) Fig. 3.68 -. a, b) Handles attached to the pot’s maximum diameter

Fig. 3.69 -. Firing the cooking pots

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116

Fig. 3.70 -. Scene with children at Qabalan

Qabalan Like Qusra to its northeast, Qabalan is a village located southeast of Nablus, its district capital (fig. 3.70). Built on a rather steep, northwest-facing slope, its houses could be seen from the Nablus–Jerusalem highway to the west. Grown in the hills, olives were perhaps its most important source of agricultural income, while other hill crops included figs, almonds, and grapes. In its one broad east–west valley, wheat and barley were grown in the winter along with lentils and vetch, while sesame, vegetables, and some tobacco were summer crops. Hajit Nimri. I first visited Qabalan in the summer of 1975 and was assured by several of its male inhabitants that the women there no longer made pottery. I returned in the summer of 1976 after getting a new lead from some Qabalan high school students whom I met while waiting for a bus to Qusra. It was then that I met a delightful, small, spry eighty-three-yearold woman who had made pottery every summer for at least the past sixty-five years. She first learned pottery making from a neighbor woman. Hajit Nimri had become the second wife of an old man when she was but ten years old. By him she had two children. After his death she married an equally small but very healthy man. At that time, he was 107 years old, the oldest man in the village. With him Hajit Nimri had a total of ten children, six boys and four girls, and she now

had nearly one hundred grandchildren as well as a number of great grandchildren. Since both she and her husband had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, they carried the titles Haj and Haji. Her all-embracing and ever-present trust in God (Allah) could not help but be an inspiration for all who came to know her. As she and her husband were apparently missed in the Israeli census of 1967, they had no identity cards and were unable to fulfill their longtime wish of visiting two of their sons in Kuwait. Although there may have been one or even two other women potters hidden away in Qabalan, I did not learn of their whereabouts. As was often the case in other places, if a woman wanted a pot, she dug the clay, mixed it with temper, and brought it ready for use to the potter, who made it for a certain wage (bilajar). Each pot, depending on its size, had its own price. The potter’s repertoire included water jars in two sizes. The larger one was called a jarrah, while the smaller one was the ‘aslīa. The sifel was the largest bowl; somewhat smaller was the sifli, and still smaller bowls were the sakāīya and the kōr, the perforated couscous bowl. Miscellaneous items included the drinking mug (muġ‫ܒ‬ās), the oil lamp (sirāj), the jar cover (ġa‫ܒ‬āa), and a child’s bank (quje). Calcite-tempered items were also made here: the cooking pot (qidra), a cooking bowl (qa‘ada), and the bread oven (tābūn).

QABALAN

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper Qabalan’s clay (hish) usually came from high up in the hills to the east of the village from one of two outcroppings of the Moza formation. One quarry was at Maqqurah, and the other was at a spot called Murā‫ۊ‬ Gāzi. A nearer but more calcium-rich source was at ‘Ain al Qasab, from where Qabalan’s water was piped in. As at Qusra and Sinjil, after thorough drying the clay was crushed with the crushing stone (midris) and sifted with the woven leather thong sifter (ġurbāl ). Ancient sherds were also crushed in the same manner but sifted with the finer metal screen flour sifter (munkhal ) (fig. 3.71 a, b, c, d). In preparation for making vessels, two parts of dry sifted clay were mixed with one part of the grog (ahmar) and then moistened and allowed to stand for three days. The potter performed the final wedging immediately before pot making by squeezing a lump of the claygrog mix in both hands. At this time, fine wheat chaff was incorporated. First the potter dipped one hand into water, and, with the water on her hand, she moistened the outside of the clay lump. Then she rolled the lump around in the chaff, which stuck to the outside. The lump was wedged by repeatedly squeezing until the chaff was uniformly mixed into the clay (fig. 3.72 a, b, c, d). The lump was dipped into the chaff and wedged two to three times.

Forming of the Water Jar Stage 1. Qabalan water jars were built up in five distinct horizontal layers (radda). Although the potter could make two large water jars in one day, on the particular day that I watched her, 3 October 1976, she made only one jar. It was the last jar she made that year. She started outdoors in full sun a few meters to the west of her house at about 08:30 in the morning. First she sprinkled the center of a straw tray (‫܈‬innīya) with a thin layer of wheat chaff (tibben). The tray had been set on top of a large piece of cardboard for easy turning. She placed a lump of clay at the center of the tray and pounded it with her fist, patted it with her hand, scraped it with a piece of a wooden spoon (maġrafi), and then wet-smoothed it with her hand until a flat cylindrical base ca. 23 cm in diameter and 1 cm thick was formed (fig. 3.73 a, b). The walls of the jar were built from slabs of clay that were ca. 12 cm wide and varied considerably in length. The longest was 40 cm, with the average length being ca. 34 cm; but shorter slabs half of this length were sometimes used to complete the circumference

117

(fig. 3.74). They were made, as at Qusra and Sinjil, by the potter progressively squeezing out from bottom to top a lump of clay with the fingers of both hands and then using finger impressions with her right hand to pat down the side while supporting the slab horizontally with her outstretched left hand and forearm. Two such slabs were used to go around the perimeter of the base. The potter pulled up the clay first on the outside and then on the inside of the walls with her curled-up right index finger (fig. 3.75 a, b). This first layer was made while the potter sat on the ground with her left knee bent so that her left calf was folded against her thigh, while her right leg was fully extended. When smoothing the outside, she always worked on the section of the pot to her right, and when she finished a section she turned the tray counterclockwise with her left hand. While she was smoothing on the inside, this procedure was exactly reversed, for then she worked on the section of the pot to her left and pulled the tray forward with her right hand, that is, clockwise. After pulling up and evening the clay on the outside and inside with her fingers, she smoothed the outside and inside using half of a wooden spoon. Lastly, the outside was again smoothed with the spoon, which incidentally was the only tool that she used in the pot-making process (fig. 3.76). Her spoon was worn smooth, and she said she had used the same one for the past four years. The entire first stage took 24 minutes, after which the vessel dried in the sun with occasional turning for 66 minutes. Then with the first layer of the jar resting on it, she lifted the tray and carried it up to her shaded porch, where the jar was completed. Stages 2–5. From layer 2 onward, the lower edge of each slab was grooved so as to fit down over the previous layer’s rim (fig. 3.77 a, b, c). While holding the slab in her left hand, she moved her right thumb up along the slab’s edge, consecutively pressing it into the clay and so creating a groove ca. 1 cm deep. As she formed layers 2 through 4, the height of the jar increased by 12 cm with each added layer; the fifth layer, known as the neck (raqaba), was 16 cm high (fig. 3.78 a, b, c, d, e). It took the potter an average of 32 minutes to complete each of the first four layers (the first, 24 minutes; the second, 30 minutes; the third, 38 minutes; the fourth, 37 minutes). But the addition, smoothing, and final shaping of the walls and rim of the fifth and final layer lasted some 54 minutes. After layer 3 was completed, the four handles were made and added in 36 minutes, or 9 minutes per handle. The potter completed the jar at 15:36, about 7 hours after she began. Fifty-two percent of the time, 3 hours and 39 minutes, was actually spent on jar

WOMEN POTTERS

118

a)

c)

b)

d) Fig. 3.71 -. a, b, c, d) Crushing and sieving tempering agents: grog in a) and calcite in b, c, d)

QABALAN

119

a)

b)

c)

d)

Fig. 3.72 -. a, b, c, d) Adding chaff and kneading the clay mixture

120

WOMEN POTTERS

b)

a) Fig. 3.73 -. a, b) Forming the flat base on a straw tray

Fig. 3.74 -. Making a clay slab

QABALAN

a)

121

b) Fig. 3.75 -. a, b) Using clay slabs to build the lower jar walls

Fig. 3.76 -. Smoothing the wall exterior with a wooden spoon

WOMEN POTTERS

122

a)

b)

c) Fig. 3.77 -. a, b, c) Raising the jar walls from a second layer of clay slabs

making, while the remaining 48 percent of the time, 3 hours and 23 minutes, was needed for drying between each of the layers (66 minutes of drying time between layers 1 and 2; 55 minutes between layers 2 and 3; and 76 minutes between layers 3 and 4; as well as drying time plus 42 minutes for the handle addition between layers 4 and 5). Except for the drying period between layers 3 and 4, during which handles were added, there was a progressive shortening of drying times as the day progressed, which was undoubtedly due to the increase in evaporation rate as the day’s temperature and wind velocity rose. Layers 1–3 were convex in profile, and at least for layers 2 and 3 this was largely the result of smoothing first the inside and then the outside alternately with the index finger and the spoon tool. The fourth and fifth layers had a concave profile, and the hand and tool smoothing of layer 4 was done almost exclusively on the outside. Thus, the inside surface of layer 4’s walls was left rather rough, more so than with any of the other layers. Handles, neck, and rim. The potter made the handles by squeezing and rolling out a clay lump between both hands (fig. 3.79). The handles were oval-shaped

in cross-section as a result of being smoothed down by the potter with her right hand while she held the handle in the palm of her left hand. After both ends were pulled out a bit and a groove was made with her forefinger along their entire length, the potter removed a small amount of clay from the place on layer 3’s rim at which the handles were to be attached (fig. 3.80 a, b, c). Then she wet this spot by rubbing it with moistened fingers. The upper part of the handle was first stuck on and secured by adding small bits of clay especially to the inside of the join. Thus, usually wherever four handles were attached to a jar’s largest diameter, the uppermost extent of the handle indicated the dividing line between layers 3 and 4. The only exception to this rule occurred at Sinjil, where the handles were attached after the body had been completed but before the neck was added. In that case there was no relation between the placement of the handles, on the one hand, and where one layer ended and another began, on the other. After the jar’s neck was drawn up fully, the potter added small dabs of clay to the rim in order to increase the jar’s height further by a few centimeters and to thicken the rim (fig. 3.81 a, b). After thorough drying, the jars were slipped on the outside with marl by their respective owners.

QABALAN

Forming of the Cooking Pot The base of the cooking pot at Qabalan was formed like the base of the cooking pot at Qusra, that is, with the aid of a convex mold. At Qusra, an older round-bottomed, ceramic cooking pot was used as the mold. At Qabalan, the potter used a modern, flat-bottomed aluminum pot (22 cm in diameter and 14 cm high). In both villages the outside of the pot was turned upside down, and covered with a cloth to prevent the clay from sticking to the pot (fig. 3.82). The Qabalan potter formed a round disc of clay of the desired thickness and a bit larger in diameter than the aluminum pot. It started out as a ball of clay, which was flattened somewhat and thinned by the potter squeezing her fingers against the palms of both hands as she rotated the clay disc. This pancake-like disc ca. 1.5 cm thick was placed on the cloth-covered aluminum cooking pot, patted and smoothed down with the palm of her hand, and then wet-smoothed with her wooden spoon tool. While holding a lump of clay with both hands, she squeezed four fingers of each hand (not her thumbs) toward her palms and, by moving down into new clay and repeating the finger-pressing, she formed an elongated slab. Holding the slab on her left forearm, she flattened it with her right hand and patted it down. The slab was added to the sides of the cloth-covered pan. At this stage, the thickness of both the slabs and the disc base was somewhat greater than that of the end product. Three slabs ca. 14 cm wide were used to complete the outer circumference of the vertical walls of the clothcovered pan. In preparation for the next step, a flat-bottomed straw basket (jūni), shallow metal pan, or similar container was filled with tābūn ash. The outer edges of the ash were scooped up, whereas the center was patted down to form an ashen, concave, bowllike foundation. Ideally this ash-filled container was placed on a flat straw tray to facilitate easy turning of the pan, but if a large number of cooking pots were being made, enough trays were not always available. At any time during the whole fabrication of a pot, if a crack appeared or if the upper edge was uneven, the potter added a dab of wet clay to correct the imperfection. After little or no drying time, the cooking pot was turned upside down—that is, right side up—and placed in the ash-filled container. The aluminum cooking pot was removed, and the cloth was pulled away from the clay. With her bent right forefinger, the potter wet-smoothed the bottom of the wet clay

123

pot. This smoothing pressed the clay bottom into the ash and thus changed the shape of the bottom from flat to slightly rounded. In wet-smoothing the inner walls, the sides were thinned and brought out and up. After this initial wet-smoothing with her bent index finger, she used the wooden spoon tool to further shape and smooth the interior, drawing the walls outward and upward. Then, on the outside, she used her spoon tool to smooth and curve the vertical upper walls inward, thus gradually decreasing the diameter of the opening. This intermediate cooking pot form was set aside to dry for about one hour so that the walls would become firm enough to add additional clay slabs without collapsing. Rim and handles. As soon as the walls were firm enough, small hand-sized pads of clay were added to the rim of the cooking pot’s intermediate form. Scooping up a handful of clay, the potter flattened it by patting it with her hand. By repeatedly pressing her thumb along one of the pad’s edges, a U-shaped groove was produced. This grooved edge was squeezed down onto the rim; it curled around the rim’s top and inner and outer walls. Each pad was placed on the rim so that it stood nearly vertically. The wooden spoon tool was used to thin out these pads, to draw inward and smooth the outside and inside of the slab addition. Final wet-smoothing was done with the moistened palms of both hands immediately opposite each other, one inside and the other outside of the pot. Before the final profile of the rim was finished, the handles were added. In cross-section, the Qabalan handles were rectangular. The cooking pot was now complete (fig. 3.83).

Firing and Fuel Hajit Nimri’s total year’s production was fired on 16 October 1976 in a large 3 × 2.5-m, shallow (15–20 cm deep) pit located in an open area about 25 m north of her house. It consisted mainly of eighteen large water jars plus a few smaller miscellaneous items. The pit had been surrounded by a single layer of boulders, and the fuel used was sheep/goat dung. One of her sons, who lived with his family in a nearby house, was a sheep and goat herdsman. The fire was started at 10:00 A.M., and the pots were removed the following morning. Hajit Nimri brought a thick quilt and slept next to the fire. The duration of this firing was comparable to firings with sheep/goat dung recorded elsewhere. No further firing details were observed.

WOMEN POTTERS

124

b)

a)

c)

d)

e)

Fig. 3.78 -. a, b, c, d, e) Continuing with another slab layer to form the jar up to the neck level

QABALAN

125

Fig. 3.79 -. Making a handle from a clay lump

a)

b)

c) Fig. 3.80 -. a, b, c) Attaching a handle with a small piece of clay

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126

a)

b) Fig. 3.81 -. a, b) Shaping the neck and rim with small dabs of clay

Fig. 3.82 -. Aluminum pot to be used by the potter as a mold

Fig. 3.83 -. The completed cooking pot of Qabalan

KAFR AL LABAD

127

Fig. 3.84 -. Kafr al Labad seen on the horizon

Kafr al Labad The village of Kafr al Labad is situated on the summit of a flat-topped hill, 9 km east of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank (fig. 3.84). On the road leading up to the village, one could see hillsides covered with almond and olive trees. However, at the top of the hill, one found that most of the houses and buildings were built directly on a large expanse of flat bedrock. In the heart of the village itself, there were few trees, for there was little soil covering the bedrock.

Forming Techniques What was peculiar here was that the cooking pots, ceramic frying pans, and coffee roasting pans were made directly on a swept-off patch of bedrock. The pot was never turned during the wet-clay building phases of its manufacture, that is, during the forming of its upper walls, handles, and rim. Another peculiarity of the Kafr al Labad potters was that they used no tools during the entire wet-clay construction process. Only the potter’s hands and fingers shaped

and smoothed the wet clay. The potter worked on the pot during the first phases of its construction while standing and bending over it at her hips with downstretched arms. Such a posture was of course used in agricultural work, but in other villages women potters usually sat at least initially when making smaller forms and stood only when the height of the pot warranted it. Here only after the entire top of the pot was sufficiently dry was it lifted off the ground. At that point the potter sat on the ground with both feet extended and made the flat bottom round by scraping off the excess clay on the bottom except for the very center of the base. Burnishing was also done by the potter in this same sitting position. As at al Jib and Ya‘bad, at Kafr al Labad the rounded bases of pots were produced by dry-scraping what was initially a flat bottom.

Forming Techniques in Greater Detail After sweeping off the area where the pots were to be made, the potter took a lump of clay, dropped it on the ground, and shaped it into a flat disc ca. 25

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cm in diameter and about 3 cm thick (fig. 3.85). She then thrust her right fist into the center of the disc. Using her right fist or her bent right index finger, she pushed clay over to the edge of the disc while her left hand supported the clay at the disc’s circumference (fig. 3.86 a, b). By repeating this motion, pushing clay from the center to the disc’s circumference, she gradually formed a shallow bowl (fig. 3.87). On the inside, the bowl was not flat but concave. A can of water was nearby, into which she occasionally dipped her hand in order to facilitate easy shaping and smoothing of the wet clay.

another pot. In full sun and with prevailing west winds, the drying was fairly rapid (fig. 3.93).

The walls of the “bowl” flared out from a diameter of ca. 25 cm at the base to 33 cm at the rim with a height of ca. 11 cm. The pot at this stage reached its maximum diameter as additional clay was applied to bring the walls inward and up. Five or six stones (ca. 15 cm in diameter) were placed against the outer walls as a temporary support. Horizontal handles were now added. By moving a lump of clay back and forth between the palms of both hands, the potter formed a round, rope-like roll (ca. 20 cm long and 3.5 cm in diameter) (fig. 3.88). This roll was bent into an inverted U, and its ends were pressed into the outer walls of the bowl’s rim. Another handle was added opposite the first as a support. A stone was propped against the outward leaning handles until they were firm enough to stand on their own (fig. 3.89).

Two types of cooking pots were made here: one with two horizontal handles (qidra) and the other with two vertical handles (tangara), which were added after the entire body of the pot, including the rim, had been completed. At the two points of handle attachment, the potter pressed her fingers into the clay, first pressing a coil into the lower attachment point and then pressing in the upper end of the handle. Dabs of clay were used to add to and smooth over the attachment points.

A clay coil 30 cm long and 6 cm in diameter was then rolled out by the potter between her hands in the manner described for producing the handles. This coil was placed on and pressed into the rim (fig. 3.90 a, b). She used her right thumb to press the coil consecutively into the top outside surface of the rim while supporting the inside of the pot with her four fingers. Dipping her hand into water, she then obliterated the characteristic thumb indentations by wet-smoothing as she moved her thumb back and forth outside the pot and her four fingers inside the pot (fig. 3.91 a, b, c). A carination resulted at the point where the first coil was added to the rim, as the diameter of the pot gradually decreased from this point. Two additional coils were added in the same manner to complete the rim’s circumference. With each added coil, the walls were gradually brought upward and the diameter of the opening decreased. The rim of the Kafr al Labad cooking pot had a simple rounded edge (fig. 3.92). Once each added coil had been satisfactorily smoothed, the pot was allowed to dry while the potter busied herself with

Several pots were usually made at one time and, after completing this stage, until its walls and handles were sufficiently strong, the potter began or continued work on another vessel. Thus, the potter went back and forth among several pots, completing a certain stage with one before moving on to another.

Vessels That Were Made at Kafr al Labad

Among other types of vessels that were made here was, second in importance, the flat plate-like form with two horizontal handles. This form was used as either a frying pan or a pan for roasting coffee. It was made by first patting down a lump of clay shaped on the ground into a flat cylinder 2 cm high. The potter then pressed her fist into the middle of this cylinder and scooped clay from the center to the sides with her bent right forefinger, while her left hand supported the outside walls. In doing so, she produced a shallow concave bowl. After two horizontal handles had been added opposite each other, thin coils of clay ca. 3 cm in diameter were pressed into the rim’s inside circumference and wet-smoothed similarly to the procedure with the cooking pot. The inside center of the pan was wet-smoothed by the potter with the outstretched fingers and palm of her right hand. Smaller stones ca. 5 cm in diameter were propped up against the outer walls to support the rim and handles. A third form that was made here was a roundbottomed bowl with a basket handle, and a fourth form was a smaller bowl without handles for serving food (fig. 3.94). In the past, I was told that they made a bowl form for steaming an Arab dish. It had small holes for the steam to rise through, but this bowl had not been made for a number of years and the potter did not know how it was made.

KAFR AL LABAD

129

Fig. 3.85 -. Making a flat disc from a clay lump

a)

b) Fig. 3.86 -. a, b) The potter using her fist to shape the base of a cooking pot

Fig. 3.87 -. Forming a shallow bowl as the bottom of the base

Fig. 3.88 -. Forming a rope-like roll, or coil

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130

Fig. 3.89 -. Using stones to support the walls and handles

a)

b) Fig. 3.90 -. a, b) Making a clay coil and pressing it into the rim

KAFR AL LABAD

a)

131

b)

c) Fig. 3.91 -. a, b, c) Applying the coil to form the upper part

WOMEN POTTERS

132

Fig. 3.92 -. The finished rim of the cooking pot

Fig. 3.93 -. Completed pots set out to dry in full sun

Fig. 3.94 -. Forms made at Kafr al Labad

YA‘BAD

133

Fig. 3.95 -. Ya‘bad pots with landscape background

Ya‘bad The village of Ya‘bad (fig. 3.95), which in the 1970s had a population of about 9,000, was reached by taking the main road north from Nablus to Jenin and then turning west 32 km from Nablus (11 km from Jenin). It was situated 7 km from the Jenin– Nablus road, on the northeastern edge of the broad Dothan Valley of rich agricultural land, whose main product in the mid-to-late twentieth century was tobacco. In the 1970s, Ya‘bad was the leading tobacco producer in all of Jordan and the West Bank. Before tobacco became a main crop shortly after World War II, the valley was farmed with summer vegetables as well as wheat, barley, and sesame. In the hills bordering this valley, the principal crop was olives. The region to the west was also a large charcoal-producing area. At that time, the wood came from the nearby wooded hill country. In the 1970s, most of the men of the village worked in Israel and returned to their homes every night. Around that time, a considerable portion of Ya‘bad’s wealth came from its more educated citizens, who traveled to and worked in the oilrich Gulf countries and sent money back to their families. The 1991 Gulf War reduced this source of income considerably. Originally, however, the village economy was based mainly on the herding of sheep,

goats, and cows. Ya‘bad had existed over a long period of time. With potters collecting ancient sherds from the village itself, villagers reported that the village was built on the ruins of an ancient site called Tell el Fukhar.

Two Potters Only two potters in Ya‘bad were contacted. These two women came from the same family and were sistersin-law. The older woman, Fatmah Qasim, was our informant in 1973; and the younger woman, Fatmah ‘Atatri, was our informant in 1974. The older Fatmah was seriously ill during our 1974 fieldwork. She told us that she had learned pottery making from her mother, and that, in the past, five women of her family had been potters but only two of them still made pottery. She herself had not trained any other women as potters. When she made pottery, her sons assisted her by digging clay and bringing it to her. She said that in the past she had worked all year round except at times when there was rain, although ill health prevented her from working full-time more recently. The younger Fatmah said that she also worked all year round.

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134

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper Fatmah Qasim said that, as far back in time as she could remember, potters in Ya‘bad had used the same two basic materials, calcite and red clay, for pot making. In the early 1970s, data on the clay sources were poor. Informants said that clay was obtained from a “white soil” area. Sometimes this area was on the potter’s own land, sometimes at sites where wells were being dug. The best place to look, said the potters, was at the top, rather than the bottom, of hills. The clay started at the surface, or one-half meter down, and could continue down to 40 m, to bedrock level. We did not observe any of the actual clay sources in use. The same comment was true for calcite (‫ۊ‬ajar al māli‫ۊ‬, literally “salt stone”). Informants said that calcite was obtained in various areas around the village, mainly in areas where there was water flow, around springs or underground streams. Fatmah ‘Atatri said more specifically that calcite was gathered in Tarim, a small hamlet north of Ya‘bad, which could be reached only by donkey or by walking, as there was no road passable to vehicles.

Clay Body Preparation Preparation of the clay body of a vessel was observed at Ya‘bad in 1973. This process, along with the forming of a cooking pot and a firing, both reported below, were arranged with Fatmah Qasim and paid for by us. Therefore, the circumstances could not automatically be regarded as typical in a quantitative sense; that is, times for processes and amounts of material involved might not be typical, although the processes themselves were assumed to be representative of the norm. According to Fatmah Qasim, normally enough clay body for four or five vessels—one day’s production— was prepared at one time. In her demonstration for us, she prepared only enough clay body for one vessel. The clay had been thoroughly dried in the sun before the day of these observations. The clay was broken into lumps smaller than fist size and placed in an aluminum dish. Water was then added to cover the clay (fig. 3.96 a, b). While the clay was slaking, the calcite was prepared. Calcite, in the form of lumps up to 10–15 cm across, was first broken up with a hammer to yield pieces smaller than about 0.5 to 1 cm. These pieces were then ground in a stone handmill (‫ܒ‬ā‫ڪ‬ūna). The

calcite was reduced by the mill to fragments all finer than about 2 mm. The amount of calcite prepared was just sufficient for adding to the amount of clay available. A final step in the preparation of calcite was to sieve the ground material using a gut string, woodframed sieve (ġurbāl) with apertures of about 3 mm (fig. 3.97 a, b). The purpose of this final sieving was simply to remove any coarse particles inadvertently incorporated in earlier stages of the preparation. Calcite and clay were then mixed together to produce the body, which was removed from the dish and placed on the floor. The clay was too soft for working, almost sticky. The correct amount of calcite for the quantity of clay (estimated by us at about 30 percent calcite by volume) was sprinkled over the clay and worked in with the fingers. The kneading was continued until the calcite was homogeneously dispersed through the clay and the body had reached the correct consistency for forming into vessels (fig. 3.98). Because the amount of calcite added to the clay was determined by the potter’s judgment, the final proportions of calcite to clay could be expected to vary from one vessel to the next. Fatmah ‘Atatri said that calcite was used as a tempering material in preference to limestone, which was much more readily available, because vessels tempered with limestone cracked in the firing, whereas those with calcite did not. She also said that food tasted better cooked in calcite-tempered vessels.

Forming of the Cooking Pot We observed the forming of only one vessel type at Ya‘bad, the “standard” cooking pot described below. As described above, the first stage was kneading the clay body to mix calcite homogeneously throughout the clay. Fatmah Qasim placed the clay body on the floor of her work area and kneaded it by gathering pieces of clay from the uneven pile, forming these together into a larger lump after each small piece had been worked. The forming of the cooking pot was essentially a slab-building process using soft clay, the final form being achieved by smoothing pressure from both hands. The first step was the forming of a circular disc of clay about 20 cm in diameter (fig. 3.99 a, b), the top being cut from a round metal drum. (In some other centers, this “turntable” was made from an unfired claystraw mixture.) A large coil of clay was then formed and attached around the circumference of the clay disc, a join being made by smearing the base of the slabs

YA‘BAD

135

a)

b) Fig. 3.96 -. a, b) Clay preparation by Fatmah Qasim at Ya‘bad

a)

b)

Fig. 3.97 -. a, b) A stone handmill and sieve used to crush and sieve the calcite temper

Fig. 3.98 -. Kneading the clay body to prepare it for pot making

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WOMEN POTTERS

onto the disc (fig. 3.100 a, b, c). Further slabs were then added to the rim of the partly formed vessel, to bring the wall up to the required height (fig. 3.101 a, b, c). Again joins were made by smearing the soft clay across the contact line of the slabs. The partly completed vessel at this stage had the appearance of a clay cylinder with a base. The process of refining and shaping to produce the final form then began. The top part of the “rim” was cut off with a pointed tool (a nail), resulting in a uniformly horizontal rim. Then Fatmah used a stone, held in her right hand, inside the vessel to shape and smooth the interior surface. The pressure on the interior walls was counteracted by pressure on the outside of the vessel from her left hand (fig. 3.102 a, b). The vessel was rotated part of one revolution at a time to present a new working face when one area of the inside surface had been shaped and smoothed; the metal disc acted as a “turntable” to facilitate this. Handles. The smoothed form, having the shape of a sphere truncated at both ends and open at the top, was then set aside to dry overnight. The next day Fatmah attached the handles, working outside in the courtyard rather than inside a room of the house, as she had the day before (fig. 3.103 a, b, c). The first step in attaching a handle was to form two recesses where the ends of the handle were to be placed, by pressing into the still relatively soft clay with her thumbs and then gouging downwards slightly to leave a depression in the wall of the pot with a slight ledge at the bottom. When both depressions had been formed, Fatmah took a piece of clay body and rolled it between her hands to form a coil about 3 cm in diameter and 25 cm long. The slightly bulbous ends of this coil were placed in the depressions, the handle being held vertically, and clay from the ends was smeared onto the walls of the vessel to make a firm join. The shape of the handle was refined by smoothing with the fingers; then the other handle was attached in the same way. After a further day’s drying to allow the handles to become leather hard and not liable to deform as the vessel was moved about, the vessel was detached from the metal base by simply holding it and pulling away the disc of metal. The sharp junction area between the pot and the disc was trimmed with a knife so that the pot took on a uniformly round-bottomed shape. The rough surface formed by this trimming was smoothed over with the blade of the knife, and the vessel was again placed aside to dry. When the walls were uniformly stiff

and leather hard, both the interior and exterior surfaces were burnished using a cockle shell (zalif ). Slip and further burnishing. A red slip was then applied over the entire surface of the vessel. We had not yet determined the exact sources of this material: the potters said it was “red earth” obtained from agricultural land near the village, so it was presumably a fine fraction obtained from terra rosa soil deposits. Before use it was placed in a container, covered with water, and stirred to produce a relatively uneven mixture. It was applied with a cloth that was dipped into, or rubbed onto, the unslaked lumps in the container and then wiped over the surfaces of the vessel. This was also a common method of slip application in northern areas of Pakistan.62 When the vessel was almost dry, the burnishing with a shell was repeated so that the slip coating itself was burnished. The vessel was then set aside to dry completely before firing (fig. 3.104). All vessels made in Ya‘bad had red slip applied to them and were burnished.

Firing and Fuel One firing, by Fatmah Qasim, was observed at Ya‘bad in 1973. Thirteen vessels were fired, including coffee-roasting dishes, cooking pots, and one brazier. The preliminary step in the firing process was one that we did not observe personally. This was a preheating of the vessels to ensure that all moisture was removed from them before firing. Fatmah said that in order to do this the vessels were stacked in a pile and surrounded by twigs and straw, which was then burned. The effect of this preheating was obvious to us on the day of the firing. All the vessels were blackened with a coating of carbon from the preheating, but testing by scratching with a thumbnail showed that they were still friable and unfired and probably had not been heated to a temperature greater than 200 to 300 °C. The first stage of the bonfire firing was placing the fuel and pots. A sheltered corner of the courtyard of Fatmah’s house was customarily used for firing. First she placed a layer of twigs (up to 1 cm in diameter and 1 m long) on the ground, to a depth of about 15 cm and covering an area about 1 m in diameter. Large dung cakes had previously been prepared by mixing dung with straw and then thoroughly drying them. A layer of

62 Owen RYE and Clifford EVANS, Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan: Field and Laboratory Studies, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 21 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1976), p. 29 and pl. 19.

YA‘BAD

137

b)

a)

Fig. 3.99 -. a, b) Forming a clay disc

a)

b)

c)

Fig. 3.100 -. a, b, c) Forming a clay coil and attaching it to the disc

138

WOMEN POTTERS

b)

a)

c) Fig. 3.101 -. a, b, c) Building up the wall as a cylinder from the base

a)

b) Fig. 3.102 -. a, b) Applying pressure from the inside and outside to shape and smooth the vessel

YA‘BAD

139

c)

a)

b) Fig. 3.103 -. a, b, c) Attaching the handles to the spherical body

Fig. 3.104 -. Burnished cooking pots set aside to dry

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WOMEN POTTERS

these about 25 cm deep was laid over the twigs. All the vessels were then placed on top of the dung cakes, all resting upside down with the flat dishes resting at an angle to the horizontal against other inverted cooking pots (fig. 3.105). When all the vessels were in place, a layer of dung cakes, standing on edge, was placed around the perimeter of the pile, and then another layer was laid over the entire pile to form a dome shape with all dung cakes “tangentially” arranged. The dung cakes standing on edge around the bottom were propped in position and supported by stones (fig. 3.106). Finally, another layer of twigs and broken small fragments of dung cakes were laid on top of the pile.

them out by the handles. The remaining fuel was heaped around the remaining pots. She occasionally repeated this removal of vessels and heaping of the remaining fuel, until 70 minutes after the beginning of the firing only hot ash remained at the base of the few vessels that had not been removed (fig. 3.109 a, b). The maximum temperatures reached were as follows: • (a) at the top of the setting, 755 °C after 18 minutes; • (b) in the center of the setting, 720 °C after 28 minutes; • (c) at the bottom of the setting, 680 °C after 33 minutes.

At this stage we placed three thermocouples in the setting in order to record temperatures during the firing. One was placed with the tip underneath all vessels, in the center of the setting about 30 cm above ground level; the second was placed with the tip in the middle of the pile of pots, touching the rim of one inverted cooking pot; and the third was placed at the top of the pile of pots, touching the base of the same inverted cooking pot. The results of temperature measurements throughout the firing are shown in the firing graph (fig. 3.107). The description of the firing given below can be correlated with the graph. The fire was started by pushing some burning twigs into the bottom of the setting, but in the first 4 to 5 minutes only the top of the setting was fully ablaze (fig. 3.108). After the twigs at the top of the setting had burned away, the dung burned gradually, smoldering with some smoke but only occasional small flames. About 10 minutes after the beginning of the firing, some kerosene was thrown onto the bonfire; this caused a large burst of flame above the setting but actually decreased the temperature inside the setting, probably by drawing in excessive amounts of cold air around the bottom. About 15 minutes after the beginning, the setting began to subside slightly, and burning dung cakes from the bottom perimeter of the setting were removed and placed on top. Soon after this, a maximum temperature of 755 °C was reached at the top of the setting. A little later more kerosene was thrown on top of the fire, but again it had no effect on the temperature at the top of the setting, and it decreased the temperature slightly at the bottom. After 20 minutes, more dung was moved from the bottom to the top of the setting. The main effect of this was to insulate the center of the setting from heat loss so that temperatures at the bottom and the center remained relatively stable for a further 10 minutes. The temperature at the top declined rapidly after 20 minutes, mainly because Fatmah began to remove vessels, using a long steel pitchfork to hook

It is worth noting that at various points in the firing the difference in temperatures between the rim and the base of one cooking pot was over 300 °C, although the maximum temperatures reached at both points (rim and base) of this vessel were only 35 °C different. It is also worth noting that, although vessels at a temperature well over 600 °C were removed from the fire and allowed to cool very quickly in the air, no vessel was damaged in this firing. It is significant that the maximum temperature reached in the Ya‘bad firing was 755 °C, below the temperature at which crystalline calcite decomposes, which eliminates the likelihood of spalling due to the rehydration of calcium oxide in use. Little spalling would be expected from this firing technique. Fatmah used only the dung (lahab, but called šali by the potters) fuel and twigs, and never other fuels. She used about 15 kilos of fuel to fire about 25 kilos of vessels. She said that normally a larger number of vessels, up to forty, would be fired in one firing. Our observed firing had fewer vessels because she only had that many pots ready at the time. She told us before the firing that the top of the setting would reach a higher temperature than the center and especially the bottom, and her experience of temperature differences in the setting was confirmed by our measurements. We noted that dung ash left over from firing was either thrown away or used as fertilizer on the fields.

Commerce and Other Forms Made Ya‘bad women potters made cooking pots for sale outside of Ya‘bad, especially to Jenin and the surrounding villages. In this respect, Ya‘bad was similar to al Jib and Kafr al Labad in that the women potters of all three villages made cooking pots for sale outside their village. Reportedly in the past, Ya‘bad cooking pots were sold in Beisan and Nazareth, located

YA‘BAD

respectively 30 km east-northeast of Ya‘bad and 34 km north-northeast of Ya‘bad, by the men of the village, who (before the automobile) used donkeys to transport as many as fifteen large cooking pots or twenty smaller ones on a single donkey. They left Ya‘bad late in the day and traveled all night, selling their pots the next day in Beisan or Nazareth; after sleeping there overnight, they returned to Ya‘bad the following day. After the advent of the automobile, Ya‘bad cooking pots were sold as far away as Haifa and Jaffa. In the late twentieth century, the tourist market increased, including both Israelis and foreigners, with most of the vessels being sold by a dealer in the city of Jenin, some 18 km from Ya‘bad. Our comparison of the prices asked for a cooking pot at Ya‘bad with the same vessel in the Jenin market showed that the dealer sold vessels for about three times the price he paid to the potters themselves. The cooking pot. The Ya‘bad cooking pot came in four forms (fig. 3.110). Any V-shaped handle had two ends attached to the body of the pot. The more common cooking pot form (qidra) had horizontal attachment points. The taleāh had vertical attachment points. Another version of the cooking pot seen at the workshop of Fatmah ‘Atatri had essentially the same vessel shape and dimensions but only one long, high-looped handle of “basket” style (mitbah), attached at opposite sides and spanning the top of the opening. The potter said that this handle style was a recent innovation. It was less commonly used, as such a long handle was more likely to break. There was also a miniature form of the cooking pot called the biudi. A beautiful, large example of a Ya‘bad cooking pot could be found on display in what had formerly been the Palestine Archaeological Museum (subsequently called the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum after being taken over by Israel) in East Jerusalem. Purchased by Grace Crowfoot63 in the early 1930s, it was part of the Crowfoot collection made ca. 1931 that was on display there (PAM 1026). Its measurements were comparable to those of the cooking pot purchased in 1974, and at the time of our study held in the basement of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, also in East Jerusalem: 19 cm high with a maximum diameter of 26.6 cm; distance from bottom to point of maximum diameter 11 cm; diameter of opening 16.3 cm; body thickness 1.1 cm; two horizontal handles with a total width of 11 cm; handle attachment beginning 3 cm below the rim; and handles ca. 4.1 cm wide and 2.2 cm thick, extending 5.4 cm above the rim. Both of these pots were burnished

141

inside and out; the outside had several black marks, and around these were areas of lighter color than the rest of the body on the outside or inside. The inside of the vessel was uniform in color. Other forms. Another form made at Ya‘bad at that time was the charcoal brazier (kānūn; pl. kānūnāt), a footed bowl (fig. 3.111). The bowl’s rim had a number of inverted V-shaped projections (kanzū‘ ; pl. kanazī‘ ). The foot was a cylinder that gradually increased in diameter before it joined the bowl itself. Its diameter was 36 cm at the top and its height was 12 cm; its base, 18 cm in diameter, was attached to a stand 10 cm high with a base 22 cm in diameter, and it had four small “windows” that were 5 cm high and 2 cm wide. The upper rim had eight triangles 4 cm wide and 3 cm high that extended out from it. Two other forms that were subjected to heat during use were the frying pan/coffee roaster (migli) and a steaming-strainer bowl (kasreen) for couscous. The coffee roaster was a very shallow, concave bowl 5 cm high and ca. 25 cm in diameter, with two V-shaped handles that had a total width of 10 cm, a height of 6 cm, and an oval, finger-shaped hole 2 × 2.5 cm extending out from the sides of the bowl. Like the other vessels produced at Ya‘bad, this one was burnished both inside and out. Several forms made in the late twentieth century that were not heated during use were a four-handled jar (with vertical handles attached at the jar’s largest diameter) used for the storage of cold water (ba‫ܒܒ‬a); the foot-washing bowl (wa‫ڲ‬āīa); the large washing bowl (sifel ) for either babies or clothes; and a small drinking jug with two handles (šarbeh). At the time of our study, an example of the large washing bowl was on display at the Palestine (Rockefeller) Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem (PAM 1024). It was 54 cm in diameter at its upper rim, the base was 26 cm in diameter, and the height was 22 cm. It had four oval vertical handles attached at the rim; 3.5 cm wide and 2.5 cm thick, they extended ca. 10 cm below the rim. The bottom had a mat impression. Of any of the Palestinian women potters studied, those at Ya‘bad proved the most difficult to document. This was largely due to the distance from Jerusalem to Ya‘bad and so to the lengthy daily travel back and forth. There also seemed to be a greater resistance on the part of Ya‘bad women to answering questions, and all the more to allowing foreign men to take photographs of them at work.

63 For a photograph, see CROWFOOT, “Pots, Ancient and Modern,” pl. 2, fig. 9; pl. 3, fig. 12.

WOMEN POTTERS

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Fig. 3.106 -. Using stones to support the dung cakes

Fig. 3.105 -. Placing the pots over a layer of dung and twigs

DUNG-FUEL BONFIRE FIRING, YA‘BAD, WEST BANK

800 700

7(03(5$785(Ü&

600 500 400

Center of setting

300 Top of setting

200

Base of setting

100

0

2 4 6 8

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

TIME (Minutes after start of firing)

Fig. 3.107 -. Firing graph of Ya‘bad potter’s firing

Fig. 3.108 -. The top of the setting fully ablaze

YA‘BAD

143

b)

a) Fig. 3.109 -. a, b) Removing vessels with a steel pitchfork, and vessels not yet removed sitting on ash

Fig. 3.110 -. A typical Ya‘bad cooking pot almost completed

Fig. 3.111 -. A brazier made at Ya‘bad

Second Part

SURVIVAL OF A TRADITION: PALESTINE’S MALE POTTERS by Owen Rye A tradition involves groups of potters who over a significant period of time use a consistent set of materials, forming techniques, kiln designs, and firing techniques to produce a consistent range of vessel forms, having functions that serve recognized needs in a homogeneous culture or within divisions of a broad society. The tradition usually involves a formalized method of bringing in new potters. These

parameters define a functioning pottery system; and changes in any one part of this system will lead to changes in other parts—a new tradition can be isolated when parts of a tradition change such that other parts of the original tradition are incompatible with the changes. The decision as to when this point is reached will in many cases depend on the judgment of the archaeologist or ethnographer.

Overview of the tradition Workshops Generally in each workshop there are one or two master potters who throw all the forms, and assistants, who are usually sons. The craft is inherited or handed down from father to son (patrilineal). Sons begin as assistants and have learned the craft by the age of seventeen to twenty. Outsiders are usually employed for clay preparation, but occasionally become masters. Where there is no extensive movement of potters, all potters tend to be of the same family (as at Hebron, Jaba‘, and ‘Irtah). In the 1970s, Gaza had the most diversity of personnel and the most movement by potters to and from.64

64

Regarding the location of workshops, as a city or town expands it is common for potters to relocate so as to remain on the outskirts. Proximity to resources can determine a workshop’s location, but this is not the only variable; other variables are the transport of materials to the workshop and of pots from the workshop.

Materials: Clay The male potters of Palestine purchased their clay and then had truckloads of it delivered to them (fig. 4.1), where it was exposed to the sun during warmer, rain-free months of the year, and thoroughly dried. As observed in 1977, the clay was then added to a 2–3 m square pool of water, ca. 1.5 m deep (fig. 4.2). The Hebron potters actually mixed different kinds of clay

With the Israeli siege of Gaza in effect since 2007, such movement would have ceased.

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together in this slaking pool: the yellow Moza formation clay with terra rosa soil. After a short period of slaking, the dry clay-soil mixture would readily “dissolve” (break up in the water), and an assistant (often a young boy) would enter the pool and stomp around in it. In later years the Hebron potters used a blunger, a machine that broke up the clay and converted it into a slip, as the first stage of preparation (fig. 4.3). Any larger stones would fall to the bottom of this slaking pool, and watery clay slurry would be poured into a screen with a bucket (fig. 4.4) and then onto a larger and shallower sand-covered drying bed (fig. 4.5), where it was allowed to dry. After drying, the clay would be brought inside the workshop and stored until it was used (fig. 4.6). In complete contrast, women potters, after digging their clay by hand, transporting it back to their homes by donkey, and drying it in the sun, usually broke up the clay with the back side of a pointed hoe. In some villages this clay was further crushed with a large rolling stone. If any pieces of stone or impurities were detected, they were picked out and discarded. The dry clay in some villages was then sifted and mixed with temper, usually two parts of dry clay to one part of temper by volume; the temper was grog for water jars and calcite for cooking pots. Enough water was then added to the mixture to form workable clay. This was often set aside overnight before hand-wedging the clay immediately before use. Potters in Jaba‘ used two types of clay: red and white. The white clay was always obtained from the same locality because the potters owned the land on which it occurred, but the red clay could be obtained from a number of sources. The red clay was consistent, but the specific locality from which it was obtained varied within a reasonable distance of the workshop. It was transported to the workshop on donkeys. These potters always dug their own clay. It seems significant that even the Jaba‘ potters, who by craft standards were “mass producers,” used clay from varying localities. Virtually none of the other potters used clay from one specific site or area. The two or three exceptions to this rule were potters who owned land that had usable clay deposits. Most potters obtained clay not from a single geological stratum but from any outcropping of this stratum over a wide area; for example, the Gaza potters obtained clay from a deposit that extended for 30 km. Clay was not obtained from specific areas chosen by the potters, but very often from locations where excavations were being done for other purposes, such as the digging of house foundations.

It is useful to compare their clay sources with those of the women potters of Palestine, specifically in the villages of Ya‘bad and Sinjil, as well as with women’s clay sources for tābūn making. Clay for the pottery handmade at Ya‘bad was obtained from various sites, some on land owned by the potter’s family but some also from areas being excavated, for example, for water cisterns; the white clay was said to occur from at or near the surface to a depth as great as 40 meters, close to bedrock. It was noted that the best place to look for this type of white clay was near the tops of hills rather than in the bottoms of valleys, and only in limestone areas. Clay for the pottery handmade at Sinjil was also obtained from varying sources, depending on where the landowner allowed it to be dug and removed without charge; again only one type of clay was used. Tābūn making was much more widespread at the time of our study than was pottery making. From the village survey we learned that tābūns were made by women. Estimates of the life of a tābūn varied from one year (in the village of Ramana) to a much longer period, but wherever tābūns were seen there was always a spare, unused one ready to replace the one in use if it was damaged, usually being broken by accident rather than by heat. Tābūns were made from clay mixed with chopped wheat straw. The villagers said that “yellow clay” should be used. Samples of clay were obtained. The straw was the same as that used for feeding cattle, and was finely chopped. One interesting fact emerged—that clay for tābūn making was often obtained from the site of wellor cistern-digging operations, thus saving the labor of digging up the clay. This clay however was not random. The same type of clay was always selected from these diggings, even though the specific locality varied. So from this small sample, it can be concluded that both men and women potters working in the 1970s did not use a fixed clay deposit, but rather a fixed type of clay from any suitable location. Analysis would be required with a range of samples to determine whether their identification methods provided a chemically and mineralogically consistent material. This leads to speculations about how pottery was made in antiquity. First, that even if the potters were professional craftsmen mass-producing their wares, they need not have used a fixed clay deposit. Second, that they may have obtained clay from areas where holes were being dug for other purposes, such as cisterns, if the clay exposed to them by these operations was suitable for their work. So it may be quite unrealistic now to speak of a “clay deposit,” a term that was used in antiquity; it may be more realistic to think in terms of a “clay type.”

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

Fig. 4.1 -.

Fig. 4.2 -.

Fig. 4.3 -.

Fig. 4.4 -.

Fig. 4.5 -.

Fig. 4.6 -.

Stages of clay preparation at Hebron

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148

Materials: Temper Temper, or non-plastic additives, varied between male and female potters and at different locations. At Sinjil the tempering material used by women was crushed potsherds—grog. The sherds were selected for ease of crushing, and only the softest ones were used. Sherds were dug up wherever they occurred. At Ya‘bad the tempering material varied. The woman potter preferred to use crushed crystalline calcite, which was obtained in various localities near the village, usually in an area near a stream, in her words, an area “associated with red earth.” If for some reason calcite was not available, the potter used crushed sherds from ancient pottery: “either red or black is suitable.” Sometimes crushed calcite and grog were used together, if calcite was in short supply. We found that pottery of one type made by the same potter could have any mixture of two distinct tempering materials, and that presumably the total temper content would vary because it was added on the basis of judgment rather than measurement, by volume (not weight). This finding had direct implications for any mineralogical or chemical studies of pottery. It would be a useful experiment to make thin sections from a number of Ya‘bad pots formed by one woman potter, to see what the variation in tempering material was in quantitative terms. At Jaba‘ the male potters mixed two clays, and non-plastics were added separately, so that the only “grit” resulted from minerals occurring naturally with the clays. The clays were refined by settling, during which process coarse grit was removed. In the full process, clay was dried, roughly crushed, placed in large stone vats, and made into a slip by adding water to twice the depth occupied by the clay. This slip was then stirred. Coarser particles settled to the bottom of the vats, and finer material from the top was decanted into smaller vats for drying to the plastic state. The use of sand additions at Hebron, Ramallah, and ‘Irtah was correlated with the use of salt or seawater. Salt or seawater was used to give a white fired color, and allowed a higher firing temperature for clays containing calcareous non-plastics. The addition of salt or seawater was a technique that had been introduced from Lebanon only a century or so earlier; it spread from Haifa to other Palestinian centers. Potters in Gaza did not use any temper at all. Their use of only one clay with no additives was uncommon among Palestinian workshops; al Ramla potters also used straight clay with no additives.

As a passing note, the requirements for a clay body to be used for making unglazed ware are much less stringent than are those for a clay body from which glazed ware is to be made. Within the limits of workability, suitable drying and firing behavior, and the properties suited to the function of a given vessel, a certain amount of variation in materials is usually irrelevant.

The Forming of Vessels: The Potter’s Wheel In the Palestinian male potters’ forming tradition, the potter’s wheel has been used for all vessels. The basic mechanism of a Palestinian potter’s wheel, this one from Gaza, is shown in fig. 4.7. The wheel assembly (flywheel, wheel head, shaft) is shown in fig. 4.8, and the physical layout of the wheel and pit is shown in fig. 4.9. The potter’s wheel consisted of one basic assembly comprising a large flywheel near the bottom, a smaller wheel head at the top, and a shaft linking the two. To become usable as a machine, this assembly had to be supported at two points, both of which acted as bearings, the bottom and the top of the shaft. The bottom bearing, as shown in fig. 4.10, consisted of an iron spike set into the bottom of the wooden shaft. This spike was pointed when new, or rounded on the end when worn. When the wheel was in place in the pit, a wooden block was set into the bottom of the pit, and a metal plate with holes was drilled on the top surface fixed to the wooden block. The spike in the shaft ran in one of the holes drilled into the “bearing block.” As a thrust bearing, its efficiency derived, first, from the area of the wooden block resting on the ground surface (the larger the area, the less the assembly tended to move when pressure was applied along the shaft, such as when a heavy, 30-kg lump of clay was placed on the wheel head); and, second, from the small contact area between the iron spike and the “cup” in which it ran. Conversely, this small contact area meant rapid polishing and wearing on both components, so that the location of the spike in the bearing block had to be changed frequently. The other bearing surface was near the top of the shaft below the wheel head. A round-section steel top part of the shaft acted as one component of the bearing, and a slotted wooden plank (top cross-member) acted as the other. The assembly is illustrated again in fig. 4.11. In order for this slot in the wooden shaft to function as a bearing, the shaft was inclined at about 10 degrees to the vertical and

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

149

Top view of upper wooden horizontal support with iron shaft without shaft

29 cm Ø, 4.6 cm thick

40 cm

66 cm

9 cm Ø head with 6 holes for screws iron shaft, 3 cm Ø, which extended into oak shaft ca. 26 cm; and total length 52 cm 3 holes, 2 nails, 1 bolt passed through oak and iron shaft oak shaft 7.5 × 6.5 cm; total length 51 cm kick wheel 65 cm Ø, 5 cm thick, wood; 2 cm metal band around circumference wooden cylinder 8 cm long iron 4 cm long, 1.2 cm Ø The wheels themselves are set within stone-lined pits and are not perfectly vertical. The wheel head at the top is nearly at the floor level. There is no ball bearing. Fig. 4.7 -. A Gaza potter’s wheel. The measurements were taken on the wheel of Haj Ismail Hana by John Landgraf on the day it was set up.

Fig. 4.10 -.

Fig. 4.8 -.

Fig. 4.9 -.

Gaza: assembly and parts of the potter’s wheel

Fig. 4.11 -.

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thus “leaned” into the slot, giving the characteristic tilted appearance of the fully assembled wheel. The whole basic assembly leaned away from the potter. When using the wheel, the potter sat on the edge of the pit and kicked directly on top of the flywheel with his right foot, so that the wheel revolved counterclockwise. The direct kicking action led to the description of this wheel type as a “kick wheel.” The large flywheel served to maintain the momentum created by kicking, which meant that the potter did not need to kick continuously while working, but could kick the wheel up to the desired speed and then rest both of his legs and balance his body while throwing. Skilled potters developed a highly refined rhythm of kicking and throwing that was not at all obvious to a non-potter but was an essential part of the potter’s range of skills. Speed of rotation of the wheel was varied according to the diameter and stability of the form being worked. With this type of wheel, the pieces with the smallest diameter such as spouts required a speed of 150 rpm or greater, whereas finishing large vessels was done using a speed of around 50 rpm or less. A definite advantage of the direct-kick flywheel machine was that it allowed very subtle control of wheel speed, continuously changing as a vessel was made, by the simple expedient of varying the force and frequency of kicking. Again, putting this into practice was a highly skilled activity, and learning to throw on a potter’s wheel with ease and fluency was a skill that could not be fully attained in fewer than five to ten years of continuous practice. On the potter’s wheel, small vessels can be formed by throwing and cutting underneath, with relatively thin walls. With larger vessels, the walls near the base cannot be made as thin as the upper walls; otherwise, the vessel would collapse from the weight of clay while the clay was still soft and plastic. Various techniques have been used in other parts of the world to overcome this problem: for example, in Pakistan the use of a paddle and anvil to beat out thick walls is widespread. Another technique has been to replace the thrown vessel on the wheel upside down and cut off the excess clay (this is called turning, or trimming in American usage). It is difficult to do with very large vessels, and trimming is not used as a Palestinian technique. In other techniques, molding is another method of making vessels with equally thin walls. It involves pressing clay into a mold made from fired clay.

Forming Techniques: The Tijlis Technique The Palestinian potter’s answer to this problem is the tijlis technique, in which the potter forms one end of the vessel, usually the lower body and foot ring formed upside down, leaving a thick lump of clay at the bottom. This form is removed from the wheel and dried until the completed end is stiff enough to support the weight of the form. The potter then turns the form upside down and places the completed end of the vessel in a chuck on the wheel and opens the lump to complete the form by throwing the still plastic section. As far as I am aware, the tijlis technique is limited to the Palestinian area and neighboring countries, though how widespread it is in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and other countries is not known. Potters in Hebron and Gaza that we questioned, including a Hebron potter who had worked in Egypt, said that the technique was not known there. There is no record in the literature of the technique being used in other areas where the potter’s wheel has a very long tradition (Europe, India and Pakistan, China), but to my mind it is the most sophisticated wheel-forming technique that has ever been developed. Among its other advantages is that it wastes no clay. All the clay in the original piece placed on the wheel is used in the final form. If it is limited to the area indicated, where did it originate? Franken recognizes the technique in his Deir ‘Alla volume,65 but makes no special comment, referring to what we classify here as “Group 4 techniques.”66 I investigated the origins of the technique in 1977, examining excavated material going back to the Early Bronze period in the collections stored at the Albright Institute, as well as some collections in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The tijlis technique occurs in all periods from which I have seen material. This includes the Canaanite period, specifically Middle Bronze IIA (ca. 1950–1730 B.C.). The earliest wheelthrown ware that I saw was from the early second millennium B.C. Larger storage vessels were made with an early version of the tijlis technique. This technique is illustrated in fig. 4.12 and fig. 4.13. Ruth Amiran makes no reference to forming techniques, but notes in relation to Middle Bronze storage jars that “the fairly thin walls are of uniform thickness from rim to base.”67 This is a

65 FRANKEN and KALSBEEK, Excavations at Tell Deir ‘Alla, vol. 1. 66 For descriptions of the six Group techniques, see the Summary of Forming Techniques on pp. 151–61 below. 67 AMIRAN, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land, 103.

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

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clear indication that the large vessels were not thrown in one step, because the lower walls would be thicker than the upper walls if that were so. Storage jars from this period that I examined either had a rounded base or a flattish base, without the obvious foot ring of later tijlis pots, but were clearly made in two steps. The rim was thrown first, leaving the base thick. The vessel was then inverted and the thick portion thrown to a thickness consistent with the upper part of the vessel, and then closed over to form a round base. In some vessels it was apparent that the upper body and rim had been thrown first, and when partly dry the vessel had been inverted in a chuck, a coil of extra clay added, and the round base thrown from that.68

• large zīrs made in two major stages: an average of 35–40 per day

Some MBIIA storage jars from Taanach showed these forerunners to the tijlis technique in their manufacture, that is, replacing the vessel upside down on the wheel after the formed part has dried, adding more clay, and closing over the base—but this is a forerunner to the tijlis technique, not the true tijlis technique. It evolved in the Iron Age, and examples were seen from Tell Beit Mirsim and Tell er-Reqeish. Only limited amounts of pottery from most periods since then, except for Islamic material from the tenth and eleventh centuries, have been seen, but there seems to be no reason why there would not be evidence of the technique in those periods too.

2. The bases of vessels are usually formed by throwing with the form “upside down” on the wheel at some stage of the process. The base is formed by closing over a thrown intermediate wall (except with forms open at both ends such as drums). This closing over leaves a characteristic “navel” on the interior of the base, and a corresponding recess on the exterior base.

In order to study fully the origins of the tijlis technique, it would be necessary to examine Iron Age material from as many sites as possible, including imported wares of comparable dating, to determine if the technique started in this area or was introduced from elsewhere. In all the material that I have examined, so far the technique coexists along with other throwing techniques but seems to become much more common in the Roman and Byzantine periods. The study of this and other forming techniques is best done from the base of vessels, especially the interior, which is difficult to do with whole or fully restored vessels. A brief note on productivity (the number of vessels produced per day) with the tijlis technique, as performed by one Hebron potter with an assistant: • simple conical flowerpots made in two stages only: 200–240 per day • ibrīqs made in several stages: an average of up to 100 per day

Summary of Forming Techniques General characteristics of the Palestinian forming techniques which define the Palestinian wheelforming tradition: 1. The techniques involve only throwing on the potter’s wheel; no turning (trimming) is done at any stage.

3. Any form is produced by a sequence (see fig. 4.13 G as an example) of (a) throwing part of the form, leaving a thick lump of clay; (b) drying; (c) replacing the form inverted on the wheel, held by a chuck; and (d) throwing the thick lump to produce the other end of the form. Each form has a sequence of throwing and drying steps. Thus “batching” is an inevitable part of the organizational sequence of the Palestinian potter’s workshop, and could be inferred in past periods when similar techniques were used. 4. The use of clay “chucks” to support forms on the wheel for throwing is an integral part of the process.

Forming Techniques Used at Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza The range of forming techniques for the many different Palestinian vessel forms can be classified in six groups: Group 1. Vessels with a flat base formed in one stage only: opening a lump of clay, throwing to complete the form, and cutting off the form to leave a “string cut” flat base (fig. 4.14).

68 Observations from field notes made by Owen RYE, at the Albright Institute, of vessels from this period.

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Fig. 4.12 -. Stages of forming vessels by the tijlis technique

Fig. 4.13 -. Stages of forming vessels by the tijlis technique

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

(1a) Vessels formed by joining together pieces made with Group 1 forming techniques, without further use of the wheel. Group 2. Vessels with a ring base (foot ring) formed in two stages of throwing: the base is formed in the first stage, and the rim in the second stage. Fig. 4.15 B is an example showing a flowerpot. (2a) Vessels with a pedestal base formed in two stages of throwing: the base first, the rim second. Fig. 4.15 C is an example of this. Group 3. Vessels with a ring base (foot ring) formed in more than two stages of throwing: the base in the first stage, and the main body in the second stage, with the neck and rim being formed, and handles or spouts added, in subsequent stages. Fig. 4.13 H is an example of this, as is fig. 4.12 D. Group 4. Vessels with a round base formed in two main stages: the rim is formed in the first stage, and the base is thrown and closed over in the second stage. Fig. 4.13 G is an example. Group 5. Vessels that are open at both ends, formed in two stages of throwing: one end is formed first (the larger end if one end is larger than the other) and then the other end. Fig. 4.15 A is an example showing the forming of a drum. Group 6. Vessels with a foot ring at either end, formed in two stages of throwing, with neck and rim and handles being added in subsequent stages.

Group 1 Group 1 forms were made on the wheel in one stage of throwing only, the completed form being cut from the wheel with a string underneath the form while the wheel was still revolving (leaving a characteristic spiral marking on the flat base) and then set aside to dry completely before firing. These forms had no foot ring, rather a simple flat base. The forms produced in Gaza by this technique included one version of the coffee mortar (mushan qahwah), the garlic mortar (ko‘adah), and the jar cover (ġa‫ܒ‬āa qadrah)— these three forms having open bowl-like shapes— in addition to the bank or money box (‫ۊ‬azzānah). In Jaba‘, this technique was used to produce oil lamps and other vessels. (fig. 4.16 a, b)

153

The “one-stage” coffee mortar was produced in one Gaza workshop only, that of the Hajazi brothers. There a number of these bowls were seen whose bases had cracked during a firing; the bases were later repaired with a mixture of cement and black kiln ash. Although the walls were of uniform thickness, this was not always the case for the string-cut bases, where differences in thickness led to differential shrinkage during drying, or thermal stress during firing and resultant cracking. The one-step, right-side-up manufacturing process enabled the potter to produce a thicker-walled bowl, which together with its thicker flat base would probably hold up much better (if used as a mortar) than the thinner-walled, ring-based coffee mortar made with the traditional two-step process. In Hebron, Group 1 techniques were used to make lids for the cooking pot; these lids were thrown as shallow bowls, the base was then narrowed to a diameter of about 2 cm, and the lid was cut off. The narrow base then functioned as a knob for the lid (fig. 4.17). One-stage throwing was also used to produce miniature vessels for the tourist trade. These vessels always had the base marked clearly with the characteristic string-cut spiral lines. Group 1a was not used at Gaza or Hebron; only the Jaba‘ potters used this technique extensively. In Jaba‘, Hussein Khalid demonstrated the making of a flowerpot, decorated on the rim with a “double-scalloped” technique similar to that used by Hebron potters. This vessel was cut through underneath with a string and set aside to dry, no further finishing being required.

Group 2 Group 2 vessels were formed by throwing from a lump of clay to produce the lower walls, and closing in the base, at the same time forming the foot ring (fig. 4.18). A solid lump of clay was left at the “bottom” of this form as thrown. The form was then removed from the wheel and dried until at the base the foot ring was leather hard. It was then replaced on the wheel inverted, with the foot ring and lower walls supported in a clay chuck. The solid lump of clay, now at the top, was opened and thrown to form the upper walls of the vessel, completing the rim as well. Vessels in this group in Gaza included open bowl forms—the couscous bowl (maftūlīah), dough bowl (laqān), milk bowl (kaškūlah), and coffee mortar with foot ring (mushan qahwah)—and flowerpots.

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Group 2a techniques were observed only at Hebron. The Hebron potters generally were more innovative with forms than were the potters of Gaza and Jaba‘, and it was not uncommon to see one basic form, such as the water drinking jar, with several varieties of rim form. The Hebron forming sequence for the pedestal-footed flowerpot (fig. 4.19) is shown in fig. 4.15 C. The q‘ab, or initial form, had a simple rounded base, with no foot ring; a hole about 1–2 cm in diameter was left in the center of the base. Before the initial form was thrown, a series of clay rings was thrown. The initial form was then thrown, a ring was centered on the bottom, and the pedestal foot was thrown from that. After the pedestal-footed q‘ab had dried so that the foot was leather hard, it was replaced on the wheel right side up, fitting into a clay chuck, and the top of the form and rim were completed. Other flowerpot shapes—for example, probably the one most commonly made in Hebron (fig. 4.20) and Gaza, the flowerpot that had two handles with rings included—were also produced in two stages: first the q‘ab, finishing the footed base by closing, and second the upper part of the form. The two-handled pot with rings was completed by throwing a series of rings on the wheel; after throwing an annulus and cutting off underneath with a nail to give a circular cross-section, the vessel was completed by attaching the handles, fitting the ring over each handle when only the top was attached, and then attaching the bottom of the handle. The ring was purely decorative and had no function.

Fig. 4.14 -. A flat-based vessel to be cut off with a string

In Jaba‘, Group 2 forming techniques were used for the milk jar and the yogurt jar. For these, the base was formed in a first stage of throwing, forming the lower walls of the vessel and foot ring and closing over the base, leaving a thick lump of clay from which to form the upper walls. When the foot of the vessel dried to leather hard, it was replaced on the wheel in a chuck, foot ring down, and the upper walls and rim were thrown from the solid lump of clay. Handles were added afterward.

Group 3 Group 3 involved the following forming sequence: 1. throwing the lower walls of the vessel, forming the foot ring, and closing in the base, leaving a thick lump of clay at the “bottom” of this initial form (fig. 4.21 a, b, c); 2. drying the form until the thrown section was leather hard; 3. inverting the form and placing it on the wheel with the foot ring and base held in a chuck, and then opening the solid lump of clay and throwing it to form the upper walls, completing the main form of the vessel (fig. 4.22); 4. drying the second intermediate stage to leather hard (fig. 4.23);

Fig. 4.15 -. Sequence of forming a pedestal base

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

a)

Fig. 4.16 -. a) Forming the wick lip of an oil lamp b) Cutting the lamp from the wheel with a string

Fig. 4.18 -. The foot ring of a Hebron vessel formed with a Group 2 technique

Fig. 4.19 -. Pedestal-footed flowerpot, Hebron

b)

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Fig. 4.17 -. Cooking pot and lid with knob

Fig. 4.20 -. Two-handled flowerpot, Hebron

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a)

SURVIVAL OF A TRADITION

b)

c)

Fig. 4.21 -. a, b, c) Forming the lower walls and foot ring

5. adding thrown clay rings to the top of the vessel (again supported in a chuck) to form the neck of the vessel (fig. 4.24 a, b, c, d); 6. adding spouts and handles (fig. 4.25). Group 3 included the largest vessel made by the Hebron potters, the water storage jar called the zīr. The process is shown in fig. 4.12 E and in fig. 4.26 a, b, c, d, e, f. Four sizes of the zīr were made, with the capacity to hold 20, 40, 60, or 80 liters of water. The largest size required extreme skill in throwing, as it was almost a meter high when formed, and only the most skilled potters could make them. Among the Hebron potters themselves, the criterion of skill at throwing was whether one could make a zīr. The production of zīrs was seasonal, being limited to the hot summer months when demand was high. Vessels in Group 3 also included the ibrīq, as shown in fig. 4.12 D. These were made in Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza. The general forming techniques for handleless water drinking jars (šarbeh), two-handled water jars (šarbeh ‘irāqīah), and spouted drinking jars (ibrīq) were common to these three vessel types except that, for the second and third jar types, handles or handles and spout were added at the end as described above. All three jar types were produced mainly in the spring and summer. The technique overall was rather similar to that used for the larger water storage jar (zīr) made in Hebron. In Jaba‘ Group 3 forming techniques were used for the main body of the wedding jar. The forming of the wedding jar is discussed below on p. 174.

Group 4 The Gaza water-carrying jar (jarrah) (fig. 4.27), also made in Jaba‘, is the main example. This form was no longer produced at Hebron, due to lack of demand, although it had been in the past. These jars were made in the following sequence: first the top was thrown; second the handles were applied; third the vessel was inverted in a specially shaped chuck to accommodate the handles, and the round bottom was thrown. The primary distinction in forming techniques between the jarrah and the ibrīq series was that, for the jarrah, the top of the vessel was formed first, completing the rim, neck, and upper shoulder of the form. The sequence is shown in fig. 4.13 G. At Jaba‘, the neck was formed by placing a thrown ring of clay on top of the form after the shoulder was completed, bonding this ring on by finger pressure, and then throwing from the ring. A thick lump was left at the bottom, and this initial form was removed from the wheel by twisting it off with the hands and setting it aside for drying until the top was leather hard. When the neck and rim had dried to leather hard, handles were formed by pulling and then applied. After further drying, usually after at least one day, the form was placed back on the wheel, supported by a chuck, with the rim down. In Jaba‘, the chuck was formed from plastic clay on the wheel head. The clay was then covered with strips of cloth to prevent the vessel and chuck from sticking together. The chuck had a recess on either side of the inside so the handles of the jarrah could fit into it. After the thick lump of clay was opened, the walls were thrown upward and closed over to form the rounded base and foot ring of the vessel. The forming of the Gaza jarrah

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

was very similar to that of the Jaba‘ jarrah (see pp. 169, 172–74). The same general sequence was used in Gaza for the forming of cooking pots (‫ܒ‬anjarrah; pl. ‫ܒ‬anājar) (fig. 4.28), which were also round-bottomed with no foot ring. In Hebron, for cooking pots (fig. 4.29) the first stage involved completing the upper walls and rim of the cooking pot, leaving a very thick base. This initial form was removed and set aside to dry. When the rim was leather hard, the vessel was put back on the wheel upside down, supported by a chuck. In the second stage, after the base had been opened, clay was thrown upward to form the lower walls and then closed over to form the rounded base. The vessel was then removed and set aside to dry, resting upside down on its rim. The rims of these vessels usually showed signs of this positioning. Two handles were applied in the final stage of forming. In Jaba‘, the cooking pots were distinct and unique to that location. The cooking pot was also formed in two stages there. In the first stage, a bowl form was thrown, with the rim form completed as well as a thick base. This form was then dried until the rim was leather hard; it was then placed back on the wheel, fitting rim-down over a chuck. The thick lump of clay then uppermost was opened, and the walls brought upward and closed over to form the rounded base of the cooking pot. After the form had dried further, the handles were applied.

Group 5 The drum is the primary example, as shown in fig. 4.15 A and on p. 144 after firing. Completed drums for sale at market are shown in fig. 4.30. The drum form was open at both ends and therefore did not involve the “closing in of the base” noted with most other forms. However, in Hebron it still involved two stages of manufacture. In the first stage, the large end of the drum was completed while leaving a lump of clay at the bottom. In the second stage, the form was inverted and the thick clay lump thrown upward to form the other end of the drum. We observed drum making, specifically of the large “Egyptian drum,” in one of the Hebron workshops. The Jaba‘ potters did not make drums.

Group 6 The main Group 6 vessel was the butter churn. This form was produced in Jaba‘ and Gaza. In Jaba‘, two vessel types were made, the larger and the smaller butter churn. These were not made in Hebron.

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Hebron potters used these techniques to make a type of barrel-shaped flowerpot called the haarut (see p. 220). In the first stage, an initial form with closed base and foot ring at the top was produced, with a thick lump of clay at the bottom. After drying, in the second stage, the form was inverted and placed in a chuck; the thick lump of clay was thrown upward, and the top was closed over to form a foot ring and “base” similar to the first, resulting in a foot ring at either end of the symmetrical form. The side was then cut out of the barrel shape, and feet were added on the other side to complete the planter. The completed planter is shown in fig. 4.31 a, b, c.

Distinctions between Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza Vessels Wheel-made vessels from Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza were distinctive, and their origins were thus easily determined. One major distinction was the variation in shape. For examples of this, see fig. 4.32 a, b, c, which show an ibrīq from each location (Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza, respectively) on the same scale. Another distinction among vessels from Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza was color. Gaza potters produced a three-color range of red, black, and “white” ware (fig. 4.33). The last ware, made of clay containing salt, is called “white ware” in this study, although actually these white-ware vessels often came out of the kiln with a green or yellow cast to them. Jaba‘ potters produced a two-color range of red and black ware. Hebron potters produced only “white ware,” working with clay and salt. Hebron pottery was further distinguished by its heavier workmanship: any particular type of vessel from the Hebron potteries tended to be larger and thicker-walled than a corresponding type of vessel thrown in Jaba‘ or Gaza. Although some new items were introduced into the repertoire, the types of vessels produced at key sites that we studied—Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza— were mainly traditional in style. The Jaba‘ potter, for example, said that his types of wares had been made continuously for at least sixty years. West Bank and Gaza Arabs preferred these styles; as one old man of Jaba‘ remarked, “It is better to use the traditional ware because it is made by Arabs for Arabs in the Arab style.” He did not like to see the styles change, but said Israelis were changing them and he would accept it.

SURVIVAL OF A TRADITION

158

Fig. 4.22 -. Completing the main form

a)

b)

Fig. 4.24 -. a, b, c, d) Completing the top of a water jar

Fig. 4.23 -. Taking the second stage outside for drying

c)

d)

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

Fig. 4.25 -. Adding handles

c)

Fig. 4.26 -. a)

b)

d)

e)

f) Fig. 4.26 -. a, b, c, d, e, f) Forming stages of the zīr; see fig. 4.12 E

159

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160

Fig. 4.27 -. Jarrah from Gaza

Fig. 4.28 -. Cooking pot from Gaza

Fig. 4.29 -. Hebron cooking pot

Fig. 4.30 -. Drums for sale at Bethlehem market

OVERVIEW OF THE TRADITION

a)

161

c)

b)

Fig. 4.31 -. a, b, c) Planter from Hebron

a)

b)

Fig. 4.32 -. a, b, c) Ibrīqs from Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza

Fig. 4.33 -. Black and red ibrīqs from Gaza

c)

Fig. 4.34 -. Hashem Sharaf, potter of Jericho, 1983. Photo by Hamed Salem

MALE POTTERS AT EIGHT CENTERS IN

PALESTINE

Ramallah (including al Ramla, Jericho, and Jordan) In 1977, there was one potter’s workshop in production in the Ramallah district. The workshop was jointly owned by two potters: Hashem Hassan Sharaf and Ibrahim Sharaf.

Impact of 1948: al Ramla Both of these potters worked in al Ramla before 1948. According to an informant, there were about thirty potters’ workshops in al Ramla before the war of 1948. This number is not inconsistent with statistics obtained in the 1931 British census of Palestine,69 which show fifty men as earners directly engaged in pottery production, with 144 working or nonworking dependents. Data given in this census show that, on the basis of the number of workers involved, al Ramla was then second only to Gaza as the largest pottery center in Palestine.

Immediately before 1948, the al Ramla workshops were producing pottery for both Palestinian Arabs (the main customers) and Jews. The Arabs purchased a range of traditional vessels, including large water storage jars (zīr), water drinking vessels (ibrīq and šarbeh), and various bowls. Cooking pots were not being made. Jewish customers purchased primarily flowerpots, and there was little overlap between the two markets. The al Ramla potters used the same body for production for both markets, made up from one of the local clays, wetted with freshwater, with no salt or sand added. The clay was obtained near a cement factory in the al Ramla district. The Palestinian-type kilns were fired with various fuels. According to one informant, the best fuel was pulp and seeds from the olive mills, but, since the potters had to buy this fuel and it was relatively expensive, it was not much used. The production of olives remained a significant agricultural activity of the region.70

69 E. MILLS, Census of Palestine 1931: Population of Villages, Towns, and Administrative Areas, 3 vols. (Jerusalem and Alexandria, 1932–1933), table XVI, p. 338. 70 Yehuda KARMON, Israel: A Regional Geography (London: Wiley Interscience, 1971), 230.

JERICHO AND JORDAN

An important industry in the al Ramla district before 1948 was the production of sesame seeds. According to our informant, the sesame seeds were separated from the husks by soaking in salt water. The seeds were recovered and washed; the husks were a waste by-product, not usable as fertilizer because of their acquired salt content. These husks were used by the potters as a fuel; toward 1948 the potters began pouring used motor oil onto the husks before burning. Because of the salt content of the husks, there was some whitening effect on the surface of the pottery from volatilization in the kiln. It was assumed that the temperature in the kilns was not high enough for any salt-glazing effect to occur. Salt glazing cannot be successfully achieved much below 1150 °C, and even then requires an addition of borax to the salt as well as clays free from calcium carbonate for optimum results.71 Other fuels used by the al Ramla potters included grass and straw as waste products of agriculture, and sawdust as a by-product of woodworking industries. Rubber was tried as a fuel, but its rate of combustion was too rapid for the al Ramla clay, and pots in the kiln were badly damaged, so it did not become a standard fuel. The normal al Ramla firing consisted of three days of water smoking, slow heating using straw and sawdust as fuels, and one day of heating to full temperature using combinations of the fuels mentioned above, usually wetted with used motor oil.

Jericho and Jordan after 1948 Jericho Pottery Production, 1948–1967 During and immediately after the war of 1948, all of the al Ramla potters became refugees and left the al Ramla area. We have no information to suggest that this statement by our informant is invalid.72 According to him, none of the al Ramla potters went to Gaza, partly because of difficulties in actually getting to Gaza on account of continued fighting, but primarily because Gaza did not appear to offer a good living to a newly arrived potter on account of the large number of potters already working there. Most of the al Ramla potters moved either to Jericho or to the East Bank of the Jordan River (Jordan). According to our informant, there were no potters in Jericho before 1948, and he knew of only one on

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the East Bank, a potter from Faluja who had moved to Salt, in Jordan, and opened a workshop there before 1948. Of the al Ramla potters, about twenty moved to Karama, which is about 5 km east of the Jordan River and 10 km north of the Jericho–Salt road connecting the East and West Banks of the Jordan River via the Allenby Bridge, the most important link between the Jordanian East Bank and the Israeli-occupied, Palestinian West Bank. All of the Jericho potters between 1948 and 1967 were originally from al Ramla. They worked in three workshops, one in each of the three Jericho refugee camps: Aqabat Jaber (south camp), ‘Ain es Sultan (north camp), and Nuei‘ma. Aqabat Jaber was the main center of pottery production, according to Hashem Sharaf, one of the Jericho potters between 1948 and 1967; in 1978 he returned to Aqabat Jaber from the Ramallah district (fig. 4.34). Hashem Sharaf provided some details of the relatively short-lived Jericho potters’ workshops. He left al Ramla in 1948 and initially moved to Nablus, where he opened a workshop in the large refugee center of Balata; but he stayed there for only one year, partly because he could not find suitable clay for pottery making and so sustained high losses in drying and firing. In Nablus he continued to carry on the al Ramla tradition of using only one clay type and not adding either salt or sand to it. Another difficulty was that he could work there only for half of the year due to the climate; he was unable to work during the cold, rainy months. In 1949–1950, he moved to Aqabat Jaber in Jericho. The Jericho potters produced a range of traditional vessels for Palestinians, including ibrīqs and šarbehs (water drinking vessels) and zīrs (large water storage vessels). These were sold to Palestinians over a broad area encompassing the cities or towns of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, and Ramallah, all located north of Jerusalem, but not south of Jerusalem in competition with the Hebron potters. Jericho pottery was also sold in Jordan (on the East Bank) in al Mina, Aqaba, Irbid, and Amman, as well as other areas within this wide-ranging territory. One advantage of Jericho as a pottery-making center was its central location, giving it easy access to this large marketing area. Another advantage was the climate. In Jericho (and also in Karama, close by in the Jordan Valley), the potters could work for almost the full twelve months of the year without interruptions from rain and cold weather, which in some other parts of Palestine caused serious problems with the drying and firing of pottery.

71 C. W. PARMELE, Ceramic Glazes, 3rd ed. (Boston: Cahners Books, 1973), 318–19. 72 For an account of Operation Dani against the towns of Lydda and al Ramla in the 1948 war, see Ilan PAPPE, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), 166–70.

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MALE POTTERS

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The clays available in Jericho occurred in deposits with alternate layers of sand and clay, so that digging these clays produced a natural clay-sand mixture. As this clay was not very plastic, the Jericho potters had clay brought in from al Jib, situated between Jerusalem and Ramallah, to give a workable body when mixed with the sandy local Jericho clay. Because of continuing communication between the former al Ramla potters after 1948, they were generally aware of the benefits of using salt with calcareous clays: a whitefired color and the ability of the body to accept a rapid firing cycle without breakage. The salt addition also prevented damage occurring after firing due to lime blowing.73 One potter from al Ramla, Said Samur, went to Haifa before 1948 and worked there for some time, learning about the effects of adding salt and sand to clay. In 1948, Said Samur moved to Shufat, on the road between Jerusalem and Ramallah, opening a workshop there that stayed in production until 1965. After 1948, it was from him that the other former al Ramla potters learned of salt and sand use. As a result, between 1948 and 1967 the Jericho potters used salt and sand as additives to the mixture of half al Jib and half Jericho clay.

Fuel and Kilns To fuel their Palestinian-type kilns, the Jericho potters used sawdust, banana tree fronds, wood, and most commonly rubber. If no other fuel was available, ash from the kiln was soaked with used motor oil and this mixture was then burned. Rubber was used as the main fuel because of its availability and because the clay body could withstand its rapid firing. The rubber was sold to the potters at this time, so it was not a cheap fuel. After the war of June 1967, the refugee camps of Jericho were abandoned by all the occupants, including the potters. Most of these refugees moved across the Jordan River to Jordan.

Ramallah: al Bireh and Qalandia When the potters of al Ramla fled that area in 1948, one of them moved directly to Ramallah, the only al Ramla potter to do so. He opened a workshop early in 1950 in al Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, in partnership with a Christian Palestinian who had lived in Jaffa before 1948. Because of the climate in Ramallah, with wet and cold weather for part of the year, he would work for half of the year in his Ramallah workshop and then go to Jericho for the other half of the year, when the weather in Ramallah was unsuitable. The workshop in Ramallah (al Bireh) continued in operation until 1965, when complaints from nearby residents about smoke from the kilns caused closure of the workshop. He then moved to his present location between Ramallah and Jerusalem near the western end of Jerusalem’s Qalandia airport.74 This site was chosen mainly for its isolation, with no residents living anywhere near the workshop, so that there would be no complaints about smoke from rubber burned in the kilns. The following discussion includes the 1950–1965 al Bireh workshop and the 1965–1977 Qalandia workshop.

Raw Materials and Clay Body Preparation The clay body used at Ramallah was based on the widely used clay from nearby al Jib. When the first workshop was opened in 1950, sand and salt were not used, following the al Ramla tradition, and so all the pots were red. When many customers asked for white pots, after hearing about the effects of mixing salt with clay, the potter experimented with salt from the Dead Sea. At first these experiments were unsuccessful (because the salt content of Dead Sea water is much higher than that of seawater), but gradually the technique was refined. Between 1948 and 1967, the body was based on al Jib clay, Dead Sea salt, and sand brought from Jordan. This sand was obtained near Jerash in Jordan, about 10 km north of Suweileh, located on the main road between Salt and Amman. Sand from Hebron was also available; it was fine and of good quality but difficult to obtain because it had to be dug from a “cave” and carried to the nearest road on donkeys, whereas the Jerash sand deposit was accessible by road. There were no known suitable deposits of sand in the Ramallah region. The Jerash deposit was also being used by the Jericho potters, which made it somewhat easier to obtain in Ramallah.

73 Owen S. RYE, “Keeping Your Temper under Control: Materials and the Manufacture of Papuan Pottery,” Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 11.2 (1976): 106–37. 74 For an update, see Nahed AWWAD, “In Search of Jerusalem Airport,” Journal of Palestine Studies 35 (2008): 51–63. Qalandia is currently the name of a major Israeli checkpoint.

RAMALLAH: AL BIREH AND QALANDIA

After 1967, sand from the Mediterranean coast became available while the sand from Jerash became much more difficult to obtain because there was only one potter on the West Bank using this material. Thus, after 1967, the Mediterranean sand was used instead. It must be noted that the Mediterranean sand probably contained calcareous material, mainly shell fragments, which would account for the need to use salt as an addition wherever this sand was used. At the same time, salt from Gaza evaporated from seawater also became available and was used for some time. Buying salt in 1977 from a dealer in Ramallah who crushed and packed salt, the potter was uncertain of its origin. Clay body preparation at the Qalandia workshop was a three-stage process involving a slaking pit, settling pool, and drying bed. A fourth, concrete tank was used to store water, which was not conveniently obtained at the site except in the rainy season; water from the settling pool was recycled into this storage tank.

Forming Techniques The range of forming techniques in use was limited mainly because the range of vessels produced was limited. Group 2 techniques were used for flowerpots, and Group 3 techniques were used for ibrīqs, šarbehs, and zīrs.

Firing and Fuel Pots were fired in a typical Palestinian-type kiln. When the first workshop was opened in 1950, fuel was difficult to obtain and the potter employed a worker to go into the market (suq) to collect cardboard and other burnable rubbish. The rubbish was soaked in used motor oil. Crushed pulp from olive presses was purchased if nothing cheaper was available. Scraps of plastic from a nearby factory were occasionally purchased as fuel. Sawdust and rubber were both used, but all of these fuels had to be purchased. If nothing else was available, ash from the kiln was soaked with used motor oil and this was burned. After 1967, many of these fuels, which had previously been purchased, were free, and so the potters became more selective, using only sawdust and rubber scraps as fuels. The firing could be completed in one day because of the salt-sand content of the

165

body, although the potters said that this was true also if sand alone without salt was added to the clay. The kiln was fired once every five working days, despite the fact that only one of the potters was working full time, as the chamber of the kiln was rather small. The two potters had an arrangement whereby one did most of the production, aided by two young assistants, and the other managed a yard in Ramallah where pottery was sold. The workshop was not organized for high production; there were two pit-kick wheels and only one relatively small kiln in use. There was no pug mill, all the clay being hand-kneaded before use, and no shelf space was available for drying. Thus, the workshop operated only on a small-scale production basis. In addition, production was continued for only eight months of the year, with four months off during the cold, rainy season.

Products and Markets The range of vessels produced was very limited; the only types made were the two water drinking vessels, the ibrīq and the šarbeh, with two types of the latter, the šarbeh without handles and the two-handled šarbeh ‘irāqīah; and some flowerpots. The entire output of the workshop was sold only through the one outlet in Ramallah owned by the partner. The water vessels were bought by people in refugee camps and villages, not by the urban population of Ramallah. The flowerpots were sold to richer villagers and urban residents (both Muslim and Christian Palestinians), many of whom had traveled and even lived in other countries. In 1977, Israelis were not buying flowerpots as they had between 1967 and 1972–1973; the reason given by an informant was that flowerpots from Hebron were readily available within Israel itself. Partly for this reason, the potters did not wish to expand flowerpot production in competition with Hebron, although occasionally they did take a truckload of flowerpots to Israel on market days in various Israeli centers. So despite their knowledge that flowerpot presses were in use in Hebron and Nazareth, the potters had no desire to change to this type of production and market. The potters were also aware of other innovations such as the production of miniature vessels in Hebron by Rajab Fakhuri and others. They said that they did not produce such vessels because it involved too much effort, although they would produce this type of pottery if someone placed a special order for it.

MALE POTTERS

166

‘Irtah The village of ‘Irtah has Tulkarm as the nearest urban center. The village is situated directly on the edge of chalk hills overlooking the fertile Sharon Plain to the west, and was very close to the Israel–Jordan/ West Bank cease-fire line between 1948 and 1967. The 1967 Israeli census indicated a population of 912 people in 205 households, including 47 refugees from Israel before 1967 from the 1948 war.75

One Potter Only one potter, Khalil Mohammed Fakhuri, was working in ‘Irtah in 1977. He was born in 1910 into a traditional family of potters and learned pottery making in his father’s workshop at Nabi Yakub in the village of ‘Irtah. He married at the age of twenty-two and continued working with his father for four years, after which he opened his own workshop because he thought he could earn more money than by working for his father. This was not successful because he had no assistants, so he went to Haifa and worked in the Assis family workshop between 1938 and 1940. He then returned to his ‘Irtah workshop, where he worked continuously until 1973.

Before 1948: Five Workshops, Clay Source and Preparation, Firing, Products and Markets Before 1948, according to Khalil, there were five potters’ workshops in ‘Irtah. The 1931 British census of Palestine76 shows four male potters and two female potters working in the Tulkarm subdistrict, which would corroborate Khalil’s information if all four of the males were ‘Irtah potters. The two women mentioned may have been female potters in the village of Kafr al Labad.77 Before 1948, the ‘Irtah potters used clay from the plains, obtained from a site about 5–6 km west of ‘Irtah, digging the clay themselves and transporting it on donkeys, mules, or camels, or in horse-drawn carts—or in trucks when they became available. This clay was used with no admixture and was prepared by a three-step procedure using a slaking pit, settling bed,

and drying bed. Khalil himself, because of his experience working in Haifa, knew about the technique of adding salt (or salt water) to clay, and knew of at least one advantage of this procedure. The ‘Irtah clay required very slow drying, indoors out of the direct sun, whereas with salt added to the clay, vessels could be dried more quickly outdoors when placed in the sun. But he did not use this technique, despite this knowledge, because he was producing vessels in his repertoire that were used for storage of oil, vinegar, and other foodstuffs. The use of salt made vessels more porous so that liquids soaked through the walls, wasting the contents, or in the case of some foodstuffs spoiling the contents. The Palestinian-type kilns used before 1948 were fired with netish (Sarcopoterium spinosum) as the main fuel, although wood was occasionally used when available. The firing involved four to five days of water smoking and one day of firing to full temperature. The range of vessels produced before 1948 included the oil jars and storage jars noted above, water storage jars (zīr), water drinking vessels (ibrīq), water-carrying jars (jarrah), milking vessels (baqluleh), drums (tableh), and wide-rimmed cooking pots (tanaja) used for cooking in bread ovens (tābūn) and for storing yogurt. All these types of vessels were sold to Arabs in nearby villages, in Tulkarm, and in ‘Irtah itself. Jews who had settled in nearby areas on the plain before 1948 bought some ibrīqs and zīrs and also created a small market for flowerpots.

Impact of 1948: Clay Source and Clay Body Preparation, Products and Markets As at other centers included in this study, major changes to the potters’ work occurred after the 1948 war. The most significant of these was the loss of all the village lands on the Sharon Plain, with the consequent loss of access to the potters’ clay source. The potters experimented with various clays from deposits in the nearby chalk hills, but none of these was usable, giving very high firing losses. Khalil Fakhuri eventually tried clays from as far away as Jordan, which were successful

75 Editors’ note: The 1967 Israeli census may have underestimated some population figures. 76 MILLS, Census of Palestine 1931, 386. 77 CROWFOOT, “Pots, Ancient and Modern,” 182–86.

‘IRTAH AND JABA‘

technologically but not feasible to use because of high transport costs. After he was told of clay deposits at the village of al Jib, near Jerusalem, he visited al Jib and made an arrangement with a landowner there to purchase clay. This arrangement continued up to 1977. During the period when he was attempting to locate a new clay source, he mixed salt with the remaining clay from the old deposit in order to minimize firing losses. When he began to use al Jib clay, he continued to mix salt with it and to use sand additions in order to decrease shrinkage as well as prevent drying and firing losses. The body he used in 1977 was composed of al Jib clay, Mediterranean coastal sand, and salt. The al Jib clay contained very little grit, so clay preparation techniques changed after 1948. Instead of the previous three-stage process, Khalil simply sundried the clay, placed it in a drying bed about 1 × 2 m, 30 cm deep, and wetted it to a plastic condition. Salt and sand were added while foot-kneading the clay, which was kneaded by hand again immediately before throwing. Because of the use of salt and sand, some vessels were dropped from the repertoire, for example, the oil jars. The new body could be fired more quickly, and in 1977 the firing to maximum temperature took only one day, as at Hebron. After 1948 the potters changed their fuel, and began using scrap wood from carpenters, sawdust, and motor oil.

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As a result of the small pre-1948 Jewish market becoming inaccessible, all vessels produced between 1948 and 1967 were sold to Palestinians. Between 1948 and 1967, the other workshops in ‘Irtah closed. Khalil pointed out that potters’ workshops were very dependent on having assistants, and if no assistants were available the potter had difficulty working alone. Partly for this reason, after having been offered jobs by a number of Israelis, Khalil finally accepted employment in 1973 in a pottery workshop producing glazed ware. There he worked on the wheel only, producing a range of forms for glazing, but still using the Palestinian tijlis forming technique wherever possible. At the time of our study in the 1970s, he worked part-time in his traditional workshop, producing only vessels on order, mainly water storage jars (zīr), water drinking vessels (ibrīq and šarbeh), and flowerpots. All of these vessels were ordered by ‘Irtah dealers, who also sold a range of vessels from Hebron. Khalil had no desire to begin producing glazed ware in his own workshop because he was aware of the expensive equipment required and the difficulty of competing with Israeli workshops. His workshop therefore remained very conservatively equipped with a Palestinian kiln built of unfired bricks and a pit-kick wheel. He had not installed any shelves for storing drying vessels because of the small production and did not have a pug mill for preparing clay.

Jaba‘ The village of Jaba‘ (fig. 4.35) is situated 2 km off the main road between the large northern towns of Jenin and Nablus, at the time of our study the major link between Jerusalem and the northern region of Galilee. The turnoff to Jaba‘ is 20 km from Jenin and about 22 km from the center of Nablus. The village occupies the crest of a gentle ridge. The population of Jaba‘ in the 1970s was about 6,000 people. This village is not to be confused with another village of the same name near Jerusalem.

Two Workshops There were two potters’ workshops in Jaba‘ in the 1970s. According to informants, before 1967 there were three workshops but, when the area was lost to

Jordan and placed under Israeli military occupation, one of the workshops closed. In the remaining two workshops, the potters were: 1. Mohammed Yunis Fakhuri. His father, Ahmed Yunis, who taught him the craft, was an old man at the time of our study in the 1970s, but he was still responsible for firings and worked in the workshop finishing vessels. Mohammed Yunis did all the work that was more strenuous. 2. Hussein Khalid Fakhuri, brother of Ahmed and uncle to Mohammed Yunis. The two brothers had both been taught the craft by their father. Although the family name, Fakhuri, was the same as that of most Hebron potters, the Jaba‘ potters of the same name were not related by birth to those of Hebron. Fig. 4.36 shows the Jaba‘ Fakhuri family tree.

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Mohammed Yunis was our main informant. He said that until his generation pottery was a traditional craft passed on within the family, normally from father to son. He himself started working with his father at the age of seven. Mohammed Yunis had no apprentices because his sons did not wish to learn the craft, although one of his sons, Adnan, helped him during the summer. Thus, it was possible that Mohammed Yunis would be the last of the traditional potters of Jaba‘78 (fig. 4.37). Mohammed Yunis worked all year round except during periods of rainy weather. His semi-retired father worked only occasionally. Hussein Khalid was a landowner who worked as a farmer during the planting and harvesting seasons, making pottery only in the interim. The potters’ workshops were located close together on the northwestern edge of the village. Mohammed Yunis said that the land on which his workshop was located had been purchased in 1936 and the workshop started operating then in a preexisting building. Previously the family workshop was next door in a building that, at the time of our study, had been partially destroyed but appeared to have a similar layout. A sketch plan of the workshop we visited in the 1970s is shown in fig. 4.38. Mohammed Yunis reported that the vessel forms produced were essentially the same as those produced fifty or sixty years earlier, according to his father. He said he had not made significant changes to his craft, except for fitting ball bearings to the potter’s wheel that he used. Two other minor innovations were decorating some vessels with a Hanukkah design, to appeal to Israeli customers, and painting some vessels with enamel paints (fig. 4.39) because he felt they would sell better in competition with glazed vessels.

Raw Materials: Clay The Jaba‘ potters all used the same materials, a red clay and a yellowish-white clay. We did not see the clay deposits, but, according to Mohammed Yunis, the white clay was obtained near the ground surface on land in the village near the workshops that the potters themselves owned. Their main reason for using this clay rather than alternative deposits was that they owned the land and there were therefore no problems of access or cost in obtaining the clay. The red clay was not obtained from one specific

location, but from various localities near the village about a ten-minute walk from the workshops. The clay generally lay under about 1 m of overburden. Mohammed Yunis said there were also deposits of red clay in the neighboring village of Seileh that he sometimes used. These two clays were the only raw materials used by the Jaba‘ potters, who applied no slips or pigments apart from enamel paints. Neither did they add salt to clay, as did the Hebron potters and some of the Gaza potters, although Mohammed Yunis did know of the Hebron potters’ body preparation techniques. He told us that the Hebron potters used two clays plus sand and salt for their clay body, also that he was aware of the use of calcite in ancient pottery as a temper, as well as of its use in modern cooking pots. He also reported that it was possible to work on the wheel with the red clay alone, but that throwing with the white clay alone was not possible. He had experimented with the white clay alone but said that it fired unsuccessfully, being very fragile and too porous. So it can be inferred that the white clay was used to enable the body to fire successfully without cracking, being more refractory. The red clay was used to give good workability on the wheel, because of its plasticity and, as Mohammed Yunis indicated, it was the red clay that contributed the desirable reddish color of the fired body.

Clay Body Preparation When the clays were transported to the workshops, the potters broke up all the lumps until all the pieces were smaller than 5 cm, and then they spread the clay out to dry in the sun, usually over a period of several days. The clay was spread out on a flat area near the wall of the workshop that was nearer to the clay preparation pits. The Jaba‘ potters used two clay preparation pits in their three-stage clay preparation process (sun-drying, slaking, and drying the slip to plastic stage). The first, a slaking pit (ma‫܈‬ūl tin al-sagēr), was roughly cubic in shape, about 1 m on each interior edge (fig. 4.40). It was made by digging a hole in the ground and lining the hole with stone bonded with clay mortar. When the two clays had dried, equal parts of each were

78 Editors’ note: In fact, in 2019 Mohammed Yunis’s son Jamal Fakhuri was the one remaining potter of Jaba‘. He was working in the same family workshop where his grandfather and father had worked.

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measured out by volume using buckets. Mohammed Yunis said that ten buckets of white clay and ten buckets of red clay would half fill the slaking pit, and this was the volume normally used. When the clay was placed in the slaking pit, water was then added to fill the pit. After allowing time for the clay to slake, the potters converted it into a slip. We did not observe this process. Mohammed Yunis reported that the clay-water mix was stirred with a large stick until a uniform slip was obtained; then it was left until any excessively coarse particles of grit settled to the bottom. The slip was then bucketed into another pit (see fig. 4.40), also cubic in shape and stone lined, about 2 m on all interior dimensions (ma‫܈‬ūl tin al-kabīr). The slip was poured through a wire mesh sieve (munkhal) with apertures of about 4 mm and a wooden frame about 25 cm square. The potters said that a larger frame would be better. According to Mohammed Yunis, this pit held enough plastic clay for one year’s production by one potter, so the clay body was all prepared at one time during the summer. The slip was allowed to dry in this pit until the body reached a soft plastic stage, and final drying was achieved by laying the clay out on open ground (fig. 4.41). When ready for use, it was then kept at this stage by covering the surface with plastic film (polythene) until it was transferred into the workshop, where it was stored either in a cellar or in one corner of the working area.

Forming Techniques As with the male potters of Hebron and Gaza (see below), the potter’s wheel was used in forming all the products of the Jaba‘ potters. Fig. 4.42 shows the general layout of the wheel and the surrounding area. The mechanism and operation of this type of wheel have already been discussed (see pp. 148-50). The wheels in both Jaba‘ workshops were set in a pit in the workshop floor. There were two wheels in the workshop of Mohammed Yunis. One had a wooden wheel head and an iron spike for the lower thrust bearing, which was the traditional arrangement. The other had been modified by Mohammed Yunis for his own use by fitting a steel wheel head and replacing the lower bearing with a modern ball bearing with a steel shaft. He said that this wheel had more momentum and required less energy to use continually, as well as requiring less maintenance of the lower bearing. Despite the modification to this wheel, both wheels were still placed in a common pit.

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The wheel used by Mohammed Yunis had the following dimensions: the wooden flywheel was 76 cm in diameter; the wheel head was 23 cm in diameter; and the distance from the top of the flywheel to the top of the wheel head was 61 cm. The traditional utilitarian vessels of Jaba‘ were made with techniques very similar to those used for comparable vessels at Gaza and Hebron. As the various forming techniques are discussed in some detail on pp. 151-61, they can be reviewed briefly here with reference to Jaba‘. The forming techniques are classified in the same groups as those of Gaza and Hebron. Because of the complexity of some of the Jaba‘ products, the utilitarian vessels are discussed first, followed by the novelty or ritual products. Group 1 forming techniques were used for the flowerpot. Hussein Khalid demonstrated the making of a flowerpot, decorated on the rim with a “double scalloped” technique similar to that used by Hebron potters. This vessel was cut through underneath with a string and set aside to dry, no further finishing being required. Group 2 forming techniques were used for the milk jar and the yogurt jar. For these, the base was formed in a first stage of throwing, forming the lower walls of the vessel and foot ring and closing over the base, leaving a thick lump of clay from which to form the upper walls. When the foot of the vessel dried to leather hard, it was replaced on the wheel in a chuck, foot ring down, and the upper walls and rim were thrown from the solid lump of clay. Handles were added afterward. Group 3 forming techniques were used for the water drinking jar (ibrīq) and also for the main body of the wedding jar. The forming of the wedding jar is discussed on p. 174. The ibrīq was formed in the same sequence of stages as used at Hebron and Gaza. Group 4 forming techniques were used for the large water-carrying jar (jarrah) and for the cooking pot, the forms of both being distinct and unique to Jaba‘. The sequence for forming a jarrah is shown in fig. 4.13 G and in fig. 4.43 a, b, c. The finished first stage is placed in a chuck (fig. 4.44), the base is thrown and closed (fig. 4.45), and the finished vessel is removed from the wheel (fig. 4.46). In more detail, the upper walls, rim, and neck of the jarrah were formed first, leaving a thick mass of clay at the base. The neck was formed by placing a thrown ring of clay on top of the form after the shoulder had been completed, bonding this ring on

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Fig. 4.35 -. Jaba‘ pots drying on the roof of a potter’s workshop, with village background

Mohammed Ismayin Mohammed

Fig. 4.36 -. Jaba‘ Fakhuri family tree

Hussein

Khalid

Amin

Ahmed Yunis

Nief

Ibrahim

Hassan

Hader

Ismail

5DÀT

Anis

Mohammed Yunis

Fig. 4.37 -. Mohammed Yunis and his son making pottery at Jaba‘, 2000. Photo by Hamed Salem

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General layout 21 m / 70 ft

2 Levels

B

Single level A

Upper Lower

door buttresses

Detail arches

son

doorway to cellar wheels

finishing pots or sitting at wheel

tiled area

stairs to cellar finishing pots old man

stairs to upper level

A workshop

B cellar

clay storage

door arches

Fig. 4.38 -. Plan of Jaba‘ workshop

Fig. 4.39 -. Vessels painted with enamel paints

Fig. 4.40 -. The slaking pit is left front; the larger pit is to the right

Fig. 4.41 -. Clay drying to plastic state ready to use

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Fig. 4.42 -. General layout of a wheel and its surrounding area

a)

b)

c)

Fig. 4.43 -. a, b, c) Forming the unique form of the Jaba‘ jarrah; see fig. 4.13 G

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Fig. 4.44 -.

Fig. 4.45 -.

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Fig. 4.46 -.

Final stages in making the jarrah

Fig. 4.47 -. Adding the neck to the top of a water jar

Fig. 4.48 -. Combed decoration on both sides

Fig. 4.49 -. Wedding jar from Jaba‘

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by finger pressure, and then throwing from the ring (fig. 4.47). The initial form was removed from the wheel by twisting it off with the hands; it was then set aside to dry. When the neck and rim had dried sufficiently, handles were formed by pulling and then applied. After further drying to the point at which the upper part of the vessel, including the handles, was stiff and leather hard, a chuck was formed from plastic clay on the wheel head. The clay was covered with strips of cloth to prevent the vessel and chuck from sticking together. The chuck had a recess on either side of the inside so the handles of the jarrah could fit into it. The jarrah was placed upside down in the chuck, and the solid lump of clay now uppermost was opened and thrown upward to form the lower walls of the vessel. The form was refined using a steel profile tool on the exterior, acting against finger pressure on the interior. Finally, the rounded base was formed by closing over, at the same time creating a vestigial foot ring. The vessels were placed upside down (base upward) to dry before firing. Some of these vessels were decorated with combing on the sides (fig. 4.48), incised into the outer walls using a broken piece from a wooden comb (mušt). Mohammed Yunis used this combed decoration much more frequently than Hussein Khalid did. The cooking pot was also formed in two stages. In the first stage a bowl form was thrown, with the rim form completed as well as a thick base. This form was then dried until the rim was leather hard; it was then placed back on the wheel, fitting rim-down over a chuck. The thick lump of clay now uppermost was opened, and the walls brought upward and closed over to form the rounded base of the cooking pot. After the form had dried further, handles were applied. Group 5 forming techniques were not used for forming vessels at Jaba‘, because the potters did not make drums. Group 6 forming techniques were used for two vessel types made at Jaba‘, the large butter churn and the smaller butter churn.

Novelty Vessels: Forming of the Wedding Jar The novelty or ritual vessels of Jaba‘ usually involved making various pieces and then joining them together. The wedding jar was the most complex form (fig. 4.49). The full forming sequence is shown in fig. 4.50 a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l. The main body of the vessel was made in the same way as an ibrīq. The base was formed first, but in the closing-over process a

pedestal foot was formed rather than the ring base of the ibrīq, and a hole about 2 cm in diameter was left in the center of the base. During the second stage, a tube about 15 cm long and 3 cm in diameter was fitted inside the vessel and joined over the hole in the base. The upper walls were then completed, and a neck thrown from a ring of clay was placed at the shoulder and joined. This neck was closed over so that the top was completely sealed. When the vessel had dried to leather hard, the handles and spouts were applied. The handles were pulled, and spouts thrown, from a hump. Only some of the spouts were functional; for these, a hole was cut through the wall of the vessel before the spout was placed in position and joined on by smearing out the clay around its base. When all the spouts and handles had been attached, a further piece was added to the top of the neck; this piece took the form either of a ceramic bird (a small version of the “duck” described below) or of a trumpet-like rim as in fig. 4.49. This was a “trick” pot in that it could be filled with water only from the bottom, since the neck was closed, but it could then be stood upright without losing the water. Also, water could be poured only from the functioning spout (and not from the other spouts).

Other Novelty Vessels and Forming Details Other novelty vessels included the money box or bank, which was made upright in one throwing stage, closed over at the top, and cut off with a string (fig. 4.51). It may thus be considered a Group 1 vessel. Candlesticks (fig. 4.52) were made from a series of pieces each thrown upright on the wheel and cut off; the pieces were all assembled after some drying. Essentially this too was a Group 1 vessel, formed from a series of Group 1 forms joined together. The “duck,” another novelty form, was made initially in the same way as the “bank,” by throwing a form and closing over at the top. This form, when dried to leather hard, was placed on its side and modeled with the fingers into a bird-like shape. The side was flattened to give a stable base for it to stand on. A trumpet-like thrown form was joined on. Several minor points of forming technique were noted. First, the Jaba‘ potters always kneaded the clay immediately before throwing (fig. 4.53) in order to give it a uniform consistency and to remove any air bubbles that might be present. At Hebron the potters used a pug mill to achieve the same result (see

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p. 208). Second, the method of clay preparation, in which a relatively coarse sieve (4-mm aperture) was used to sieve slip, did not ensure the removal of all particles of coarse grit. If the potter found a particle of coarse grit in the wall of a vessel during throwing, he either dug it out with a fingernail and filled the cavity with clay before continuing, or else pushed the piece of grit right through the wall and removed it from the inside surface before filling in with clay and continuing.

setting of vessels before firing, and removal afterward, was done through the large central top flue of the kiln (fig. 4.56).

Third, the walls of the initial form of the jarrah, or water-carrying pot, seemed to be prone to cracking during the drying process, developing one or more vertical splits (fig. 4.43 a). In this case, the second stage of forming was continued with the split still present until the walls of the form had been partially swelled out. The crack was opened further by pressing from the inside, and was filled in with clay of the same consistency as that of the walls. Throwing then continued normally.

The firing chamber and firebox of the kiln were built from unfired bricks that became fired as the kiln was used. The refractory white clay used in the pottery body was mixed with chopped wheat straw, and this was used to make the bricks. The same white clay was used as mortar for kiln building. The outer insulating wall of the kiln, and the fuel storage and stoking shed, were built from local stone, using cement as mortar.

Finally, it has been mentioned that a string was used to cut off vessels formed by throwing upright in one stage. The piece of string was tied around the potter’s middle finger, leaving one free end; during throwing, he pressed this string to the back of his hand with slurry. In order to cut off a vessel, he touched the free end of the string to the vessel at the level where it was to be cut, allowing the momentum of the wheel to carry the string right around the vessel. He then pulled his hand away, and the string cut cleanly through the soft clay (fig. 4.54). An alternative method of cutting off was used for small parts of vessels, such as spouts. A sharp-pointed steel needle was pushed into the clay where the form was to be cut off, penetrating radially into the form, and held horizontal. As the needle reached the center, the revolution of the form cut it off cleanly and it was removed by the potter using his other hand.

Firing, Kiln, and Fuel The general design of the Jaba‘ kiln, which we have termed “the Palestinian kiln,” was very similar to that of the Gaza and Hebron kilns. The Jaba‘ kiln used by Mohammed Yunis is shown in fig. 4.55 a, b. Like the Gaza kilns, this Jaba‘ kiln had a stone shed built on the stokehole side so that fuel could be stored out of the weather. Steps were built onto the side of the stokehole shed leading up to the top of the kiln. The Jaba‘ kiln differed from those of Hebron and Gaza in one important respect: it had no loading door. All

The Jaba‘ kilns were built by the potters themselves. One kiln, built in the 1930s, was used until the 1970s. The kiln used by Mohammed Yunis had been built not long before the 1970s by his father. So the working life of a kiln of this type was on the order of thirty to forty years before complete rebuilding was needed.

According to the potters, repairs to the kiln were needed after every second firing. The white clay was mixed with water to reach a soft plastic condition, and chopped straw was also mixed in with the hands. We watched an old man repairing the inside of the firebox with this mixture (fig. 4.57 a, b). After removing loose pieces of brick and slag, he patched those areas by applying the plastic clay-straw mix with his hands. Any cracks on the interior of the firing chamber were filled in the same way. The fuel used for firing was a mixture, but dung was the main fuel. Diesel fuel oil or waste motor oil was used occasionally to wet the dung; used rubber tires and other burnable rubbish were also included. The rubbish was used mainly for the long preheating or water smoking part of the firing. The dung fuel was purchased from villagers. It was a mixture of cow and donkey dung with straw added. For use as a fuel it had to be dry, so, if damp, it was sundried before being stored in the fuel shed. According to Mohammed Yunis, the dung was purchased in sacks each containing about 40 kg, and between 18 and 25 sacks of fuel were used for each firing. The difference in the amount of fuel was mainly due to the types of vessels being fired. If firing mostly larger vessels, less fuel was used; but for mostly smaller vessels with a tighter setting, more fuel was required. The villagers also used dung as a fertilizer, which they spread on their fields. As noted above, the only access to the chamber for setting vessels was through the central top flue of the kiln. One of the potters climbed down inside the

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a)

b)

c)

e)

d) Fig. 4.50 -. a, b, c, d, e) Forming sequence of the Jaba‘ wedding jar

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g)

f)

h)

k)

i) l)

j) Fig. 4.50 -. f, g, h, i, j, k, l) Forming sequence of the Jaba‘ wedding jar (cont.)

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Fig. 4.51 -. A money box, or bank

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Fig. 4.52 -. A candlestick

Fig. 4.53 -. Kneading the clay

a)

Fig. 4.54 -. Cutting off a vessel with string

b) Fig. 4.55 -. a, b) The Jaba‘ kiln of Mohammed Yunis

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Fig. 4.56 -. Large central top flue of the Jaba‘ kiln

a)

b) Fig. 4.57 -. a, b) Repairing the firebox

Fig. 4.58 -. Vessels placed in the kiln

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kiln and placed all the vessels in position, with larger vessels placed near the bottom of the kiln and smaller ones toward the top (fig. 4.58). Vessels were carried from the workshop and passed down for setting. When the potter inside had no more room to stand on the firebox, a drum was placed on top of the firebox, on which he then stood, setting vessels around him. When space again became congested, the potter climbed out, removing the drum. Mohammed Yunis said that the number of firings in a year varied from two to four, the low number of firings being possible because of the large size of the kiln. A typical setting would contain about 400 vessels, including about 30 water-carrying jars and 200 water drinking jars. Typical firing losses (vessels cracked or damaged in the firing) would be about 20 vessels, 5 percent of the setting. The amount of clay used for making vessels for one firing would measure between 2.5 and 4 cubic meters, depending on whether more large vessels or more small vessels were produced. Using the data for fuel consumption per firing, and assuming that one cubic meter of clay weighs approximately 1,000 kg (based on dry raw materials, not on plastic weight with water added), the approximate data for firing would be the following: • Minimum weights: 720 kg of fuel for 2,500 kg of clay • Maximum weights: 1,000 kg of fuel for 4,000 kg of clay Thus, the ratio of fuel to clay for one firing varied between about 1:3.5 and 1:4. These values may be compared with ratios obtained in Pakistan.79 One observed firing. One firing was observed by Dr. Albert Glock. He was able to record temperatures at the top of the firing chamber during this firing. Because the Jaba‘ kiln had no setting door, it was not possible to insert thermocouples in the lower part of the firing chamber; the thick stone insulating wall, bonded by cement, precluded this. So it was not possible to assess temperature distribution in the firing chamber. However, the Jaba‘ potters reported that temperature distribution, assessed by noting flame color throughout the chamber and examining vessels fired in different parts of the chamber, was uniform.

79 RYE and EVANS, Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan, 164–65.

The complete cycle for the observed firing took eleven days (from 25 August to 4 September 1973), beginning with loading on the first day, preheating the kiln for the next six days, firing up to maximum temperature on the eighth day, cooling for the next three days, and unloading on the twelfth day. For the preheating, the stokehole door was partly blocked, leaving only a hole about 0.4 m across, to prevent excess cold air from entering the kiln and to achieve fuel economy. The cover over the top central flue of the kiln was propped up on small stones, and only a small opening was left to allow for a moderate draft. The fuel during this period was mainly rubbish, if available: strips of rubber tires, old shoes, or anything combustible, augmented by dung fuel. The fuel was placed mainly toward the front of the firebox, near the stokehole. Maintaining this stoking for 24 hours a day required a team of twelve children and two adults, with one of the adults directing the entire firing process. On the eighth day, the kiln was heated to maximum temperature. The stokehole was fully opened, and several stones were removed from underneath the cover at the top of the kiln to increase the draft. Thermocouples were inserted through the vents by Glock. For the first 5 hours of full firing, the fuel was mainly rubber scraps, along with some dung and other rubbish, and the temperature at the top of the kiln reached only 135 °C. Dung fuel dampened with diesel fuel was then used as the base of the firebox was stoked and filled with burning fuel. Additional vents at the top of the kiln were opened. Two men did the stoking, which in later stages of the firing became continuous. The turbulence caused inside the firebox by continual forceful throwing in of fuel contributed to thorough combustion. At various stages of firing, when vents at the top were opened, black smoke billowed out. The potters judged when the maximum temperature had been reached by flame color inside the chamber, viewed from on top of the kiln through the vents. The maximum temperature reached was 715 °C. Completing the firing at night allowed clearer visibility into the kiln. Cooling of red and black pottery. For red pottery, the end of the firing entailed the cessation of stoking and sealing off the stokehole so that the kiln could cool slowly without the danger of drafts of cold air cracking vessels in the chamber. For black pottery, the firebox was fully stoked at the end of firing with damp fuel wetted with waste motor oil, and pieces

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of rubber; it was then sealed. Finally, rubber scraps were dropped down through vents at the top of the kiln into the chamber among the vessels, and then the top of the kiln was completely sealed over for cooling. For red pottery, vents at the top of the kiln were left open for cooling. According to Mohammed Yunis, cooling for red pottery took two days in winter and four days in summer; cooling for black pottery took two days longer than cooling for red pottery. The kiln had to cool completely before unloading, as one potter had to climb down inside the chamber to remove the vessels, handing them out to assistants on the top of the kiln.

Products and Markets By comparison with the relatively large production centers of Hebron and Gaza, only a small quantity of pottery was produced at Jaba‘. Jaba‘ had two workshops, each with just one potter, compared with ten workshops in Hebron and fifteen in Gaza, a number of which had more than one potter producing vessels. Only a part of the Jaba‘ production was traditional utilitarian ware for everyday use by Palestinian Arabs. Pottery for ceremonial use and “novelty” pottery were also included in the range of wares, and, according to the potters, the tourist market created a more significant demand for these wares. Unlike the Gaza and Hebron potters, the Jaba‘ potters did not produce flowerpots. The Jaba‘ potters produced red ware and black ware but never white ware. An innovation at the time was the decoration of vessels using oil-based enamel paints. Color preferences showed a rather complex variation in the market region and varied for different vessel forms. In general, though, unlike the people of Gaza, West Bank Palestinians did not like black pottery, and in Jaba‘ it was made only for tourists. Exceptions, however, were the milking jar and the wedding jug, which were made in black for the people in the Nablus region. The black Jaba‘ pottery for tourists was sold in one shop in Jerusalem, several shops in Sinjil, and in tourist shops on the road between Nablus and Jerusalem. Palestinian buyers came from Jaba‘ itself, Nablus, Jenin, and the villages surrounding these towns. People in Jaba‘ bought directly from the potters, paying in cash. According to Mohammed Yunis, the villagers of Jaba‘ preferred to use traditional wares, but there was a declining market due to the cost-competitiveness

181

of alternative wares, which led to a reduction in the traditional demand. Therefore he was very interested in adapting the types of wares produced, and even in producing new wares, to compensate for the decline in the traditional market. One alternative that he had considered was to begin producing glazed ware; in 1973 he conducted some tests of commercial glazes applied on the Jaba‘ clay body and fired in the traditional kiln. These tests were unsuccessful.

The Types of Vessels Produced at Jaba‘ The water jar (jarrah) (fig. 4.59 a, b, c). These jars were never made with a black color but only in red. They were used for both water and oil. They were bagshaped with a small, nonfunctional ring base on the bottom. Often, but not always, they had a combed design on the sides of the jar near where the jar’s diameter was greatest. The women of Jaba‘ used these jars to carry water on their heads from the village well to their homes; the jars were also used for storing oil. Jaba‘ and its environs, along with the Gaza Strip, were probably the only places in Palestine in the 1970s where the tin can or the rubber bucket had not replaced the ceramic jar for the domestic transport of water. Such jars were not part of the Hebron ceramic repertoire, but they were made in Jaba‘ and Gaza. Ceramic jar lids, called ġa‫ܒ‬āa, were also made for them. With a height of ca. 51 cm, these jars had a maximum diameter of 32 cm at about 12.5 cm up from their base. The ca. 7.5-cm diameter ring base at the bottom, however small, did enable the jar to stand upright. (The Gaza water jar had a round base.) The opening at the top was ca. 8 cm in diameter. Two handles ca. 5 cm wide were attached between the neck and the shoulder of the jar. The neck began ca. 42 cm from the base. The walls were between 0.4 and 0.6 cm thick. The yogurt jar (fig. 4.60). These jars were ca. 23 cm high and reached a maximum diameter of 13 cm at 12 cm from the bottom. The ring base was 4 cm in diameter. The body of the vessel was 14 cm high with an 8-cm high neck. The opening at the top was 8.5 cm in diameter on the inside and 10 cm on the outside. Two handles 3 cm wide and 0.6 cm thick were attached between the neck and body. These jars were used for making laban, a type of yogurt. The milking jar (baqlūlah). The height of this jar was 26 cm, and its maximum diameter was 16.4 cm at 12.5 cm above the base. The neck of this jar began at ca. 18 cm from the bottom. The top inside opening measured 9.8 cm in diameter, while the outside of the rim

182

MALE POTTERS

was 11.2 cm in diameter. Two flat handles ca. 3.2 cm wide were attached between the neck and the body. The ring base had a diameter of 6.8 cm. Identical to the yogurt jars, only larger, milking jars were sold to Palestinians, who used them to collect milk mainly from goats or sheep. Jaba‘ potters generally sold only red milking jars, except in the region of Nablus, where people preferred to use black ones. The canteen, or pilgrim’s flask. In the vicinity of Jaba‘, these vessels were used by shepherds and Bedouin for water. At the Sinjil tourist shops on the main Jerusalem–Nablus road and in Jerusalem, black canteens were sold to tourists. The body was essentially a cylinder with sloping walls that had been turned on its side; added by hand were a ring base as well as the wheel-made neck and handles. The total height was 25 cm. The cylindrical body had a diameter of between 17.5 and 15.8 cm and a thickness of 14 cm. The neck was 7 cm high; its lower half had a diameter of 5 cm, while the diameter of its upper part was 3.8 cm. At the top opening, the flaring rim had an outside diameter of 6.4 cm. Two flat handles ca. 3.2 cm wide had been added between the lower half of the neck and the cylindrical sides. Because the cylindrical part of the body sloped, these canteens were always tilted when standing on their bases. The spouted drinking jug (ibrīq) (fig. 4.61). The total height was 33 cm, and the neck began at 23 cm from the bottom. The maximum diameter of the body was 20 cm, at 14.5 cm from the bottom. There was a ring base with a diameter of 7.2 cm. The flaring rim at the top had an outside diameter of 6.8 cm. The spout was 7 cm long and had an opening of 0.9 cm; it was attached to the shoulder of the body. There were two flat handles, one of which was attached between the body and the base of the neck, and the other, narrower one between the neck and the spout; their respective widths were 3.6 cm and 2.8 cm. These jars were sold to tourists and Israelis in roadside shops and in Jerusalem, also to Palestinians in the surrounding villages, who kept them in their homes and shops as communal drinking vessels. The wedding jar (ibrīq al ‘urs) (fig. 4.62). This jar was essentially an ibrīq to which many spouts and handles had been added and of which the neck had been lengthened. It was traditionally used at weddings. At a women’s celebration before the actual wedding ceremony, with lighted candles in each of the small spouts and flowers in the larger opening at the top, the wedding jug was passed from one woman to another as they danced with it on their heads before the bride, who sat enthroned. This custom was restricted to the

area of the West Bank from north of Ramallah to and including Jenin. Black wedding jars were made for the tourist trade; residents of Jaba‘ never bought the black ones, but instead either enamel-painted or unpainted red wedding jugs. In Jenin, apparently only enamel-painted wedding jars were sold. Residents of Nablus bought either black or brightly painted ones. Wedding jars were not found in production in Hebron or Gaza. At the top of the neck, either a small vase or a wheel-made ceramic bird was added. In either case the top was closed, but one could add water via the base, which had a tube that held the water within the body when it was turned right side up. Only two of the spouts were functional. The jar’s total height was 42 cm, and its maximum diameter was 16.6 cm at 13 cm above the base. The neck began at ca. 20 cm from the base with a diameter of 4.6 cm. There was a flaring base with a diameter of 10 cm at the bottom; 3 cm above the bottom at the point where the base joins the body, the diameter was 6.4 cm. A tube extending into the interior of the body was attached to a hole with a diameter of 1.8 cm in the bottom of the jar. Four spouts ca. 6 cm high were attached at equal intervals to the shoulder of the body slightly above the point of maximum diameter. Water could be poured out of only two of the four spouts. Between each of these spouts was a handle 8 cm wide and 0.7 cm thick. The lower portion of the handle was attached at the body’s point of maximum diameter, while the upper attachment was at the midpoint of the shoulder. This meant that there were four handles attached directly to the body. Four additional handles were attached, each one between the base of one of the spouts and the base of the neck. Mounted on each of these eight handles was a short spout, ca. 4 cm high, with a slightly flared out opening at the top. Thus, there were a total of eight handles and twelve spouts. Four of the spouts were attached directly to the body, and one spout was attached to each of the eight handles. The eight smaller spouts attached to the handles were approximately upright, that is, vertical. In contrast, the four larger spouts were attached perpendicular to the sloping shoulder and thus varied by approximately 45 degrees from the vertical. The ceramic duck (ba‫ܒܒ‬a) (fig. 4.63 a, b). Although it didn’t look much like a duck, its name in Arabic means “duck.” It was 21.5 cm high and 21 cm long. The flaring base had a diameter of 8.2 cm, but at 4 cm above the bottom the diameter was 4 cm. Like the canteen and the churn, the body of the duck was turned 90 degrees from its position of manufacture. The wider, more flattened end was the duck’s breast, while the

JABA‘

a)

b)

183

c)

Fig. 4.59 -. a, b, c) Water jars from Jaba‘

Fig. 4.60 -. Yogurt jar

Fig. 4.61 -. Ibrīq

Fig. 4.62 -. Wedding jar

MALE POTTERS

184

more pointed end was drawn into its tail. The maximum diameter of the cylindrical body was 9.5 cm at the wider end. A wheel-made neck, 2.7 cm in diameter, was added to the body. The head and mouth were similar to those of the ibrīq. A spout rose 6 cm above the body. A small vase with a flaring mouth, 5.4 cm in diameter and 7.5 cm high, was attached to the midpoint of the back. The body of the vase had a maximum diameter of 5 cm. The vase was similar to the vase on top of the wedding jug. Two handles ca. 2.5 cm wide were added to the base of the vase, one of which extended to the back of the head and the opposite one to the midpoint between the tail and the vase. Palestinians in the Jaba‘ marketing area usually bought enamel-painted birds, whereas tourists preferred black ones. The candlestick (šam‘adan) (fig. 4.64). The candlestick had a central vertical column with a total height of 30 cm and 4 bulbous bulges whose diameter varied between 7.5 and 2.9 cm. The uppermost bulge was a vase with a flaring rim 6.5 cm in diameter. The flaring base of the candlestick had a diameter of 12.2 cm. Both the base and the vase at the top were standard elements of the Jaba‘ potters’ repertoire that were also found on the duck and the wedding jug. Ceramic pipe arms, 3.6 cm in diameter tapering at the extremities to 2.9 cm, were horizontally attached to the central vertical column at its midpoint. At the end of these arms were mounted the flaring rims of the candle holders, which had an outside diameter of 5.4 cm. There were models with two, three, four, and six arms. The six-armed models had their arms attached at two different levels and had no handles. Models with two, three, and four arms had handles (2.5 cm wide, 0.4 cm thick) attached between the underside of the horizontal arms and the vertical column. The total width of the candlestick was 25.8 cm.

a)

The wick lamp (lamzah). Viewed from the side, this lamp approximated a hemisphere with a flat top and a rounded bottom. Its height was ca. 6.6 cm. The top view was that of a circular vessel 12 cm in diameter, with a hole in the center that was 3 cm in diameter. These lamps were used with a wick and kerosene as fuel. Black lamps were sold in tourist shops. Local people in Jaba‘ and Jenin bought them only after they had been enameled in bright colors. We were told that they were not sold in Nablus. The cooking pot (‫ܒ‬anjarrah). This was a roundbottomed pot ca. 19 cm high with a maximum diameter of 25 cm at ca. 11 cm above the bottom. The opening at the top was 11.3 cm wide. About 3 cm below the rim, a series of three combing marks began, which were ca. 0.8 cm apart. Slightly above the midpoint of the vessel, two horizontal handles were attached; they were ca. 1.5 cm thick and 3 cm wide. The rim (1.0 cm thick) was slightly thicker than the walls of the body. The butter churn (hadadat zibdee) (fig. 4.65 a, b). This was a cylindrical vessel 34 cm long, with a maximum diameter of 18.5 cm, which had been turned on its side. One end had a ring base 6.2 cm in diameter, while the other end had a protruding knob ca. 2 cm long with a diameter of ca. 4.2 cm. The churn stood on four ibrīq spouts that were ca. 3.5 cm high and 2.6 cm in diameter. On the top in the middle was a hole with an inside diameter of 5.5 cm, with a ca. 2.5-cm high rim whose outside diameter was 3 cm. In use, one would have to suspend the whole churn by tying a rope between the two handles. The knob at one end might serve as a handle for pushing the suspended churn back and forth.

Fig. 4.63 -. a, b) Ceramic duck

b)

JABA‘

Fig. 4.64 -. Candlestick

a)

b) Fig. 4.65 -. a, b) Butter churn

185

186

MALE POTTERS

Fig. 5.1 -. Clay preparation pits at Haifa potter’s workshop on the Mediterranean coast

NAZARETH AND HAIFA

187

Nazareth In 1977, there were two potters’ workshops operating in the city of Nazareth80 in the Galilee. According to informants, there had been a third workshop owned by a Muslim potter named Michael Assis, who was originally from Haifa. He set up a workshop in Nazareth in 1955, where he produced a range of traditional vessels for Palestinians, including water drinking vessels (ibrīq), water-carrying vessels (jarrah), and others, but his production consisted mainly of drums. He died in 1972, and his workshop closed.

The smaller of the two workshops operating in 1977 was owned by a Muslim potter, Mohammed Hanafi, who was born in 1899. He said that his workshop, situated on the western edge of Nazareth beside the main road from the Mediterranean coast, had been in that location since about 1912, and that his father and grandfather, both potters, had worked there.

Haifa History of Workshops Of all the workshops included in the present study, the Kafr Samir workshop near Haifa was most radically changed by the events of 1948 and 1967. In 1977, the workshop was jointly operated by three brothers: Boulos, Raja, and Munir ‘Atalla. The ‘Atalla family was Christian (in contrast to most other potters in the present study, who were Muslim) and lived at the site of the workshop. Kafr Samir was located on the Mediterranean coast, about 50 m from the sea, some 3 km south of Haifa near the intersection of two main Israeli highways running north–south along the coast. The workshop was separated from the sea by a sandy shore that extended to the north, where it became a popular Israeli swimming beach (Fig. 5.1). A brief history of the family and workshop was provided by Betros ‘Atalla, the father of the three present potters (Fig. 5.2). Born in 1905, Betros worked as a potter most of his adult life. He said that the family was descended from two families of Lebanese Christians. Three brothers, including one named Boulos ‘Atalla, left Deir al Qamar in Lebanon as refugees during a war in the 1860s. They moved to Haifa with their father, Halil, because they already had relatives living there. None of the three brothers were potters or had been involved in pottery making. Another family, including a potter named Yusuf Fakhuri, came to Haifa from Tyre in Lebanon at around the same time. Yusuf opened a potter’s

workshop in Haifa near the site of what was then the railway station. He chose a site that was also near the sea so that he could continue using pottery techniques he had learned in Lebanon, including the use of beach sand and saltwater to produce whitefired pottery. Boulos ‘Atalla married Yusuf Fakhuri’s daughter and then worked for Yusuf, learning pottery making from him. Yusuf ’s son Hanna, also a potter, continued the workshop after Yusuf died, and Boulos continued working for him. Betros, our informant, also worked for Hanna for some time in this workshop, where he learned the skills of pottery making.

Fakhuri family Elias ‘Atalla family Halil Boulos Betros Boulos Raja

Munir

Fig. 5.2 -. Haifa potters

80 Given time and other constraints, we were not able to study the potters of Nazareth.

Yusuf Hanna

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MALE POTTERS

The original workshop location in Haifa became impractical in the 1920s due to increasing development of the port facilities.81 Access to seawater and sand became difficult, and, at the age of eighteen, Betros decided to set up his own workshop. He bought land at the present Kafr Samir site in 1923, choosing the site mainly because it was still relatively close to the central marketing area, Haifa, but also importantly because of easy access to seawater (about 50 m away) and beach sand, with a clay bed on the site as well. At the time this workshop opened, there were three other workshops remaining in the city of Haifa: one owned by Hanna, another by Yakob Asfur, and another by Elias Assis. The 1931 British census shows five male potters in the Haifa subdistrict,82 which accords well with the information supplied by Betros ‘Atalla. The other three workshops closed before 1948, partly on account of increasing population in the area and complaints from residents about smoke. Hanna Fakhuri closed his workshop before 1930 partly for this reason and partly because of difficulty of access to seawater; for some time he went to Kafr Samir and worked for Betros in the new workshop. Elias Assis’s workshop closed on account of complaints about smoke and difficulty of access to seawater when the port was built. He did not open another workshop but worked for wages at other jobs. His son Michael went to Nazareth and opened a workshop there. Yakob Asfur was not himself a potter but had owned a workshop beside the sea and employed skilled potters. When he died, his workshop closed and the potters moved to other areas, including Akka, to find work. Another potter, Yonis Abdullah al Masri, came from Gaza in the 1930s or 1940s because of the declining market there, bought land immediately to the south of Betros’s, and set up his own workshop.

Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The clay body used at the Kafr Samir workshops remained essentially unchanged between the opening of the workshop in 1923 and a decline in 1967. The proportions of materials used in the body were regarded as secret in the past, probably because before 1948 this was one of the only workshops in Palestine producing “white ware.” According to Betros ‘Atalla, the proportions of materials were revealed by potters in

the family only to their children and not to other potters or laborers employed at the workshop. Obviously this secrecy could not be (and in fact was not) maintained permanently. Thus, potters from other areas who worked in Haifa learned how to make white ware and took the technique to various centers, including Hebron and Jericho, after 1948. The clay body was based on four materials: 1. Seawater, obtained from the nearby ocean, supplying both water to wet the clay and mixed salts, which aided the whitening effect. 2. Beach sand, added as a nonplastic (temper) to decrease drying and firing shrinkage of the clay, which was collected from the beach near the workshop but only at one specific time of the year, around August, when the sea was calm, winds were light, and a deposit of very fine uniform sand had built up. 3. A dark brown clay dug from the site of the workshop under about 1 m of overburden. 4. Another clay, light in color (white), obtained at various locations in the mountains east of Haifa, the main site being near ‘Ain Hud, and other sites at Daliat al Karmel and ‘Isfiyah. The potters used to go and collect these two clays (brown and white) themselves. If clay was available at a new site, they would first sample and test a small amount, later going to dig a large supply of clay only if the trials had been successful. The two clays were mixed in the proportions of two parts brown clay to one part white. Betros said that the white clays were fragile and porous after firing if used alone, which suggests that the white clays were used to provide refractoriness and the brown for plasticity. A larger proportion of the easily obtainable brown clay was used than of the white clay, which required more time and effort to obtain. Betros also remarked that the body containing sand was not good for cooking pots, as they broke quickly in use. This was a reasonable observation in view of the high thermal expansion of quartz, which would be the predominant mineral present.83 Betros added that the fired pots would break easily if freshwater were used instead of seawater, but that this could be avoided by dipping the pots in water as soon as they were drawn from the kiln after firing.

81

Discussed in KARMON, Israel: A Regional Geography, 206–9.

82

MILLS, Census of Palestine 1931, table XVI, p. 338.

83

RYE, “Keeping Your Temper under Control,” 106–37, here 117–18.

HAIFA

This suggests that the clays used contained coarse grains of calcium carbonate. The beach sand would also contain many shell fragments. When heated above ca. 800 °C, the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) decomposes to form calcium oxide (CaO). After firing, this calcium oxide can slowly combine with water (H2O) to form calcium hydroxide (Ca[OH]2 ), which occupies a much larger volume than calcium oxide and thus can rupture the walls of a pot by its formation.84 Dipping vessels in water was a device used by potters in various parts of the world to overcome this problem; it has also been used by brick makers.85

Clay Body Preparation For clay preparation, the metric proportions of the two clays were measured out and placed in a slaking pit, the brown clay first. Saltwater was then used to cover the clay. After the slip was stirred up, it was transferred to a drying bed with stone-lined walls and sand spread over its base. Thus, some sand was incorporated when removing plastic clay from the drying bed. More sand was added during kneading, according to the “feel” of the clay; the more plastic the clay felt, the more sand was added. The sand was sprinkled over the clay before foot-kneading. The clay was hand-kneaded immediately before throwing on the wheel, in smaller amounts.

Impact of 1948 and 1967 Fuels used for firing up until 1967 included various waste materials: straw, animal dung, sawdust, pulp from olive pressing, and driftwood gathered from the sea, which the potters said was the hottest-burning and best fuel of all. The firing, in a typical Palestinian-type kiln, took over four days of water smoking, stoking the firebox three times a day only, and one day of firing the kiln up to full temperature. Before 1948, the main production of the Kafr Samir workshop was water vessels for sale mainly to Muslim Palestinians. As noted above, the body containing beach sand was not suitable for cooking pots, so these were not produced. The range of vessels produced included water drinking jars (ibrīq and šarbeh), water-carrying jars (jarrah), and large water storage jars (zīr, or habi in Haifa). Some flowerpots were made before 1948 for sale to Jews

189

who had settled in the area, and to Christian Palestinians. Butter churns (hadadat zibdee) were also produced before 1948, as were drums, mainly for sale to Arabs. The war of 1948 caused some changes. Many Palestinian Arabs, particularly Muslims, fled from the Haifa region as refugees. Included in this exodus were two sons of the potter in the neighboring workshop, both of whom went to Gaza, where their father had originated. Yonis Abdullah al Masri himself stayed on, working with hired assistants until his death in 1964. In Betros ‘Atalla’s workshop, the same materials continued in use, and the firing times remained unchanged, but fuel for the kiln was restricted mainly to sawdust wetted with used motor oil. The range of vessels that was produced changed, some vessels such as the butter churn dropping out of the repertoire altogether. The proportions of other vessels in the repertoire also changed, with fewer water vessels for Palestinians being produced and more flowerpots for Israelis, reflecting the demographic change in the relative numbers of the people themselves. Production of these forms continued up to 1967, although the demand for vessels for keeping water cool decreased as electrification was extended in Palestinian living areas and more people acquired refrigerators. The Six-Day War of June 1967 had a profound effect on the Kafr Samir workshops. The Israelis occupied the West Bank and Gaza, so that pottery from the main production centers of Hebron and Gaza (and possibly also Jericho) became available in Israel itself. This pottery sold so much more cheaply than the Haifa ware that the sale of traditional Palestinian wares from Haifa stopped completely and has never restarted. For a time, the Haifa workshops almost totally closed down, and two of the brothers found alternative work as lifeguards on the nearby beach. The potters said that some workshops in Akka and Nazareth did close down permanently. One brother (the eldest, Boulos) continued to make pots. His main production went to two Israeli customers: one from Kibbutz Tantura and the other from Herzliya. Both of these customers ordered various forms that were to be fired; the customers then took them away and, after glazing and refiring them, resold the glazed ware. One of the customers supplied the materials himself and required salt-free pots, whereas the other customer accepted vessels made from the “traditional” body using seawater and beach sand. The large Palestinian kiln was not used after 1967. Instead a smaller Palestinian-type kiln was built and used while only one potter was working.

84

Ibid., 120–21.

85

R. T. LAIRD and M. WORCESTER, “The Inhibiting of Lime Blowing,” Transactions of the British Ceramic Society 55 (1956): 545–63.

190

MALE POTTERS

Introduction of Glazing During this period the youngest brother, Munir, went to Aisen (Ezinge) in Holland to study both theoretical and practical ceramics. After his return in 1971, the workshop changed radically. Raw materials for the body included Negev kaolin, Moza clay, and other materials purchased from Israeli ceramic suppliers. Glazes purchased from the same sources were introduced, and the bodies were compounded to give good glaze “fit,” meaning that the expansion–contraction characteristics of body and glaze would be similar. Fine beach sand, which was used before 1967, was still used for some larger vessels.

Forming Techniques Most pots were formed by single-stage throwing (Group 1 techniques), that is, throwing the form and string-cutting. For some larger pots the tijlis technique (usually a Group 2 technique) was used.86 According to Munir, using this technique was the best way to achieve a thin-walled, strong base for larger vessels requiring a foot ring. Turning (trimming) was seldom done except for large plates and flat dishes that could not be formed with thin uniform bases in single-stage throwing because such a form would crack while drying. Vessels were dried on racks of wooden shelves, which allowed many pots to be dried with efficient use of floor space.

Glaze Firing A large Palestinian-type kiln at the workshop was no longer used (this kiln was built from firebrick). The glazed pots required double firing: first a biscuit firing (Fig. 5.3), followed by the application of glaze and a glaze firing. For the biscuit firing, a small Palestinian-type kiln was used; refractory shelves (batts) and props87 were used for setting wares inside this kiln. The type of fuel depended on what was available at any given time. Scrap wood (old railway sleepers, packing cases) was the usual fuel, but grass, wood chips, and sawdust soaked with used motor oil were also used. According to Munir, a reducing atmosphere was easily produced in the Palestinian-type kiln, so sometimes this kiln was also used for glaze firings where reducing effects were desired.

More commonly the glaze firing used oxidizing conditions, and for this two small electric kilns (Fig. 5.4) were first used after Munir returned from Holland in 1971. Subsequently, another kiln was built, a shuttle kiln of about 2–3 cubic m (cubic meter setting capacity, fired with bottled gas) (Fig. 5.5). Temperature was measured in these kilns using cones and a thermocouple/pyrometer to give the accurate control needed for firing glazes.

Products and Markets Following Munir’s return from Holland, the workshop was changed over entirely to the production of glazed ware, in total contrast to the previous traditions, where glazing was not known to have been done by any potters in the past. In the 1970s, some unglazed flowerpots were sold at the workshop, but they were all imported from Gaza. The potters sold all their glazed ware to one distributor in Tel Aviv, except some pieces of lower quality (seconds), which were sold directly to visitors to the workshop. The new glazed ware was distinguished from the older unglazed ware by the term keramica (glazed ware, “ceramics”) as opposed to fukhār (unglazed ware, “pottery”). A wide range of forms was produced, all of which reflected the influence of Munir’s European training, being typical of modern “pottery craft” or artist craftsmen’s work around the world. Some functional forms were produced such as ashtrays, bowls, dishes, and lidded pots. Many essentially decorative or sculptural forms such as bottles were also produced. The range of ware in general was as one would expect to find in any European “craft shop.” A final note on one unusual feature of the Kafr Samir workshops: It is noted elsewhere in this study that women generally took no part in the work of Muslim (men) potters’ workshops. In contrast, women in the Christian family of potters at Kafr Samir played an active role in the work, assisting the potters by carrying vessels around, helping to set the kiln, and selling to customers coming into the workshop. As a younger woman, Betros’s wife used to produce some vessels herself, although these were handmade and she never learned to work on the wheel. Despite the help from women and girls, the workshop employed two male workers who did most of the unskilled work.88

86 For a description of the six Group techniques, see pp. 151–61. For the tijlis technique, see pp. 150–51. 87 Props are vertical refractory shapes, usually cylinders, that support the kiln shelves. 88 Editors’ note: In the section on Gaza below (p. 237) a Muslim potter’s workshop is described in which the potter’s wife and three young daughters worked together with male family members.

HAIFA

Fig. 5.3 -. Biscuit-fired vessels ready for glazing

Fig. 5.5 -. Shuttle kiln

Fig. 5.4 -. Glaze-fired vessels

191

192

MALE POTTERS

Akka (Acre) History of Workshop In 1977, there was only one pottery workshop in Akka, with only one potter, Ahmed, who was working with his son as an assistant. The following history of pottery making in Akka was given by Ahmed. Ahmed was descended from a family in which, according to the range of his knowledge, at least some of the men of each generation had been potters. Until the 1920s, the family lived in Gaza, but in 1924 the potter’s father, Abdel Rahman, and his grandfather, Salih, left Gaza because there were too many potters there in relation to the demand at the time and it was difficult to earn a reasonable living. Abdel Rahman worked for other potters in Akka for about ten years and then, in 1934, opened his own workshop at a site near the present workshop in Akka. The workshop site was chosen, first, because it was located outside the city, in compliance with orders of the city authorities, and, second, because it was as close as possible to the sea. The potters’ techniques involved using seawater to wet the clay, so proximity to this resource was important. When the workshop first opened in 1934, the potters used to bring seawater in large jars carried by donkeys over a distance of about two kilometers. Immediately before 1948, there were nine potters’ workshops, all in this general area near an ancient tell, Tell el Fukhar (Tell of the Potter). The 1931 census shows nine male potters and one female potter in Akka at that time,89 so it is reasonable to assume that, with a small increase in the number of potters, the informant’s information was accurate. Before 1948, the workshop was producing mainly traditional vessels for Arabs, including water drinking vessels, water-carrying vessels, butter churns, and drums. Some flowerpots were made for sale to Jews who had settled in the area, but this was a minor production.

Impact of 1948 One of the major changes caused by the war of 1948, for Akka potters, was a decrease in the number of workshops from nine before 1948 to five afterward. 89

MILLS, Census of Palestine 1931, table XVI, p. 338.

The potters who left the area as refugees at this time all went to Lebanon, to Damur al Naameh, located between Sidon and Beirut. Included among these refugees were an older brother and an uncle of Ahmed. Ahmed said that they chose this town because it was the largest pottery-making center in Lebanon, as Gaza was in Palestine, but that Lebanon was preferable to Gaza because of the potential continuation of Israeli–Palestinian fighting in Gaza. The potters wanted to continue working as potters rather than take alternative work, and they were familiar with Lebanese working techniques at Damur al Naameh, which were similar to Akka techniques. For example, the Lebanese potters’ workshops were located right on the coast, so they had easy access to seawater, which they used to wet their clay. A final reason for choosing Lebanon in preference to Gaza was that Lebanon was closer to Akka and much more easily accessible. The 1948 war did not cause major changes in the workshop owned by Ahmed’s father. Those potters continued using the same materials except that they stopped adding seawater to wet clay and began adding salt to the slaking pit instead, because access to the sea became more troublesome due to Israelis settling in the urban area between the workshops and the sea. They continued using the same range of forming techniques and the same firing and fuels; all of these general aspects of the work continued unchanged to 1977 and are outlined briefly below. What did change significantly was the range of vessels produced. The demand for traditional Palestinian vessels decreased, and the Jewish demand for flowerpots increased, as the relative proportions of the population changed. The proportions of vessel types produced thereafter reflected this change. An additional, secondary change was that Jewish customers asked for flowerpots that had been produced without salt being added to the clay, because salt had an adverse effect on the growing of some plants. The potters then began the practice of adding salt to the slaking pit, while preparing clay, if traditional Palestinian vessels were to be made; or of using no salt if flowerpots were to be made. This difference in clay preparation techniques continued until 1977.

AKKA

The next major change to Ahmed’s father’s workshop occurred in 1956, when the original small workshop was demolished so that the potter’s brother could use the site for an alternative business. Ahmed then rented the present workshop, which remained in use up to the time of our study.

Impact of 1967 The Six-Day War of June 1967 caused further upheavals among the five Akka potters’ workshops in operation at that time, closely paralleled by the changes at Haifa. Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza opened up access to the Israeli market for Hebron and Gaza potters, whose vessels sold much more cheaply than did those of the Akka potters. The result was that four of the five Akka workshops closed completely because the Akka potters could not earn a living, given this competition. They gave up pottery making altogether and took other jobs, leaving only one workshop operating in Akka. This workshop, according to Ahmed, continued relatively unchanged after 1967 up to the time of our study; he was relatively resistant to changes. He purchased a diesel-engine-driven pug mill, but said that he was not interested in beginning to produce glazed ware, partly because he had not learned the techniques, but also because it would involve a large financial investment in new electric kilns and other equipment. He said that he made enough money producing the unglazed wares, working for nine months of the year and closing down for three months in winter. Overall, the working techniques changed little after Ahmed’s father opened the original workshop in the 1930s except as noted above. The primary changes at Akka due to major political events were the decreasing number of workshops and the changing repertoire of vessels in those remaining. The working techniques in Ahmed’s workshop can be summarized briefly here.

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Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The clay body consisted of two clays, mixed in equal parts by volume, beach sand about 10 percent by volume relative to the total clay content, and freshwater. For traditional Palestinian vessels, salt was added to produce white ware, but for flowerpots salt was not used and the result was red-fired pots.90 Reddish clay was dug by the potter on the plains of Galilee in various locations, or more frequently obtained from building sites where it was a by-product of digging foundations. People who were aware that the potter used this type of clay brought it and sold it to him. White clay was obtained from mountainous areas 5–10 km from Akka. It was often purchased from Palestinians who dug through deposits of it while digging wells. Again it was generally known that the potter would buy such clay, and people brought clay to him with trucks. Some of the locations from which he obtained white clay were Kufr Yasif, Jedeidah, Yurka, and Julis, all villages located near Akka. Sand was collected from the beaches at Akka, from the finest available deposits. Unlike the Haifa potters, Ahmed did not collect the sand at any specific time of year but simply went and dug it as he needed it, transporting it back to the workshop in a small truck that he owned. The two clays were placed in equal parts by volume in one of two cement-lined slaking pits, which were 1 m deep with an inside diameter of 1.5 m, and covered with water to slake. Salt was added at this stage if it was being used. By removing clay plugs, the clay slip was run through a vertical slit in the side of the slaking pit into a drying bed about 6 × 12 m, which was stone-lined and had an earthen floor. When the clay had dried to plastic condition, it was taken into the workshop, where sand was blended in by foot kneading. The clay was run through a pug mill and finally hand-kneaded before use.

90 Editors’ note: What is described as “white” varies from white, to off-white, to a yellowish color when salt is added to some types of red clay; the ware fires red when salt is not used.

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Forming Techniques, Kiln, Products and Markets Most vessels were made using the tijlis technique, specifically Group 2 (flowerpots), Group 3 (ibrīqs), Group 4 (some special flowerpot shapes), and Group 6 techniques (some flowerpots such as the barrel shape, and occasionally produced butter churns). Group 5 techniques were used for drums.91 The workshop had two kick wheels built into frames above the floor, and also had shelves, or drying racks, for drying vessels. Ahmed’s kiln was a typical Palestinian updraft design, larger than the kilns at most of the other workshops included in this study. The fuels used were scrap wood, sawdust, and used motor oil. The kiln was preheated (by water smoking) for three days, using sawdust as a fuel. Then, on the fourth day, it was heated to full temperature, using first wood as

a fuel and then changing to sawdust wetted with oil. According to Ahmed, the firing techniques had remained unchanged since his father’s workshop was opened in 1934. In 1977, Ahmed was working only on orders, so the range of vessels produced at any given time depended on what order he had to fulfill at the time. His main production was flowerpots, sold to dealers in Tel Aviv, Netanya, and other cities in Israel. He also produced many drums, sold to a man who fitted the skins and then sold them mainly to the Palestinian market. He received frequent orders from dealers in Akka and the Galilee, especially for ibrīqs (spouted water drinking vessels) to be sold to Palestinians. Other, less-regular orders were received for vessels such as water-carrying jars and butter churns. Limited orders for special vessels such as bread ovens, used by Russian Jewish immigrants, were also received.

Hebron Hebron is a city that goes back to antiquity and was populated throughout most of its history (Fig. 5.6). Its name in Arabic is al-Khalil. The Arabic word khalil means “friend” and refers in this context to Abraham as the “friend of God.”

Location of Workshops Prior to 1964, all Hebron potters’ workshops and kilns were located within the city itself, to the south of the Ibrahimi Mosque. In 1964, one of the Hebron potters, Harbi Fakhuri, moved to an area known as al Fahs, located about 3 km south of the city on the road to Yatta, and other potters followed. In the 1970s, there were ten workshops in this area. The only potters who still had workshops inside the city were those who made miniature pots and glazed vessels for sale exclusively to the tourist market. Most members of the Fakhuri family, whose workshops were situated outside the city, still lived in the area inside the city where potters traditionally had lived, and traveled to and from their workshops each day. The workshops south of Hebron on the Yatta road were in an area that was not only nonresidential but also undesirable as a residential area. The Hebron 91 See pp. 151–61 for a description of these Group techniques.

municipal slaughterhouse sat in the midst of the potters’ workshops, on the east side of the road. To the south of the workshops was the city dump, and on the west side of the road Hebron sewage flowed, often creating an unpleasant smell. The potters themselves added to the unhealthy atmosphere of the surroundings by burning garbage and inner tubes from used automobile tires in their kilns, coating the whole area with greasy black carbonaceous material. Apart from the advantage of not having nearby residents complaining about pollution, this area had other advantages for the potters, including the availability of water and electricity. There was a plentiful supply of stone for building the outer walls of kilns, and in earlier years the proximity of the municipal dump enabled the potters to collect combustible garbage readily to use as a free source of fuel for their kilns. This last advantage was no longer significant in 1977, since the potters were no longer using garbage as fuel. In the 1970s, all of the Hebron potters’ workshops belonged to members of the Fakhuri family. In its entirety, this family numbered about five hundred people, according to one informant, and had its own mukhtar, or clan leader. Until about forty or fifty years ago, the family all lived in one section of the city of

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Fig. 5.6 -. Clay preparation pits at Hebron potter’s workshop, with landscape

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Hebron, but subsequently many members moved to other sections and the family became somewhat dispersed. The word fākhūrī in Arabic means “potter.” The family name of the Jaba‘ potters was also Fakhuri, although there is no remembered relationship between the Hebron and Jaba‘ families. The workshops were exclusively male domains; women took no part in the work and never went near the workshops. The only exception among the al Fahs potters was one instance where the potter had recently built a house above his workshop and lived there with his family (see workshop 9 in the list below), but still the women played no role in the workshop.92

Hebron Workshops in 1977 In 1977, of the ten workshops in the al Fahs area, nine were functioning and one was not. A list of the ten workshops follows, beginning with the southern end and concluding at the northern end. 1. The owner was Jaudat al Fakhuri. This workshop was started in 1965. In 1977, the owner’s sons Hamdi Jauda al Fakhuri and Jaudat were working with him. This was one of the smaller workshops. Two assistants were aiding the three potters. 2. Mu‘ati Fakhuri was the owner, and he employed one skilled potter. Three of his sons assisted in the workshop carrying clay and vessels, preparing clay, and helping with firing. He also employed a young assistant (sixteen years old in 1977) named Anwar for similar tasks. In 1974, he was employing a potter to work full time making large water storage jars (zīrs); in 1977, this potter had left and another potter, Haj Yusuf Fakhuri, was employed for the same task. He had been making zīrs since he was eighteen years old but had not had his own workshop, and none of his ten children had learned pot making. Ibrahim Qattan, the employee in 1974, worked with Naim al Fakhuri in 1977 (see workshop 10 below). Although this was one of the smaller workshops, of all the Hebron workshops it had the appearance of being the most efficiently organized.

3. ‘Abed al Halim Fakhuri was the owner. In 1977, he was semi-retired and no longer did any of the more strenuous jobs such as making vessels on the wheel. However, he still worked in almost all other aspects of the production to some extent (Fig. 5.7), supervised all the work, and was responsible for all business negotiations. Five of his sons worked for him, the two older sons being highly skilled throwers. He employed one assistant, who was responsible for preparing clay and bringing it into the workshop for storage before kneading. ‘Abed al Halim was the brother of Haj Yusuf, who worked for Mu‘ati Fakhuri, and of Naim al Fakhuri (owner of workshop 10). Both Haj Yusuf and Naim had daughters who were married to sons of ‘Abed al Halim. 4. This workshop had been abandoned. It was formerly owned and used by Rajab Fakhuri, who, in 1977, had a workshop in the city of Hebron itself, where he made small novelty vessels and glazed ware for sale to tourists and Israelis who visited the Ibrahimi Mosque, or Mosque of Abraham, located near his new workshop. 5. The largest and most productive workshop was owned by Harbi Fakhuri, who retired completely in 1976. In 1977, his son Azmi was in charge of the workshop. Harbi had four wives and twenty children; all except one of his workers were his sons or grandsons. There was one deaf and mute employee, not of the family, who had worked there since he was young and now worked as a thrower. Some of Harbi’s sons also worked on the wheel, but most did other jobs such as preparing clay, carrying vessels, and loading and unloading the kiln. This was the largest of the Hebron workshops and the first to be established in the al Fahs area in 1964. 6. This workshop was situated behind and so to the east of Harbi’s workshop. Rasmi Fakhuri, born in 1897, was the owner and, in 1977, still worked as a thrower. He had eight sons, five of whom worked in his workshop, and he employed one assistant not of the family, whose main task was clay preparation. This workshop was rather small and became very congested when in full production. 7. This was the southernmost of a second group of four workshops, separated by about half a kilometer from the first group of six workshops

92

But see n. 88 above.

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above. This seventh workshop was owned by Ramadan Rasmi Fakhuri. Workshops 8 and 9 were both owned by brothers of Ramadan. This seventh workshop was opened in 1965. One hired man prepared clay on a part-time basis. Two of Ramadan’s sons also assisted in the workshop. 8. The owner was Rabia Rasmi Fakhuri. This workshop had three child assistants, two of whom were deaf. 9. Established in 1974, this was the newest workshop in al Fahs as well as the smallest; and its owner, Mohammed Rasmi al Fakhuri, was the youngest of the workshop owners. In 1976, he finished building a house above his workshop, where he and his family lived. He was the only potter in al Fahs to live at the site of his workshop. Mohammed was the only skilled potter in the workshop, and he had two child assistants. But his wife and daughters did not assist with any part of the work. 10. Naim al Fakhuri owned this workshop. Although in 1974 his son Maher was working with him, later they split the workshop into two sections and worked independently of each other apart from sharing the same kiln. The workshop was very large, with four separate rooms. Part of it was built in the 1950s as a leather tannery and had large concrete vats that the potters used for clay preparation in the winter. It was first used as a potter’s workshop in 1967, when a new room was added. In 1977, Naim employed a thrower, Ibrahim Qattan, who had formerly worked for Mu‘ati Fakhuri. Ibrahim specialized in making large water storage jars (zīrs) and was paid by piecework, that is, according to the number of jars he produced.

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rarely known by the potters unless associated with some event in their own lives, but descriptions such as “in British times” (1918/1922–1948), “in Jordan times” (1948–1967), and “under the Israeli occupation” (1967–) were used for dating the oral history, as well as associations with datable events. Before the 1948 war, the Hebron potters were working in the city itself rather than outside, as they did later. They were making essentially the same range of functional vessel types as the Gaza potters produced in the 1970s, because all of their wares were made for sale to Palestinian Arabs. The repertoire included water-carrying jars and large oil storage jars, both formed using Group 4 techniques93 (top of the vessel in the first stage, base of the vessel in the second stage). The zīrs, or water storage jars, were made in essentially the same form as those produced today, but with a different rim treatment. Apart from the rim treatment, a notable difference was the absence of handles on the older zīrs. Handles were first introduced in 1936 at the suggestion of a visitor from Cyprus (probably a potter), who told the Hebron potters that such jars on Cyprus had handles, according to one of the older potters, Haj Yusuf.

History of the Hebron Potters since the Early Twentieth Century

Also before 1948, the Hebron clay body was based on red and yellow clay only, with no additives. The earlier kilns were of the same design as those used in 1977, but on average larger—the same size as the largest kilns used in 1977. Firing then was very different from firing in 1977. A long period of water smoking, ten days or longer when very large pots were fired, was used; this was comparable with the practice of Gaza and Jaba‘ potters in the late twentieth century. The pre-1948 fuels were dung (cow, sheep, goat), chopped straw, and wood (one informant said oak). Informants mentioned the use of olive seeds as fuel, and also netish (Sarcopoterium spinosum), a fuel used by some women potters at the time of our study. Chopped straw was the main fuel used for preheating, with wood or dung or olive pits and pulp from olive mills being the main fuel used for heating the kiln to full temperature.

Since the 1920s and 1930s, many changes had occurred in the work of the Hebron potters. In order to determine the nature of the events leading to changes in the potter’s craft, we questioned several of the older Hebron potters and constructed a sequence of events based only on information corroborated by several informants. Specific dates were

Sometime in the 1940s, wood became scarce and more difficult to obtain as fuel. Because of the increasing number of motor vehicles, used and valueless rubber tires were available, and the potters began using these as fuel. At first the tires were used together with wood. The use of rubber as a fuel will be discussed further below.

93

For a description of the six Group techniques, see pp. 151–61.

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Impact of 1948: Temper, Firing, and Kilns The major changes to the whole Palestinian region caused by the departure of the British in 1948 and the 1948 war also affected the potters’ craft. Two Hebron potters, Aref Fakhuri and Abu Halif, had gone to Jaffa to work before 1948. The potters at Jaffa (working in an area east of the city known as Abu Nabud) had begun to mix sand and salt with clay under the influence of Haifa potters. The Haifa potters’ workshops were near the sea, and they were using beach sand and salt introduced in the form of seawater. During the 1948 war or shortly thereafter, Aref and Abu Halif joined the exodus of refugees from what became Israel and returned to Hebron. They told the Hebron potters that adding sand and salt to their clay would allow them to have much shorter firing times, so the change was introduced mainly on account of this great advantage, which resulted basically from the sand addition. Several changes followed directly or indirectly from the general use of salt and sand. First, the effect of adding salt was a change in the color of the pottery, which had previously been red, to a range of colors: red at lower firing temperatures, yellows and greens at higher firing temperatures, or white if higher salt concentrations were used.94 Second, the highest-fired vessels were the strongest, and therefore the best quality was associated with the yellow or white color, the lower-fired red jars being more fragile. The clays used by the Hebron potters contained limestone fragments. Limestone (CaCO3 ) decomposes at temperatures between about 800 and 900 °C, yielding calcium oxide (CaO). When calcium oxide is exposed to water, it hydrates with a considerable volume increase, damaging or breaking the pottery. This problem can be avoided by firing pottery below the temperatures where CaCO3 decomposes, and it is likely that the Hebron potters used a low firing temperature, below the dissociation temperature of 825 °C (as did the Jaba‘ potters), before salt and sand use started. This type of damage was avoided if salt was added to the body.95 One Hebron potter said that, with then-current techniques, the lower-fired red pots were susceptible to damage if used as water vessels, whereas the higher-fired yellow or white pots were not. From our temperature-measuring experiments at Hebron, it was apparent that the red colors occurred at temperatures up to about 850 °C.

In brief, what this meant was that, before the use of salt and sand (i.e., before 1948), all Hebron pots were red. After the potters started to include salt and sand, the best-quality pots were yellow or white, the worst quality red. Thus, the technological change in materials led to a change in aesthetic preferences. It is worth noting that, in 1977, one of the Hebron potters, Rabia, who made only flowerpots for sale to Israelis, was not adding salt to the body he used (only red and yellow clay plus sand), as his customers preferred red pots only. When the Hebron potters began using sand, it was first obtained from Wadi Horah, a location about 2 km northeast of the al Fahs workshops. After 1967, the Hebron potters stopped using this sand in favor of a fine sand from the Mediterranean coast. The latter sand became available and could be delivered by the truckload, whereas the Wadi Horah sand was close to Hebron but relatively inaccessible for transport. Because of the introduction of salt and sand, some forms dropped out of the repertoire completely. The oil jars referred to above needed to be relatively non-porous so that the expensive oil would not be lost through the walls of the jars, but the new bodies with salt and sand were more porous than the old bodies without. These jars dropped out after the potters received complaints from customers, although some were made occasionally on special order using the old body without salt and sand, and firing slowly (the largest oil jars needed 10–18 days of water smoking). In addition to technical problems with the oil jars, it was likely that their disappearance was hastened by the increasing availability of alternative containers such as metal cans. The latter factor more likely accounts for the water-carrying pot (jarrah) (Fig. 5.8) dropping out of the Hebron repertoire sometime in the 1950s, although this vessel continued to be produced in Jaba‘ and Gaza. The major reason for introducing the use of salt and sand to the Hebron body was faster firing. It has been noted above that the use of rubber as a fuel started for reasons quite independent of those for the introduction of salt and sand to the body, but at about the same time (rubber was introduced shortly before 1948). Gradually, the time of firing was cut down from the pre-1948 time of about twelve days between loading, firing, and unloading, to the 1977 time of three days (set one day, fire the next, draw the next).

94

For a discussion of these color changes, see RYE and EVANS, Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan, 39, 41.

95

RYE, “Keeping Your Temper under Control,” 106–37.

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The 1977 time could of course be decreased to two days if the kiln was fired one day, drawn and set the next, fired the next, and so on, but this would require the person removing fired ware and setting unfired ware to work in unpleasantly hot conditions in the kiln. Rubber as a very fast-burning fuel giving intense localized heat was ideal for fast firing, but had one great disadvantage: it created clouds of dense black smoke that coated the surroundings with a greasy black film that was extremely difficult to remove. As a result of this, the Jordanian authorities in Hebron in the early 1960s forbade any further firing within the city using rubber. Not all changes that had been suggested or tried by the potters remained as part of their technology. One example of a change that was not generally adopted was that of using high-fired, refractory firebricks for kilns. Some of the Hebron potters built kilns from these bricks and discovered that the kilns cooled much more slowly than those built with the traditional red clay mud bricks. In 1977, one potter, Ramadan, was using a kiln with the firebox built from refractory bricks, and his kiln took one day longer than all the others to cool. In general, a change would be retained permanently only if the advantages outweighed the disadvantages; in this case, the disadvantages of greater cost and slower cooling of kilns with refractory bricks were not offset enough by the advantages of longer kiln life and lower maintenance.

Removal of Glazed Ware from the Repertoire Before 1948, two of the Hebron potters, Harbi and Rasmi Fakhuri, made glazed ware as well as the traditional repertoire of unglazed ware. The pots were glazed on the inside only, the two main forms being storage jars (such as the zīr) and cooking pots (‫ܒ‬anjarrah). According to one informant, the cooking pots were used mainly by Jews, and the storage jars by Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews to store provisions such as oil and molasses. After 1948, a difficulty arose in that bodies containing salt could not be glazed, so special body mixtures had to be made up for the glazed ware. Several factors combined to remove glazed ware from the potters’ repertoire. Alternative storage containers such as metal cans became more readily available. The glaze materials, which were imported, became more expensive. Producing a second, salt-free body for the glazed ware separate from the main production of unglazed ware

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containing salt, and firing the glazed ware twice (biscuit firing first, applying glaze, and then glaze firing) also became uneconomical. The traditional Jewish market for glazed cooking pots proved inaccessible after 1948, although some Palestinians bought these pots after 1948. The last glazed storage jars were made in the mid-1960s, before the 1967 war, and then these vessels also dropped from the potters’ repertoire.

Relocation of Workshops The Hebron potters then progressively began to move their workshops out of the city to al Fahs. This area was chosen mainly because it had been designated as an industrial development zone. Some industries had already started there, such as a leather tannery in the 1950s. The first potter to set up his workshop in this area was Harbi Fakhuri, in 1964. It is not known why the potters were originally working inside the city, especially given the fact that historically it had been a characteristic of most Islamic towns and cities that potters worked outside the city limits. G. E. Grunebaum quotes the fourteenthcentury Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta’s description of the standard layout of Islamic markets: “On the periphery of the town will be situated such industries as require space and whose vicinity might be considered undesirable; the dyers, the tanners, and almost outside the city limits, the potters.”96 Considering this, it is notable that a slaughterhouse was established at al Fahs in the early 1970s, and subsequently other industries such as rock crushing, stone cutting, and mechanical workshops were being built there. Probably the location of potters’ workshops inside the city of Hebron, before they moved to al Fahs, was at an earlier time outside the city limits, the city later expanding around them.

Change of Fuels Returning to a discussion of the potters’ fuel, when the potters first moved to al Fahs, they used mixed fuel, scrap rubber tires, and combustible garbage from the nearby municipal dump. This was the case in 1974. By 1977, all the al Fahs potters were using rubber only, as it had become more readily available (Fig. 5.9). The sale of pots to Israel was a factor in that the potters who sent truckloads of pots to Tel Aviv used the Tel

96 G. E. von GRUNEBAUM, Islam: Essays in the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition, Memoirs 81, Comparative Studies of Cultures and Civilizations 4 (Menasha, WI: American Anthropological Association, 1955), 146–47.

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Fig. 5.7 -. Making handles for ibrīqs

Aviv–Hebron return portion of the journey to transport old tires, obtained free in Tel Aviv, thus making both portions of the journey profitable. The next stage in the change of fuels (and potentially in kiln designs) had not yet occurred in al Fahs. One potter, Jaudat, intending to install an oil burning system on his kiln, bought an electric air blower for this purpose in 1977. He said that the advantages would be less work in the firing and cleaner burning; the disadvantage would be the greater cost. In 1977, the average cost of rubber for one firing was about 20 IL, roughly $2.00. The oil burner would be set up to fire into the firebox of the present kiln, but it was conceivable that a new kiln design would emerge from the change of fuels.

Movement of Potters after 1948 It is evident that in the decades before 1977 there was a considerable movement of potters. The first major movement in this period occurred in 1948 during the general exodus of refugees driven from their homes as a result of the establishment of the State of Israel. At this time, some Hebron potters who had been working within the area that became Israel returned to Hebron.

97

The tinneke was equivalent to 20 liters.

Fig. 5.8 -. An old jarrah from Hebron

During the 1960s, there was a decline in the demand for traditional wares in Hebron. The market at that time was almost exclusively Palestinian, and alternative vessels made of metal, glass, and plastic were readily available, which decreased the demand for pots. Therefore, many of the older Hebron potters went to Syria to work. Potters being paid for piecework in Hebron could earn about 5 IL per day, whereas the wages in Syria were about 20 liras per day. Most of the Palestinian potters worked in Latakia, where informants say that at that time there were only two nativeborn Syrian potters. The Syrian potters were using single-stage (Group 1) throwing, with string-cut bases, but the Palestinian potters introduced their own techniques, using several stages of throwing and closedover bases with a foot ring (tijlis). The forms produced were those in style in Syria rather than the Palestinian forms. One of the older Hebron potters, Haj Yusuf, made a Syrian-style zīr for us to demonstrate the difference in form between Syrian and Palestinian zīrs; the only significant difference was in the shape of the rim. Some very large pots were also made. The size of zīrs in Hebron was measured in units of volume called tinneke;97 the largest zīrs made in Hebron at that time had a volume of 2 tinneke (ca. 70 cm high with a maximum diameter of 40 cm). Jars in Syria were made with a capacity of up to 12 tinneke; these required one person to kick the wheel and another person to do

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Fig. 5.9 -. Scrap rubber used as fuel in al Fahs

Fig. 5.10 -. Haj Yusuf, Hebron potter

Fig. 5.11 -. Small vessels for the tourist market

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the throwing. A series of rings was added to the vessel and thrown upwards in order to achieve the large size. Between 1963 and 1967, the Hebron potters worked in Latakia each year from May until October and spent the rest of the year working in Hebron. One informant said that several Gaza potters also opened workshops in Syria during this period, but those workshops closed before 1967. After the 1967 war, the Hebron potters were no longer able to travel easily to Syria, so the contact ceased. In the mid-1960s Haj Yusuf (Fig. 5.10) had traveled much more widely, working as a potter in Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq. He was therefore aware of the styles of pottery and working techniques found in all of those places. After 1967, some of the Hebron potters visited Egypt. During their visits to Egypt, some of them visited potters’ workshops. One Hebron potter, Naim al Fakhuri, reported that the Egyptian potters used single-stage throwing, with string-cut bases. By comparison, Lebanese potters used the Palestinian technique of the base thrown closed with a foot ring. Also after 1967, the Hebron potters had direct contact with potters in Jordan.98 One potter’s brother had a workshop there; the owners of another Hebron workshop also owned a workshop in Jordan. Many of the potters who worked in Jordan were former Palestinians and were using Palestinian techniques.

Potters Working inside the City All of the preceding discussion of Hebron potters has focused on changes among the potters working in the al Fahs area, outside of the city. There was another group of Hebron potters, mostly working within the city itself, in the area of the Abraham or Ibrahimi Mosque, a holy site for both Judaism and Islam. In 1977, these potters were working in a tradition entirely distinct from that of the al Fahs potters. The output of their workshops was aimed almost wholly at the foreign tourist market and consisted of three groups of wares: (1) glazed and decorated ware, of a style very similar to the ware produced by the Armenian potters in Jerusalem; (2) miniature vessels, usually miniaturized replicas of recent traditional Palestinian pottery (Fig. 5.11) ; and (3) replicas of antique vessels, the primary output being replica oil lamps of various periods. 98

According to various Hebron potters, the person primarily responsible for developing this new repertoire was Rajab Fakhuri, a member of the Fakhuri family, from which almost all the al Fahs potters originated. Rajab was our primary informant, and the following outline of the development of the new repertoire is based on our discussions with him. The connection between the glazed ware, on the one hand, and the unglazed miniatures and replicas, on the other hand, was essentially that all were sold to the same market; but the glazed and unglazed repertoires developed largely independently of each other and thus may be discussed separately. There is a slight disagreement about which potter first began producing miniature vessels. According to Rajab, he was the first; but according to Rajab’s brother Yonis, a potter named Abed Hamuli al Fakhuri was the initiator. Despite this minor discrepancy, there was general agreement among informants that these vessels were first produced in the early 1950s or earlier. Before this time, Rajab was working in the same tradition as the other Hebron potters, producing water vessels for carrying, storage, and drinking; cooking vessels; storage jars; bowls; and other traditional vessels. According to Rajab, before 1948 there was also a small market in flowerpots, which were sold to Jewish settlers, Englishmen (mostly from the British occupation), and some city Arabs. This flowerpot market almost ceased in 1948, when the British left and the Jewish market became inaccessible, although some flowerpots were still being sold to city Arabs and Arab tourists from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. The production of traditional Palestinian vessels continued. At that time, all the Hebron workshops were within the city, including those of most of the older potters who subsequently worked in al Fahs, and before 1948 all the Hebron potters worked essentially in the same tradition. Two of the potters, Harbi and Rasmi, were brothers who each had a workshop in al Fahs in 1977; they were producing storage jars and cooking pots with glazed interiors. Although these two older potters were unwilling to give us details of the process, it is apparent that they learned how to make, apply, and fire the glazes only in the 1920s or 1930s, that this production was restricted to the two brothers, and that it was short lived (see p. 199). The relationship of this

According to a faculty member in the Department of Archaeology, University of Jordan, this contact no longer exists.

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past production to the glazed ware that was introduced after 1967 is noted below. The unglazed miniature vessels, and replicas of ancient lamps, were both known in Hebron as “antika.” According to Rajab, the production of both forms started sometime before 1948. Some British people asked him for miniature replicas of traditional Palestinian vessels, which would be easier to take home than full-sized vessels. After some experimentation, he decided that the best material from which to make them was the white clay, one of the materials used in the normal Hebron body. Before 1948, the demand for these vessels was very low. Also before 1948, laws in this area allowed (as Israeli law still did in the 1970s) the sale of vessels from ancient sites—usually stolen from tombs but occasionally excavated at archaeological sites— although there were restrictions on exporting antiquities. A Jerusalem antiquities dealer came to Rajab and asked him to reproduce certain antique vessels that were in some demand but in short supply; Rajab did so, producing mainly replica Roman and Byzantine oil lamps. For the antique market, these vessels were fired and then buried for some time to give them the appearance of age. The antique dealer brought vessels, as well as pictures of vessels, for Rajab to copy, and Rajab visited museums to determine how the original vessels had been made. Concluding that they had been press-molded in twopiece molds, he bought some lamps from an antique dealer and made molds of them in plastic clay, subsequently firing the molds. Whitewash was used as a parting agent, when pressing plastic clay into these molds, in order to form the upper and lower parts of these vessels separately. The two halves were subsequently joined together to complete the lamp. This production continued until 1977. Rajab experimented with various mold materials, including hardwood, plaster, bronze, and aluminum, after which he used aluminum molds with olive oil and kerosene as parting agents. The replica lamps were sold widely in tourist markets in Hebron and Jerusalem as obvious replicas at low prices; they were not treated in any way to give the appearance of fake antiques. The production of glazed ware with underglaze decoration in Hebron was a recent phenomenon, and again Rajab Fakhuri deserved major credit for beginning its production. The following account was given by Rajab and corroborated in many details by two other Hebron potters.

203

Rajab and Glazed Ware Rajab’s interest in glazed ware began about 1950 when he spoke to an old man in Hebron who had formerly been drafted into the Turkish army. During this time he had been in Turkey and visited Kutahya, the city from which the Jerusalem Armenian potters originated. There he bought some glazed cups and brought them back to Hebron as souvenirs. Rajab saw these cups and asked the old man for information about Kutahya potters’ techniques. Not being a potter, the old man did not clearly grasp the Kutahya techniques but suggested using crushed glass to form a glaze. This was tried, firing some test vessels in the Palestinian kiln, but the experiment was unsuccessful. Further experiments were then done. The lead glaze used by Harbi and Rasmi Fakhuri for glazing the interior of cooking pots and storage jars was tried, but it gave a brown color that was undesirable. This glaze was made from lead oxide and quartz sand. Rajab also experimented with oxidizing copper for use as a pigment, firing scrap copper in a bowl in the Palestinian kiln. This experiment too was relatively unsuccessful. Rajab once visited the workshop of one of the Jerusalem Armenian potters in order to look around the workshop and learn some of their secrets, but he was told to leave before he had learned anything useful. Finally, he decided to go to Turkey to visit the Kutahya potters himself. Even there he had very little success in learning anything of the Kutahya techniques. He tried to persuade one of the Kutahya potters to come and work for him in Hebron to no avail. When he returned to Hebron, he brought back some crates of Kutahya ware, which sold well, encouraging him to continue with his experiments. Rajab prepared further trial glazes using crushed glass, but this time he placed the vessels in a Hebron glassmaker’s furnace, where they fused and formed a more successful glaze. The problem of pigments for underglaze painting remained unsolved. Rajab had been visited a number of times by a priest and scholar from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, Père Roland de Vaux, who was interested in the potter’s work. After discussing the problems connected with producing glazed ware, Père de Vaux agreed to bring some underglaze colors from Paris, and when these colors were used with the crushed glass glaze, the experiments became more successful.

204

MALE POTTERS

The problem then was to build a kiln capable of higher temperatures, and more controllable, than the Palestinian kilns. Rajab returned to Kutahya in Turkey again to try to persuade a Kutahya potter to return with him to Hebron and build a kiln there, again unsuccessfully. Again he brought back Kutahya pots to sell to offset his costs. Père de Vaux again became involved when he told Rajab about the École biblique’s excavations at Qumran and suggested that a kiln excavated there might have been capable of firing to higher temperatures. Together they visited Qumran, after which Rajab built a kiln to the same design as the Qumran kiln; this was about 1959. The design of the Roman-type Qumran kiln resembled a small version of the usual traditional Palestinian kiln. Thinking that the unfired mud-straw bricks used at Hebron for kiln building would not withstand higher temperatures, Rajab made bricks from crushed firebrick (grog) mixed with the yellow Hebron clay. The new kiln was built with an interior muffle and fired with wood and olive pressings only, so as to decrease the amount of smoke and prevent it from coming into contact with the pots. Despite all the care taken, the kiln still did not produce high enough temperatures. During all the time these experiments were being conducted, Rajab also worked making traditional Hebron vessels and some flowerpots. Like the other Hebron potters, he was being told by the Jordanian municipal authorities to get out of the city because of smoke pollution from the kilns. Initially his kiln was directly adjacent to the Ibrahimi Mosque, so he moved twice, each time about 100 m away. Then he decided to move to Jerusalem because of the large market there, but it was not possible to buy land in the area he desired, the village of Silwan near the Old City of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, he moved out of Hebron altogether to the abandoned Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion, but there the kilns would not fire properly on account of strong winds blowing across the mountaintop settlement site. Finally, he moved to al Fahs, the area where other Hebron potters had begun to set up workshops, and there he continued producing traditional vessels. The long search for techniques for producing glazed ware ended successfully after the June war of 1967, when it became possible to buy materials from Israel. In 1968, Rajab bought a small electric kiln, which worked well, so he built a bigger one with a one-cubic-meter chamber. He also bought glazes and underglaze colors from Israeli suppliers as well as white ware bodies imported from Europe. His

workshop was moved back to the center of Hebron, where there were now no complaints, because the electric kilns were pollution-free. An oil-burning kiln was used for firing unglazed miniature pots and replica oil lamps, while using an air blower ensured that the waste motor oil fuel was fully burned and produced no smoke. Other workshops in the same area used electric kilns also. Because clay body was bought ready to use, there was no need for clay preparation, so that all of the work could be done inside the workshops. Since there was no evidence on the outside of the workshops of industrial activity, the municipality had no reason to complain about the potters.

Production of Glazed Ware The Hebron potters producing glazed ware and miniature vessels worked in a tradition significantly different from that of the al Fahs potters, and they catered to an almost totally different market, mostly foreign tourists who bought the small vessels, but also some Israelis and Palestinians who would usually buy larger vessels. The potters used imported white ware bodies because local clays that were tried, including al Jib clay and Negev kaolin (fine clay), did not fire to a good white color and needed a white slip, which added an extra stage to the work. In addition, the potters did not have detailed knowledge of how to use non-plastics to promote fusion in the body or to adjust glaze fit. Some of the glazed ware forms were not produced by the potters themselves but were purchased as fired white ware blanks, and so only decorated and glazed by the potters. These included plates and tiles (Fig. 5.12). All other forms were thrown on kick wheels built into wooden frames or on electric wheels. According to Rajab Fakhuri, most of the painted decorations were originally copied from a book on Kutahya ware. It is extremely likely that many of the designs were also copied from ware produced by the Armenian potters of Jerusalem. All the potters producing glazed ware fired it in electric kilns. Issa Shabain, a shopkeeper who sold glazed ware and miniatures in Hebron and owned a workshop that produced these wares, employed skilled potters to work for him. He noted that one of the reasons other potters followed Rajab’s lead in producing both types of ware was that it was a profitable market; but another reason (especially in the case of the glazed ware) was that the potters producing traditional ware in the city were being told to leave because of smoke,

HEBRON

and some of them chose the alternative of changing their repertoire and firing techniques rather than changing their workshop locations. The origins of the forms of vessels produced as miniatures or as glazed ware have not been studied in detail, but some comments can be made. For the unglazed miniature vessels, the replicas of ancient oil lamps were simply direct copies of the old ones; they were usually formed in a mold made directly from an old vessel and thus were dimensionally slightly smaller than the original because of shrinkage of the clay. Many of the “new” forms in miniature vessels were scaled down versions of larger vessels, the forming technique of course being different. Group 1 techniques were used for almost all miniature vessels, Group 1a for the remainder. A general impression was that vessels that were not copies of ancient or traditional vessels usually originated through customers

Fig. 5.12 -. Decorating a tile before glazing

205

bringing in vessels and asking for copies. Thus, very few of the forms were originated by the potters themselves, and these “original” forms, known to the potters as “fantasia” or “fantasy” pots, originated not from all of the potters but from a limited few who were more inclined toward experimentation. The glazed forms fell into four groups. The first three groups were: copies of traditional forms, copies of ware produced by the Jerusalem Armenian potters, and a limited number of forms innovated by the potters themselves. The fourth group included ready-made forms purchased from Israeli suppliers. Thus, it can be concluded that most of the forms in the two new Hebron “traditions” had their antecedents in preexisting traditions, only a limited number of forms having no obvious parallels in preceding traditions.

206

MALE POTTERS

Technology of Hebron pottery Raw Materials: Clay and Temper The Hebron potters used four materials: a yellowish clay, a reddish-brown clay, a sand used as temper, and salt. Deposits of the yellow sedimentary clay were located in various places around Hebron: al ‘Arrub, Fawwar, Beit Ummar, and Dura. These four sources might well be local outcroppings of the same deposit and identical to the Moza clay. Yellow clay was also sometimes obtained from building sites in other places around Hebron. The reddish-brown clay was found in valleys that were near the Yatta road workshops. It was brown grumsol/terra rosa (“grumsol” is an Israeli term synonymous with the term “vertisol” in international soil nomenclature). The potters bought enough clay at one time to last for one to two years. The red clay deposits were more widespread around Hebron than the yellow clay deposits. The sand temper used by Hebron potters was from the Mediterranean coast. Before 1967, a pinkishpurple sand temper was used by both the Hebron and the Jericho potters, who got it from Wadi Horah, southeast of Hebron about 1 km from the workshops. The salt used by the Hebron potters was from the Dead Sea.

Clay Body Preparation In brief, the body preparation process at Hebron for the normal range of vessels involved sun-drying of the two clays used (red and yellow) (fig. 4.41), slaking and forming a slip with water in a slaking pit (Fig. 5.13), pouring the slip through a sieve into a larger settling bed (fig. 4.4), then after some drying adding sand to the thickened slurry, and finally transferring this mixture to a drying bed for drying to plastic working condition (fig. 4.5). Plastic body was stored inside the workshop and prepared for throwing by passing it through a mechanical pug mill (Fig. 5.14). The layout of the clay preparation area at one Hebron workshop is shown in (Fig. 5.15). In greater detail, the body preparation process proceeded as follows: Red and yellow clay, usually combined in equal parts by volume, was soaked for about

two hours in a pit measuring approximately 1 m × 4 m deep. Potters’ assistants made a slurry of this mixture by standing inside the pit and using their hands and arms to stir up the slip while stamping the clay at the bottom with their feet. In the workshop of Harbi Fakhuri, this mixing was done by a mechanical blunger rather than by an assistant (Fig. 5.16). Coarse particles either settled to the bottom when the assistant had finished the mixing, or were removed when the water slip was poured through a wire sieve into a second cementlined bed (ma‫܈‬ūl), which had about the same depth as the slaking pit but was much larger, about 4 m × 7 m. Here sand was added to the slip in the proportion of one part sand to three parts clay by volume. The sand was first sieved (with about a 1.5-cm-aperture sieve) and then poured into the slip from buckets. After about five days, the thick clay-sand mixture was transferred to a shallow (ca. 35 cm deep) drying bed (mus‫ܒ‬āh) that measured 6 m × 9 m in plan. Before the mixture was poured in, a layer of sand was sprinkled over the floor of this bed to prevent the clay from sticking. The large surface area and shallow depth facilitated evaporation of water from the clay. When enough water had evaporated, usually after about five days, the clay began to form cracks (Fig. 5.17; fig. 4.6) indicating the correct stage to remove it for storage. This was done by picking the clay up out of the drying bed in large lumps about one-half m across by 20 cm deep. These lumps were taken into the workshop and stacked onto a large stockpile of clay until ready for use. This entire preparation process was done only during the warm months, from May to October. If white pottery was to be made, salt was added to the clay body. A thin layer of sand was sprinkled over the workshop floor, and a cylindrical pile of clay was placed on it up to a height of about 1 m and a diameter of about 80 cm. Dead Sea salt—about 6 kg—was then sprinkled on top of the pile. The salt was in the form of grains that were all less than 1–2 mm maximum grain size. An adult assistant then climbed on top of the pile and with his bare feet rhythmically stamped around the periphery until the clay eventually was flattened out into a pile about 2 m in diameter and 20 cm high (Fig. 5.18 a, b). After a rest, the assistant gathered up the clay again into a high cylinder and repeated his foot kneading once again. Each time the kneading was repeated, a thin layer of sand

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207

Fig. 5.14 -. The red-brown pug mill is in the background

Fig. 5.13 -. Forming slip in a slaking pit

0.70 m deep

0.85 m deep 1

1 sloping floor

N 0.85 m deep

1 m deep

0.90 m deep 1

1

1 - (‫ۊ‬nj‫ )ڲ‬cement-lined soaking basin (sand temper added here) 2 - (PDVnjO) cement-lined settling pool basin (sand temper added here) 3 - (PXV‫ܒ‬Ć‫ )ۊ‬cement-lined settling pool basin (sand temper added here)

2 1 m deep

3 0.35 m deep

Fig. 5.15 -. Workshop of Mu‘ati Fakhuri, clay preparation pools 0

5m

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Clay Body Composition

was sprinkled on the workshop floor and on top of the pile of clay. At some point after 1967, the Hebron potters began to use pug mills in the final preparation of clay for throwing. These machines were commonly used in pottery factories around the world. In Hebron they were driven by either diesel engines or electric motors (Fig. 5.19). Clay body was fed between contra-rotating rubber rollers at the top of the machine, and an auger device inside thoroughly mixed the body and extruded a continuous cylinder of material ready for throwing. At Hebron these cylindrical “pugs” of clay (‘amūd ) were about 13–14 cm in diameter and were cut to a length of about 40 cm (Fig. 5.14). Prepared immediately before throwing was to begin, the pugs were used on the wheel with no further wedging or kneading, so that the time and energy otherwise needed to prepare clay body for throwing was considerably reduced. Some workshops (those of Harbi Fakhuri and Rasmi Fakhuri) did not use the foot-kneading process but mixed and kneaded clay using only the pug mill; other, more conservative workshops used both foot kneading and pug mill preparation. The introduction of pug mills completely eliminated hand kneading before throwing, as practiced by the Jaba‘ and Gaza potters.

The composition of the main Hebron clay body varied from one workshop to the next. The proportions of red and yellow clay mixed together were determined by volume, using containers such as buckets (for example, 10 buckets of one material, 20 buckets of another). The actual proportions used in some of the workshops were as follows: •

Ramadan Fakhuri

10 parts red clay by volume, 10 parts yellow clay

•

Mu‘ati Fakhuri

10 parts red clay by volume, 10 parts yellow clay

•

Jaudat Fakhuri

10 parts red clay by volume, 10 parts yellow clay

•

Harbi Fakhuri

10 parts red clay by volume, 10 parts yellow clay

•

Mohammed Fakhuri

10 parts red clay by volume, 20 parts yellow clay

•

‘Abed al Halim

10 parts red clay by volume, 20 parts yellow clay

The amount of sand added to the two-clay mix also varied, between about one part by volume of sand to six parts by volume of clay and one part sand to three parts clay. The smaller sand addition

Fig. 5.16 -. The blunger is in the right foreground

Fig. 5.17 -. Correct stage to remove the clay; see fig. 4.6 -.

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209

a)

Fig. 5.18 -. a, b) Preparing clay by foot wedging to produce an even consistency

Fig. 5.19 -. Pug mills for final preparation of the clay

b)

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210

Fig. 5.20 -. A potter’s wheel set in a pit

Fig. 5.21 -. A potter’s wheel constructed above the floor

was probably more common. The reason for variation was partly that the clay was first slaked and the slip sieved, with a variable amount of clay left in the slaking pit after the slip had been transferred to the settling bed. A second reason was that sand was poured into the slip in the settling bed after it had lost some water through evaporation, and so the sand was not necessarily uniformly distributed through the clay. Salt was mixed with the clay during foot kneading or by sprinkling salt over a pile of plastic (wet) clay and running it through the pug mill. This process was observed in ‘Abed al Halim’s workshop; from knowing the weight of salt used and the volume of clay, and then determining the weight of clay per unit volume, it was calculated that the proportions were as follows: •

Weight percentage of dry clay (2 clays plus sand)

78.34

•

Amount of water combined with clay at working consistency

19.80

•

Amount of salt added

•

Total weight percentage

1.86 100.00

Or, in terms of plastic clay, the salt addition was 1.88 percent by weight. This salt addition of roughly 2 percent would also vary from batch to batch, as the amount of salt was estimated rather than actually weighed. An exception to the above statements is that, when miniature vessels were being made, the potters prepared a body using only yellow clay without any addition, because yellow clay was finer-grained and small vessels made only of yellow clay were easier to dry and fire without cracking. According to one Hebron potter, however, the yellow clay was more plastic than the red clay and therefore cracked more easily when drying and firing due to greater shrinkage. Another exception to the general statements on clay composition was that one of the al Fahs potters, Rabia, did not use salt, but only the two clays plus sand, because his entire production was flowerpots

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211

The Hebron potters did not straddle the shaft of the wheel but sat with both legs on the right side of the shaft (see fFig. 5.21). Whether they kicked with their right or left foot, the wheel went in the same direction, that is, counterclockwise. The wheel in Hebron, Gaza, and Jaba‘ was always tilted forward away from the potter and was therefore never horizontal. The forward-slanting wheel enabled the potters to kick on a down-sloping flywheel surface, which was said to be easier than on a horizontal surface.

and, apart from preferring the red color, his customers said that the presence of salt was detrimental to plant growth. Two of the older potters both noted that before ca. 1935 the proportion of red clay to white clay in the Hebron body was higher, whereas in the 1970s the proportions were reversed and more white clay than red was generally used. This was because in the past red clay was much more easily obtained than white, and the transport of clay by animals was more difficult than the later mode of transport by truck. The white clay being more plastic, using more of it in the body improved the workability of the body.

A major innovation was introduced in many workshops after 1976, when electricity became available: potters’ wheels driven by electric motors were

Forming Techniques In all of the Hebron workshops, all vessels were made on the potter’s wheel. As at Gaza and Jaba‘, the potters used kick wheels. A full description of these kick wheels is included on pp. 148–50. Some of the Hebron potters had the mechanical components of the wheel set into a pit in the workshop floor (fFig. 5.20), but some of the workshops employed a recent innovation that involved placing the mechanical components within a wooden framework built above the cement floor of the workshop (fFig. 5.21). Other innovations on some wheels included the use of a steel rod for the main shaft of the wheel instead of wood, the use of steel wheel heads, and the replacement of simple bearings by ball bearings at the bottom and top of the shaft. These combined innovations produced a wheel that needed less maintenance and resulted in more efficient use of the energy provided by the potter’s legs.

a)

HEBRON WORKSHOP EQUIPMENT (1977) Participants

Blunger 2-Stage Clay 3-Stage Clay Preparation Preparation Pits Pits

Small Pugmill

Large Pugmill

Pit Kick Wheel

Frame Kick Wheel

Electric Wheel

2

1

JAUDAT

1

1

2

MU‘ATI

1

1

2

‘ABED AL HALIM

2

1

2

Hydraulic Drying Kiln Not in Kiln, Flowerpot Racks Operation Redware Press and Whiteware

2

Kiln, Truck Blackware

# of Rooms

Blower for Oil 1

None

1

1

1 small

None

1

2

2 large

Some

1

2

2 large

-------HARBI

2

2

RASMI

2

1

RAMADAN

2

2

2

RABIA RASMI

1

1

1

MOHAMMED RASMI

1

1

1

NAIM

3

1

4

b)

1

1

3

1

3

2

2

Many None

2 1

2 1

1

3 large 1 small

None

2

3 med., 1 large

Some

1

None 1

1

1

Some

Fig. 5.22 -. a) Potter’s wheel driven by an electric motor b) Equipment of Hebron workshop (1977)

4 small 1 small

1

2 large 2 small

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MALE POTTERS

introduced (fFig. 5.22 a, b). The electric wheels were essentially of the same design as the kick wheels except that the shafts were vertical. They were almost all built into a frame above the floor and driven by a belt running from the motor either around the flywheel in a specially cut groove, or on a pulley attached to a shaft. Because they ran at a constant, fast speed, they could not be used for making large vessels such as zīrs, which required more precise speed control of the wheel and slower speeds and so were still being made on kick wheels. In 1977, only one of the workshops, that of Jaudat, had an electric wheel with a speed-varying device fitted on it. It could be predicted that the exclusive use of electric wheels in Hebron would mean that zīrs would no longer be produced there. The electric wheels offered no advantage in productivity, in that vessels could only be produced at the same rate as on kick wheels. Their advantage was in saving the potter’s energy otherwise expended in kicking the manually operated wheel. As at Gaza, many of the forming operations required vessels to be held on the wheel head by a chuck (Fig. 5.23). The chuck was formed from clay that was slightly stiffer than the clay used for forming vessels. It was always covered with pieces of cloth so that the vessel could be removed easily and would not stick to it. The Gaza potters made a wider range of forms than those made by the Hebron potters. We did not observe techniques in Group 1a being used at Hebron. By contrast, we did not observe Group 2a techniques being used anywhere except at Hebron. The Hebron potters generally were more innovative with forms than were the potters of Gaza and Jaba‘, and it was not uncommon to see one basic form, such as the water drinking jar, with several varieties of rim form (Fig. 5.24).

Group 1 Forming Techniques This way of forming vessels proceeded in one stage of throwing followed by removal from the wheel by cutting underneath with a string; it was used mainly for small thrown flowerpots. It was also used to make lids for the cooking pot. These lids were thrown as shallow bowls; the base was then narrowed to a diameter of about 2 cm, and the lid was cut off. The narrow base then functioned as a knob for the lid. One-stage throwing was also used to produce miniature vessels for the tourist trade. These vessels always had the base marked clearly with the characteristic string-cut lines.

Group 2a Forming Techniques The forming sequence for the pedestal-footed flowerpot is shown in fig. 4.15 C. The q‘ab, or initial form, had a simple rounded base, with no foot ring; a hole about 1–2 cm in diameter was left in the center of the base. Before the initial form was thrown, a series of clay rings was thrown. The initial form was then thrown, a ring was centered on the bottom, and the pedestal foot was thrown from that. After the pedestal-footed q‘ab had dried so that the foot was leather hard (Fig. 5.25), it was replaced on the wheel right way up, fitting into a clay chuck (Fig. 5.26), and the top of the form and rim were completed. Other flowerpot shapes—for example, probably the one most commonly made in Hebron and Gaza, the flowerpot that had two handles with rings included (Fig. 5.27)—were also produced in two stages: first the q‘ab, finishing the footed base by closing; and second the upper part of the form. The two-handled pot with rings was completed by throwing a series of rings on the wheel; after throwing an annulus and cutting off underneath with a nail to give a circular cross-section, the vessel was completed by attaching the handles, fitting the ring over each handle when only the top was attached, and then attaching the bottom of the handle. The ring was purely decorative and had no function.

Group 3 Forming Techniques The largest vessel made by the Hebron potters was the largest water storage jar, the zīr (Fig. 5.28). Four sizes of the zīr were made, with the capacity to hold 20, 40, 60, or 80 liters of water. The largest size required extreme skill in throwing, as it was almost a meter high when formed, and only the most skilled potters could make them. Among the Hebron potters themselves, the criterion of skill at throwing was whether one could make a zīr. The production of zīrs was seasonal, being limited to the hot summer months when demand was high. A cylinder of clay produced by the pug mill was placed on the wheel and centered. The lump was opened and drawn up. A ring base was made, and the opening was closed, leaving a small characteristic “navel” on the interior base of the vessel (Fig. 5.29 a, b, c). The lump was then removed from the wheel by squeezing the revolving clay at the base, which required considerable effort on the part of the potter. Finally, the potter punched a hole with his index finger into the thick wall near the base

HEBRON

Fig. 5.23 -. Chuck holding vessel on wheel head

213

Fig. 5.24 -. Water jar with three varieties of rim

Fig. 5.26 -. The q‘ab replaced on the wheel for finishing

Fig. 5.27 -. Flowerpots with two handles including rings

a)

b) Fig. 5.29 -. a, b, c) Forming the foot of a zīr

Fig. 5.25 -. A q‘ab after partial drying

Fig. 5.28 -. The zīr, the largest Hebron vessel

c)

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MALE POTTERS

Fig. 5.30 -. Intermediate form stored for drying

a)

Fig. 5.32 -.

Fig. 5.33 -.

a)

Fig. 5.31 -. a, b)

Fig. 5.34 -. a, b) Fig. 5.31 to Fig. 5.34 -. Stages in the forming of the large water jar

b)

b)

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a)

b)

c)

215

d)

Fig. 5.35 -. a, b, c, d)

Fig. 5.36 -. a, b) b)

a)

Fig. 5.37 -.

Fig. 5.38 -. Fig. 5.35 to Fig. 5.38 -. Stages in the forming of the large water jar

216

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to facilitate drying of the interior and to allow the vessel to shrink while drying without building up pressure inside by compressing the air as the volume decreased. If this should happen, the walls of the vessel could split, ruining the vessel. The entire process took about 1 minute and 35 seconds. The resulting intermediate form was also called a q‘ab in Arabic. It was then carried by one of the young male assistants to a spot inside the shop for drying (Fig. 5.30). The base produced in the first step was turned right side up, thus with the base down, and placed on a cloth-covered clay chuck (qālib) on the wheel. With his four fingers, the potter first removed a bit of clay to even out the solid uppermost part of the q‘ab. He then squeezed the upper, thick-walled portion of the q‘ab to produce a long-nozzled, pendant-shaped form, which he proceeded to open from the top and widen out until he had produced a cylindrical form (Fig. 5.31 a, b). The outside was then smoothed and rounded with a semicircular tool, ca. 15 cm in diameter, called a sādif, with a hole in its center to fit the potter’s middle finger (Fig. 5.32). The entire outer surface was smoothed and rounded to produce the oval-shaped body of the storage jar (zīr). This second step took the potter about 6 minutes to do. The neckless storage jar was then set aside for about 4 hours to dry (Fig. 5.33). When the storage jar bodies were dry enough, necks (rās) and handles were made for them. A clay cylinder was placed on the wheel, and a number of “bowls” were formed right side up on the wheel; their bases were thick, and their rims were horizontally broad and of the same diameter as the openings of the neckless storage jar rims (Fig. 5.34 a, b). The cylinder was placed on top of the main body and thrown to form the neck of the vessel (Fig. 5.35 a, b, c, d). Sufficient handles for the zīrs to be completed were then formed. A large coil of clay was squeezed to produce a flattened “strap,” which was held at the end in one hand and pulled with the other to produce a uniform section (Fig. 5.36 a, b). Lengths of this strap, each sufficient for one handle, were then cut off between thumb and forefinger and placed on their edges to dry slightly. After adding and rouletting the neck with a small clock gear mounted on a nail, and forming a rippled rim shape by squeezing clay between the fingers (Fig. 5.37), the handles were added (Fig. 5.38), and the completed jar was again carried away by one of the

young male assistants for drying. This third step of adding the neck, rouletting, and adding the handles took about 1 minute and 30 seconds. A skilled potter such as Haj Yusuf, who was working in Mu‘ati Fakhuri’s workshop in 1977 and producing zīrs full time, would make a batch of 30 to 35 of the initial forms each day—usually in the morning. He would complete the second stage for a similar-sized batch of vessels made the previous day, then complete a series of 30 to 35 first stages, and then late in the day finish the third stage of the vessels he had started to make that morning. So each day he produced 30 to 35 completed vessels. Group 3: forming a water drinking jar (ibrīq) (fig. 4.12 D). The general forming techniques for handleless water jars (šarbeh), two-handled water jars (šarbeh ‘irāqīah), and spouted drinking jars (ibrīq) were common to these three vessel types except that, for the second and third, handles or handles and spouts were added at the end. The three jar types were produced mainly in the spring and summer. The common technique was similar to that for the larger zīr, described above. First the base of the vessel was formed by throwing the lower walls and closing over the bottom; this is shown in Fig. 5.39 a, b. Several of these initial forms (q‘ab), with the base complete, were thrown from one large lump of clay; as each was finished, the potter would remove it from the larger lump by cutting off underneath with the heels of his hands pressing in on opposite sides of the form. When the thinner section (foot ring and lower wall) of the initial forms had dried to leather hard, a chuck was formed on the wheel. After the initial form had been placed right way up, with the foot ring inside the chuck, the solid clay lump at the top was opened and thrown upwards to thin the walls (Fig. 5.40). The form was then refined, using a semicircular, sheet-metal profile tool (sādif, described above) to smooth and refine the outside wall. This resulted in the major part of the vessel, without the neck, being completed. The form was then carried away for further drying. A variation on this technique was used for some of the handleless water jars. When the form was almost complete, a flange of clay was left near the top, and a serrated decoration was formed by pressing the edge of the profile tool into this flange repeatedly as the vessel revolved. Apart from this

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217

b)

a) Fig. 5.39 -. a, b)

Fig. 5.40 -.

Fig. 5.41 -.

Fig. 5.42 -.

Fig. 5.43 -. ; see fig. 4.25-.

Fig. 5.39 to Fig. 5.43 -. Stages in the forming of the water drinking jar

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Fig. 5.44 -. Forming the large end of the drum

decorative feature, the overall technique accorded with the general description. When these forms had dried to leather hard and the necks were to be added, a series of rings was thrown from a pug of clay and placed beside the wheel head. A chuck was then formed on the wheel head, and a vessel to be completed was placed in it. One of the rings was then set in place on the top of the form (Fig. 5.41), blended into the form with finger pressure, and thrown to form the neck of the vessel (Fig. 5.23). The neck forms were varied by using different finger positions and pressures in the throwing, to give a variety of final forms to the vessels (Fig. 5.24). Before the spout was joined on, a hole was poked through the wall of the vessel where the spout was to be placed. The potter or one of the assistants pushed his finger through the wall of the vessel and pulled it out, with a slight pressure applied to the bottom so that an outward lip was formed at the bottom of the hole. The spout was then placed in position and

joined on by smearing clay down onto the wall of the vessel all around the contact area (Fig. 5.42). Handles were then applied. Handles were formed as described above for the zīr, and applied to the šarbeh ‘irāqīah and the ibrīq, before leaving the vessels for their final drying. Handles were applied by the potters’ apprentices or assistants, not by the potters themselves (fig. 4.25; Fig. 5.43). According to ‘Abed al Halim, the overall production figure for ibrīqs and šarbehs was between 100 and 120 vessels per day. This figure was valid for potters producing initial forms one day and completing the vessels the next; that is, between 200 and 240 initial forms could be produced on one day and that many vessels completed the next day. On the second day, help would be required from another potter making handles and spouts.

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a)

b)

d)

219

c)

e) Fig. 5.45 -. a, b, c, d, e) Completing the drum by forming the other end

Fig. 5.46 -. Barrel-shaped flowerpot; see fig. 4.31-. b, a)

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Group 4 Forming Techniques These processes were used at Hebron for cooking pots (‫ܒ‬anjarrah; pl. ‫ܒ‬anājar). The first stage involved completing the upper walls and rim of the cooking pot, leaving a very thick base. This initial form was removed and set aside to dry. When the rim was leather hard, the vessel was put back on the wheel upside down, supported by a chuck. In the second stage, after the base had been opened, clay was thrown upwards to form the lower walls and then closed over to form the rounded base. The vessel was then removed and set aside to dry, resting upside down on its rim; the rims of these vessels usually showed signs of this positioning. Two handles were applied in the final stage of forming. Group 4 processes were used in the past for water-carrying jars (jarrah), but by 1977 these had disappeared from the repertoire due to lack of demand. They were previously produced in the following sequence: first, the top was thrown; second, the handles were applied; third, the vessel was inverted in a specially shaped chuck to accommodate the handles; and finally the round bottom was thrown.

Group 5 Forming Techniques Drums. The drum form was open at both ends and therefore did not involve the “closing in of the base” noted with most other forms. However, it still involved two stages of manufacture. In the first stage, the large end of the drum was completed while leaving a lump of clay at the bottom (Fig. 5.44). In the second stage, the form was inverted over a chuck and the thick clay lump thrown upwards. A further section was added and completed to form the other end of the drum (Fig. 5.45 a, b, c, d, e). The overall process is seen in fig. 4.15 A. We observed drum making in the workshop of Rasmi Fakhuri, specifically of the large “Egyptian drum.” In more detail, at the first stage of drum manufacture, the very top of the drum was finished with its upper incurved rim. This initial form looked much like an open bowl made right side up, whose interior had deep spiral-throwing ridges. Two of these “bowls” were made from one column of clay (‘amūd ). The thinner upper rim was allowed to dry somewhat before it was placed upside down on a flat chuck on the wheel. First, as with the other forms at this stage, a small amount of clay was

removed and discarded in the centering process. Then a clay ring (wa‫܈‬leh)—6 cm high, 11.5 cm in diameter at one end, and 10 cm in diameter at the other—was removed and set aside. Next the form was opened and drawn up to ca. 25 cm in height, and the diameter of the top was then approximately equal to that of the clay ring that had initially been removed. The clay ring was added to the top, and the form was drawn up to ca. 36 cm in height. With the aid of the hemispherical profile tool (sādif ), the sides were smoothed. The potter then added a second clay ring taken from a stock he had previously made. The form was drawn up to 43 cm in height and smoothed again with the profile tool. The outside diameter of the top (in reality the base of the finished form) was 19 cm. The potter said that he could make the same form with the addition of only one clay ring, but that usually for this sized drum he added two clay rings.

Group 6 Forming Techniques These processes were used only for one type of flowerpot, the barrel-shaped haarut (Fig. 5.46; fig. 4.31 b, a). In the first stage, an initial form with closed base and foot ring at the top was produced, with a thick lump of clay at the bottom. After drying, in the second stage, the form was inverted and placed in a chuck, the thick lump of clay was thrown upwards, and the top was closed over to form a foot ring and “base” similar to the first, resulting in a foot ring at either end of the form. One side was then cut out of the barrel shape, and feet were added on the other side to complete the planter. Considering that the Hebron potters had incorporated modern innovations into their craft—for example, the modified potter’s wheels and pug mills—it was likely that further innovations could be made to ensure economic viability for their products. One such innovation was a press for producing flowerpots, which was noted at the workshop of Harbi Fakhuri. He said that he had purchased his press shortly after the 1967 war. The many pressed pots in his yard were evidence of its use (Fig. 5.47).

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Fig. 5.47 -. Vessels in the potter’s yard ready for dispatch

Fig. 5.48 -. Plan and elevation of Mu‘ati Fakhuri’s kiln

221

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Firing Kilns The kilns used by all of the Hebron potters in the workshop area on the Yatta road were of the general “Palestinian type,” sharing a similar size, design, and construction. Fig. 5.48 shows one Hebron kiln; the exact dimensions of this kiln were taken from one of the kilns at the workshop of Mu‘ati Fakhuri. Views of the same kiln are shown in Fig. 5.49 a, b. The structure of the kiln was essentially a brick cylinder topped by a dome, with a large opening at the top center. An access door for loading and removing vessels was built into one side of the kiln. The stokehole door was at the bottom of the kiln, 90 degrees around from the loading door; it led into a firebox built into the bottom of the main chamber. The whole structure had an outer cylindrical wall of stone, set with clay mortar, which acted as insulation. To take advantage of prevailing winds, all Hebron kilns had setting doors facing to the west and stokehole doors facing to the south. The interior chamber of the kiln and the firebox were built from unfired bricks. Mu‘ati Fakhuri said that these bricks were made from the same red clay as was used in the Hebron pottery body. For making these bricks, the red clay was mixed with straw and chaff, which burned out when the kiln was in use, leaving a porous structure with good insulating properties. The mortar used in kiln building was the same red clay as was used for the bricks, and the inside of the chamber was plastered with the red clay. The potters used these unfired bricks in preference to commercially available refractory bricks, mainly because a kiln built with unfired bricks cools more quickly after firing, taking only one day to cool, whereas a kiln built with refractory bricks takes three days to cool. But they also commented that the unfired bricks had a disadvantage in that the interior of the kiln built with unfired bricks became damaged more quickly than that of the kiln built with refractory bricks, and so had to be repaired or even totally replaced more frequently. Despite the advantage in durability of refractory bricks, the potters said that fast cooling was more important because the kiln could then be fired more frequently and in the long run the productivity would be greater. The more expensive refractory bricks were used in some kilns to form the door and stokehole openings because of 99

their greater durability in these areas, where damage was most likely to occur. The unfired bricks used by the Hebron potters were made to a standard size of 30 × 20 × 12 cm. The interior of the chamber was formed by laying the bricks to create a wall 20 cm thick, that is, by laying circular stretcher courses with half-brick staggering on each course. One further advantage of using unfired bricks for kiln construction may be noted: it was much easier to build a dome with unfired bricks than with fired ones.99 Briefly, the advantage was that dry unfired bricks laid with wet clay mortar bonded together very strongly because of the porosity of the bricks, and so no formwork was required for building domes or arches. The firebox of the kiln had bricks left out of the structure at regular intervals, and the openings so produced functioned as fire mouths into the chamber. The distribution of these fire mouths is shown in Fig. 5.48.

Fuel A mixture of waste materials was used as fuel. Rubber inner tubes from motor vehicles were the main fuel. Purchased from dealers in Hebron, they were the main cause of the billows of black smoke (Fig. 5.50) emerging from any Hebron kiln being fired. Combustible rubbish (cloth, paper, wood scraps, anything else that burns) from the nearby municipal dump was also used, supplemented with used motor oil. This last fuel was also used by the Hebron glassmakers to fire their glass furnaces. In the past, Hebron potters used wood as a fuel, but wood firings took a longer time than firings with the current fuels. In the late twentieth century, it was not economical to use wood because the countryside was generally deforested and consequently wood was expensive. In 1974, the cost of rubber inner tubes was 60 IL per ton, and firewood in large quantities was unavailable.

See RYE and EVANS, Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan, 75, for one of several descriptions of kiln building.

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a)

b) Fig. 5.49 -. a, b) Views of the same kiln

223

224

MALE POTTERS

Kiln Setting Observations of the kiln setting were made at the workshop of Mu‘ati Fakhuri. Dry vessels were carried to the kiln by the young assistants. A range of vessels, including water jars, flowerpots, and drums, was placed all together in one setting. All water jars (in this case, the handleless water jars, šarbeh) were set upside down; flowerpots were stacked alternately right side up and upside down, rim to rim and base to base; and drums were set as they best fitted around the other vessels. At the beginning of the setting, Mu‘ati climbed into the kiln. Flowerpots were passed to him and stacked on the chamber floor and around the firebox (Fig. 5.501). As space became congested, he stood on the firebox. Water jars were set a little later, not standing vertically but at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees to the vertical. When the available space toward the back of the kiln was filled, Mu‘ati moved to sit in the loading door opening (bāb al tifrīq) itself in order to fill spaces near the door and to avoid standing on any vessels (Fig. 5.52 a, b). When no more vessels could be fitted through the loading door, Mu‘ati climbed down through the top opening of the kiln and, standing on the small vacant space on top of the firebox, placed vessels all around the chamber to fill available spaces. Finally, he climbed out of the kiln and filled the space in which he had been standing with vessels, placing them to within a few centimeters of the large central top flue hole (Fig. 5.53). When all the vessels had been placed in the kiln, the loading door was sealed by building up a “door” of fired but damaged vessels from previous firings. One of the young male assistants then sealed the gaps in this “door.” First he mixed red clay with ash from the firebox of the kiln left over from the previous firing in equal parts. This mixture was formed into a hollowed pile, and water was added to make a sloppy mortar. The mortar was then thrown into the gaps in the “door” and finally smoothed over by hand to seal the door completely (Fig. 5.54 a, b, c, d).

The Stages of Firing The stages of firing proceeded as follows: (1) preliminary heating of about 2 hours with rubber inner tubes; (2) intense firing of 3–4 hours with a mixture of used engine oil, inner tubes, and burnable rubbish; (3) post-firing: at the end of the firing, 3–4 wheelbarrow loads of rubbish were burned, after which the firing door was blocked. The firing itself

was done by the young male assistants. When the stoking ceased, the stokehole was sealed and the top was left open for cooling (Fig. 5.55 a, b; Fig. 5.49 a, b). Fig. 5.56 shows measurements of firing temperatures taken during the firing of this kiln (see also Fig. 5.57 a, b). The firing time overall was very short compared with the firing times of Jaba‘ and Gaza kilns, stoking continuing for only seven hours. Maximum temperatures were reached around six hours after beginning. These were, at the bottom of the kiln 1075 °C, and at the center of the kiln 950 °C; the top of the kiln reached only 750 °C. This variation in temperatures is typical of all updraft kilns, where the flame enters at the bottom and travels up through the ware and out the top. Several figures shown here illustrate what follows the firing process: see Fig. 5.58; and Fig. 5.59 a, b, c, d. It is characteristic of traditional pottery firing everywhere that all the vessels placed in the kiln do not survive. The damaged ones are known as wasters (Fig. 5.60 a, b). Over time it is normal for a large waster pile to accumulate. In archaeology, it is this waster pile which indicates that pottery making took place on that site. In the Hebron kiln, some of the wasters were caused by overfiring vessels that included salt in their clay, causing the vessels to melt and flow rather like lava (Fig. 5.61 a, b).

Comparison of Hebron Potters’ Production in Quantity and Range with Other Palestinian Potters’ Production The Hebron potters produced more pottery by far than any other group of potters on the West Bank or in Gaza (Fig. 5.62), and their wares were more widely marketed (Fig. 5.63). We found that most of the pottery on sale in Jenin came from Hebron. We were told that Hebron pottery was also sold in Gaza and in Jordan. The market within Israel was usually confined to various types of flowerpots, although special orders were sometimes made for Israeli firms. In general the Hebron ceramic industry was very viable and showed no signs of waning.100 As the younger generation of Fakhuris continued in their family’s age-old profession, the widespread use of the blunger to prepare clay, the pug mill, and often the wheel above the floor, indicated that innovations were accepted more rapidly here than in the other main production centers.

100 Editors’ note: The Hebron ceramic industry was less viable in 2019 than it had been in the 1970s.

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a)

225

Fig. 5.52 -. a, b) Filling spaces near the loading door

Fig. 5.50 -. Smoke billowing from the kiln

Fig. 5.51 -. Stacking flowerpots in the kiln

Fig. 5.53 -. Placing the last vessels in the kiln

b)

226

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a)

b)

c)

d) Fig. 5.54 -. a, b, c, d) Sealing the loading door with mortar

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a)

227

b) Fig. 5.55 -. a, b) Firing the kiln; see fig. 5.49 -. a, b)

top of kiln

1100

center of kiln

1000

bottom of kiln 900

7(03(5$785(Ü&

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

TIME (minutes after start of firing)

Fig. 5.56 -. Graph of time versus temperature, Muұati kiln firing, Hebron

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a) Fig. 5.57 -. a) Thermocouples placed in kiln b) John Landgraf recording temperatures

b)

Fig. 5.58 -. Vessels after firing

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229

a)

b)

c)

d) Fig. 5.59 -. a, b, c, d) Unloading the kiln after firing

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230

a)

b) Fig. 5.60 -. a, b) Piles of wasters

a)

b) Fig. 5.61 -. a, b) Wasters caused by overfiring

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Fig. 5.62 -. General view of Mu‘ati Fakhuri’s yard

Fig. 5.63 -. Vessels being taken to market

231

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MALE POTTERS

Functionally, the general range of wares was not as wide as that of Gaza (see pp. 252–58), but the Hebron potters probably produced more variants of individual vessel forms than those of Gaza. Especially with flowerpots (one functional class), there was a wide variety of variants, and the Hebron potters in general seemed very willing to produce new flowerpot shapes to order, catering to variations in fashion in the predominantly Israeli market. The more traditional functional classes, for example, large water storage jars (zīrs), were not subject to such innovations. The zīr was produced in only two forms, differing only with regard to the shape of the rim.

Products and Markets Water Vessels Water vessels were produced mainly in the summer, when there was the greatest demand for them. The water jug (šarbeh). There were two types of water jugs, those with handles and those without handles. Those with handles had a slightly different type of neck than the handleless type, and they were generally larger. Both types were called šarbeh, but the two-handled water jug was known by the more specific name of šarbeh ‘irāqīah, the Iraqi water jug. The handleless water jug (Fig. 5.64) was 31 cm high, with a maximum diameter of 17.3 cm reached at 13 cm above the base. The outside diameter of the ring base was 8.6 cm, while the inside of the base measured 7.8 cm. The neck was 11.3 cm high with a maximum diameter of 6.9 cm, though at its point of attachment to the body it was 6.1 cm in diameter. At the very top (at the rim), it was 6.7 cm in diameter. On the shoulder of the body at 5 and 6 cm below the neck, there were two ribs 0.6 cm wide. The water jug with handles (Fig. 5.65) was 40 cm high, with a maximum diameter of 21.3 cm reached at 17.5 cm from the base. The ring base had an outer diameter of 9.3 cm. The neck was 12.5 cm high. The rim at the top had an inside diameter of 7 cm, while the outside diameter was 9 cm. The diameter of the neck increased from 6.5 cm, at its point of attachment with the body, up to a maximum of 10 cm in four stages of concentric convex curves. Two handles, 3.7 cm wide and 1.1 cm thick, were attached opposite each other between the neck and the shoulder. There were two

rows of rilling 0.6 cm wide on the upper part of the shoulder between 1.7 and 3.7 cm below the neck. The spouted drinking jug (ibrīq) (Fig. 5.66). This vessel was 32 cm high, with a ring base 8.3 cm in diameter and a maximum diameter of 17.9 cm reached at 14 cm above the base. (A larger ibrīq had a height of 37 cm with a maximum diameter of 21.3 cm.) The outside diameter of the rim was 8 cm, while the inside diameter was 5.7 cm. The spout was added at the shoulder’s midpoint; it was 6 cm long and had a maximum diameter of 3 cm at its point of attachment and a minimum diameter of 1.8 cm at its rim. The opening was 0.9 cm in diameter. The neck began at 23 cm from the base and had a diameter of 6 cm. Two handles had been added. One handle, attached between the neck and the shoulder, was 3.1 cm wide and 1.1 cm thick. The other handle was connected between the base of the spout and the neck; it was somewhat narrower (2.5 cm wide). The novelty ibrīq (ibrīq mas‫܈ۊ‬ūr) had the top completely closed over. A hole in the base had a tube extending up into the body of the vessel, which was filled through this hole. In the 1970s, the novelty ibrīq was rarely made. The large water jar (zīr) (Fig. 5.28). This vessel was never used for the transport of water but only for its storage. Due to the constant evaporation of water from the surface of the porous jar, there was a considerable cooling effect, which was especially welcome during the hot summer months. The same applied to the other jars in which water was kept, such as the ibrīq and the šarbeh. The height of the zīr that we measured was 67 cm, and its maximum diameter was 37.4 cm at 37.5 cm from the base. The ring base had a diameter of 11.7 cm; the vertically straight neck was ca. 19 cm high and had a diameter of 20 cm. The outside diameter of the top rim was 20.7 cm, while the rim itself was 1.75 cm thick and 3.4 cm high. Two handles were placed on the shoulder ca. 3.5 cm below the neck; they were 6 cm wide and 1.1 cm thick. There were three rills, each of which was 0.7 cm high, on the upper part of the neck, and an additional three rows of rilling on the upper part of the shoulder. It should be noted that neither the potters at Jaba‘ nor those in Gaza were making the zīr at the time of our study, but before 1967 the zīr was also produced by the Jericho potters. Because of its large size, considerable strength and skill were needed in its production, and relatively few of the Hebron potters were able to make the zīr. The drinking mug (muġ ‫ܒ‬ās). This was a one-handled drinking mug with a height of 16 cm and a diameter of 14 cm. In the 1970s, drinking mugs were generally not

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made and sold as they had been in the past, but one of the potters had some in his workshop for his own use.

Cooking Vessels There were two types of cooking vessels, both of which had a round bottom and two handles. The first type had a wide mouth (fig. 4.29) and was used without a lid for cooking rice, meat, tomatoes, and various other foods. The second type had a constricted neck and was used with a lid (fig. 4.17) for cooking meat. Both types were intended to be used in an oven rather than over an open flame, and both were made in various sizes. At the time of our study, the cooking pot with a wide mouth was made mainly for sale to Israelis, who used it as a hanging flowerpot, suspended by its two handles on a rope. Bowls. There were essentially three different sizes for bowls. The smallest (zibdīya) (Fig. 5.67) was sometimes known as the fikakah. These bowls were used for the reconstitution of dried sour milk. Mediumsized bowls, called m‘ajni (Fig. 5.68), were used for the preparation of bread dough. Larger bowls (mu‫ۊ܈‬ān) were also made, one example measuring 33 cm in diameter and 12 cm high.

Other Vessels Drums (tableh). Drums after firing are shown in the image on p. 144, and drums for sale at market in fig. 4.30. The ceramic drum was hollow at both ends. Over the end with the larger diameter, a goat skin was stretched, glued, and sewn with a cord. The walls of the drum were sometimes painted with enamel. But the potter himself only made the cylinder and sold it to shops that specialized in mounting the top of the drum. The size of the drum varied greatly, as can be seen from the following measurements of four “local” drums: Height:

40 cm

40.8 cm

29.4 cm

13.5 cm

Top:

27.4 cm

30 cm

20.2 cm

9.5 cm

Base:

14 cm

14.4 cm

11.4 cm

6.1 cm

Height of pipe:

31 cm

30 cm

21 cm

9 cm

Diameter of pipe:

13 cm

14.4 cm

11 cm

5.3 cm

At Palestinian weddings, only the larger drums were used. The miniature version especially was for tourist and Israeli consumption. The music of the drum played a large role in the entertainment at the

233

evening parties that preceded a Palestinian marriage. There it accompanied the Dabka, Palestinian folk dancing. The music of the drum and the shrill cries of women were a frequent sound on warm summer evenings in the Middle East, for that is the season of most Arab weddings. Two types of drums were made in both Hebron and Gaza. The top of the “local” drum (tableh baladīyah) was bowl-shaped, with a vertical rim and a rounded edge with a long cylindrical stand, whereas the Egyptian drum (tableh masrīyah) had an upper incurved rim and more diagonal sides that only gradually tapered to the cylindrical stand. Each type was made in several different sizes, although the smaller sizes were usually of the local type. The following measurements were taken at the shop of Naim Fakhuri on an Egyptian type drum: height 43 cm; maximum diameter of 24 cm at 40.5 cm above the base; minimum diameter of 13.4 cm at about 13 cm above the base; opening at the top 17.6 cm in diameter; outside base diameter of 17.0 cm; inside diameter of 14.6 cm. Flowerpots (owār al zahr). As noted above, at Hebron there was a variety of forms for flowerpots, and it was with these vessels that a high degree of innovation of form occurred. Various flowerpot forms are shown in Fig. 5.69 a, b, c, d, e. Some of the forms were rather standardized, but it was not at all uncommon for the potters to produce a single vessel or limited numbers of vessels in response to individual customers’ designs. Harbi Fakhuri in particular followed this practice and had the greatest range of flowerpot forms in his workshop. It is neither simple nor useful to try to list all the flowerpot forms, as the repertoire was in a process of continual change. It should be noted that each of the flowerpot forms was made in various sizes. For example, the simple “truncated conical” form, which had a height and a maximum diameter that were approximately equal, was made in sizes ranging from about 10 cm high to about 60 cm high. The customary use of some traditional forms, for example, bowls, had declined, but they could still be sold as flowerpots. Modified by making a hole in the base, they were then known as kaarote. The main flowerpot shapes included a barrel-shaped flowerpot with four thrown feet.

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Fig. 5.64 -. Handleless water jug

Fig. 5.65 -. Water jug with handles

Fig. 5.66 -. Spouted water drinking jar

Fig. 5.67 -. Smallest bowl

Fig. 5.68 -. Medium-sized bowl

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235

a)

b)

c)

d) Fig. 5.69 -. a, b, c, d, e) Various flowerpot forms

e)

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Fig. 6.1 -. Clay preparation pits of potter’s workshop at Gaza

GAZA

237

Gaza About 50 km (31 miles) long and 6 km (4 miles) wide, the Gaza Strip covers an area of 363 square km, or 140 square miles, and lies on the coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea. In antiquity it was located along the ancient “Way of the Sea” connecting Egypt and Assyria, at the western extremity of the Fertile Crescent (fig. 6.1).

Gaza Workshops and Their Location Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Martin Meyer reported of Gaza City that “there are fifty potteries in the city.”101 Our field studies in the 1970s clearly indicated a steep decline in the number of workshops still operating. At the end of 1975, we had either visited or heard from informants of a total of fifteen workshops, one of which closed in 1975. The workshops were located in two principal areas (fig. 6.2), the Harat al Daraj, near the center of Gaza City, and the Harat al Qarqash, about two kilometers away. Below is a list of the potters and their workshops in the Harat al Daraj off a street called the Sharia al Fuakhir (“the street of the potters”). In the summer of 1974, four workshops were open here, and we were shown the workshop and kiln of a fifth potter, who subsequently worked at his profession in Israel. All of the potters’ shops and kilns were located within a large square. The shops were partially underground, with flat earthen roofs ca. 1.5 cm above the present ground level, and they dated back well into the Ottoman period. One always had to descend a few steps in order to enter. Inside, the rooms were divided by a series of pointed stone archways, flat at the top, and positioned at regular intervals. Heavy wooden planks spanned the flat tops of the arches, supporting a weatherproof, roof-like mud covering. 1. The Hajazi brothers, Hamdan and Hamdi, were both illiterate. Hisham, the sixteen-year-old son of Hamdan, attended school for three years and was their apprentice assistant. Their workshop was well laid out, and they made mainly black ware.

2. In 1974, Husni Abdallah al Masri was the owner of this shop and a potter. Taufiq Hamid al Zibdah was an aged potter employed by the owner. Husni’s son Omar Husni al Masri was sixteen years old; he attended school and wanted to go on to college. A summertime assistant of his father, Husni, Omar was our guide and interpreter. Husni’s wife was seen turning pots over, and three small daughters plus one ten-year-old son worked in the shop carrying pots back and forth from the wheel. Their great-grandfather came from Egypt. This potter made mostly red ware pottery. When we returned in 1975, Husni had closed his shop, leaving only two other active potters in the Harat al Daraj, the Hajazi brothers and the Joha brothers. 3. The Joha brothers, Salih and Hassan, also made mainly red pottery. They had one assistant, Mohammed, the young son of Salih. The kiln that belonged to this workshop was built by Haj Ismail Hana. 4. Haj Ismail Hana was probably in his seventies and was semi-retired. He had a workshop, but was not working much at the time of our study. The potters working in the other main area, Harat al Qarqash, are listed below. We visited one of the workshops there, that of Said Yonis al Masri, in 1974. The list of other workshops and the colors of the wares made in these workshops was given by a local informant, himself a potter. His name was Mustafa Mahsan Atallah, and his workshop was on Sharia al Yemen, nos. 64–143, Qarqash. He said that his father’s workshop was the only workshop in Gaza that actually made white pottery. His father learned pottery making in Gaza, and later worked in Haifa and then in Lebanon before returning again to Gaza. Many or most of the white forms were quite different from those made by the other Gaza potters, indicating probable influence from northern workshops. In addition to the white ware, red ware was also made in this workshop.

101 Martin A. MEYER, History of the City of Gaza: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Columbia University Oriental Studies 5 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1907), 107.

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D

20 14 13 15 16 11 12 17 8 Shari 9 18 19 Yemean al

10 New Gaza, post-1948 7 da

Sharia

Industrial

Industrial

al

Cemetery

4

ria al Fuakhir Sha

F

22

a‘id

M

2 3 1

Cultivated area

Bor S

Shari a

6

A

21

Industrial

alh

a

Qa rqa š

al Wah

Sha ria

Sharia

C

ia al

Baid

N

Shar

Sharia Omar al Mukhtar

238

Qarqaš citrus orchard

5

Sharia al Lauh‘

E Taxis

G

B

Numbers 1–22 indicate potter locations A Gaza municipal offices B Baptist hospital

Old Gaza, pre-1948

C Market D Cinema E Principal wholesaler and retailer of Gaza pottery F Mosque G Mosque

Fig. 6.2 -. Map of Gaza with potter locations, 1977

0

250 m Scale: 1/5000

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Mustafa gave the following names of the potters from Harat al Qarqash:

Tamar Hassan Isma‘il al Shobaki Abd al Baqi Filfil Taha Isbih Mohammed Abd al Latif

239

to the north and east of Gaza City. It was designated as K-2 on the 1/250,000 Soil Association Map of Israel (1970). The clay was not taken from any one place but rather obtained when cisterns, ditches, and foundations were dug. The surface soil was apparently also used. The two places where the clay was most frequently obtained were Jabalya, 3 km north-northeast of Gaza; and Muntar, 1.5 km southeast of Gaza. But good clay was also said to come from the places known as Kamb al Tayaran and Lattun. The clay was not dug by the potters, but rather was purchased between May and October for 30–40 IL per 4 cubic meters delivered by truckload.

Ali Haraz Yusuf al Shobaki

Clay Body Preparation

Atallah Salman Atallah All of these potters made only black ware. The name of another potter was Said Yonis al Masri, also named above, who made both red and black ware. He came to Gaza from Haifa in 1948. There was said to be yet another, tenth, potter who worked in Jabalya, about 3 km north-northeast of Gaza, but this information was not substantiated. Thus, we knew of at least thirteen potters’ workshops in Gaza— fourteen if we counted the recently closed shop. Therefore, Gaza may have produced as much pottery as Hebron. Nine of these shops produced only black ware; one produced only red ware; one produced black and red ware; and two produced white and red ware. We had no idea what kind of pots the potter in Jabalya produced; his workshop would make a total of fifteen workshops, with one closed. The main season of pottery making in Gaza was during the summer, although work continued all year round. Many parts of the pottery making process were weather-dependent, for example, clay preparation, for which the time needed for drying the clay slip to plastic form depended on temperature and humidity; the drying of vessels, which also depended on these factors; and firing as well. One Gaza informant said that the drying time for large vessels, before they could be fired, varied from 30 days in mid-winter to 15 days in mid-summer.

Clay Source The Gaza potters used solely a dark brown (grumsolic, vertisolic) soil as their clay source. The sample of unprocessed clay that we gathered occurred widely

The process of clay preparation was observed in 1974 at the workshop of the Hajazi brothers in the Harat al Daraj group of workshops. All initial clay preparation was done outside the workshop in the open; once the clay reached plastic stage, all further processes were done inside. A cement-lined, stonewalled slaking pit (wahtah), measuring 1.4 × 1.4 × 1.1 m deep, was filled with the dry unprocessed clay (fig. 6.3) nearly to the brim. Water was added from an adjacent tap, and the mixture was left for two hours (fig. 6.4). On the day of observation, Hisham, the apprentice and son of Hamdan Hajazi, climbed into the pool, chest deep (fig. 6.5), and made a slurry by thrashing about with his feet and hands, sometimes submerging completely to break up a large lump of clay. Then, still standing in the slaking pit, Hisham poured the slurry into an adjacent drying bed (ma‫܈‬ūl ), using a five-gallon square tin can and pouring through a wooden-framed, wire mesh sieve (munkhal ) about 50 × 50 cm with 0.5-cm-thick mesh (fig. 6.6). According to the potter, occasionally other-sized mesh was used. The drying bed was 7 m long, about 1.5 m wide, and 0.4 m deep. Drying beds in other workshops varied in size; another one we observed was about 50 cm deep, 5 m long, and 3 m wide. A five-gallon bucketful of sand had been sieved onto the drying bed floor to prevent the clay from sticking. After some of the slip was poured, more water was added to the slip in the slaking pit (wahtah), and it was agitated again and poured through the sieve into the drying bed. This process was repeated until all of the clay initially added had been converted into a slip and transferred to the drying bed. Between the slaking pit and the drying bed was a small hole, which enabled one to drain water back

240

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into the slaking pit after the clay had settled. The level of water in the slaking pit was controlled by adjusting the height of a vertical clay pipe that led to the hole on the settling side. It can be noted that the Hebron potters had this same provision for recycling water. After the clay had settled in the drying bed and the water from the surface had been removed as described, the clay slurry was poured from the settling bed out onto the adjacent pathway, an improvised drying bed (mus‫ܒ‬ā‫ )ۊ‬that had been cleaned of any stones and sprinkled with a layer of kiln ash to prevent sticking. During the summer months, about 24 hours was sufficient to dry the clay and, when cracks began to develop (fig. 6.7), it was then transferred to piles inside the workshop. Considerable black kiln ash was incorporated into the clay at this time. After the necessary drying time, large lumps of the moist clay were taken into the workshop and placed in piles. In the case of the Hajazi workshop, one of the long walls of the drying bed was the outer wall of the workshop, so the prepared clay was simply picked up and tossed through a window onto the workshop’s earthen floor, where a light layer (no more than about 1 mm thick) of dark gray, screen-sieved kiln ash prevented the clay from sticking to the floor. Although we did not observe foot kneading, round piles of clay about 1 m in diameter showed signs of foot wedging. Each of the Harat al Daraj workshops had Byzantine capitals that were used as wedging tables. Potters hand kneaded the clay on them by first sprinkling the flat top of the capital with fine sand and ash. Then they flattened the clay and rolled it toward themselves (fig. 6.8 a, b). The roll was turned 90 degrees, and the process of flattening and rolling was repeated. Even though non-plastics were not specially added to the clay, both sand and kiln ash from the drying bed, the floor of the workshop, and the wedging bench were present in small proportions in the body as used. The preceding description of clay preparation at the Hajazi brothers’ workshop in Harat al Daraj was representative of the methods used to prepare both red ware and black ware clay bodies, since the only difference between them was the color variation due to firing. Unfortunately, we did not observe the preparation of the white ware body, but the following description was given by Husni

Abdallah al Masri, who said that salt (NaCl) had to be added to the clay for white ware. According to his account, slip was formed in the slaking pit in the manner described above and then salt was added to the slip in the proportions of 1 part (1 bucketful) by volume of salt to 10 parts (10 bucketfuls) by volume of slip. This proportion (10 percent salt by volume) seemed a very large addition; another informant told Landgraf in 1973 that the salt addition was 5 percent by volume. The higher amount would almost certainly lead to overfired, melted vessels, as in fig. 6.9. The amount of 5 percent seems more reasonable in light of experiments made by William Potts102 (personal communication), who noted that “experiments confirmed that the white ware effect could be replicated by adding 2 to 4 percent by weight of NaCl to the same ‘clay’ as used in making red ware and black ware.” It is also noteworthy that Husni Abdallah told us of a Palestinian workshop south of Haifa beside the sea where seawater instead of freshwater was used to wet the clay, thus producing white ware. The total soluble salt content of seawater can be taken as 4 percent on average by weight, so the total salt addition would have been in the range of 2–4 percent if 50–100 parts of seawater by weight were added to 100 parts of clay, the likely range of water addition. The Gaza potters’ workshops were located several kilometers away from the sea, too distant to conveniently use seawater. This discussion should be compared with our observations of the salt addition to clay at Hebron (p. 198), where dry salt from the Dead Sea was added to prepared plastic clay ready for use. Husni Abdallah also mentioned that Gaza white ware potters added salt to the water used to wet their hands while throwing on the wheel.

The Potter’s Wheel All Gaza male potters used the potter’s wheel, the basic design of which was similar to that used by other male potters on the West Bank. The form and dimensions of a wheel at the workshop of Haj Ismail Hana are shown in fig. 4.7. All potters’ wheels seen in Gaza were set within pits excavated

102 William Potts was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in 1972–1973, and an archaeologist who worked mainly in Israel.

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Fig. 6.3 -.

241

Fig. 6.4 -.

Fig. 6.5 -.

Fig. 6.6 -.

Clay body preparation, Gaza Fig. 6.7 -.

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242

in the floor of the workshop. These pits were generally stone lined.

Forming Techniques The range of forming techniques for the many different Palestinian vessel forms can be classified in Groups103 as follows: 1. Vessels with a flat base formed in one stage only: opening a lump of clay, throwing to complete the form, and cutting off the form to leave a “stringcut” flat base. 1a. Vessels formed by joining together pieces made with Group 1 techniques, without further use of the wheel. 2. Vessels with a ring base (foot ring) formed in two stages of throwing: the base in the first stage, and the rim in the second stage. 2a. Vessels with a pedestal base formed in two stages: the base first, the rim second. 3. Vessels with a ring base (foot ring) formed in more than two stages of throwing: the base in the first stage, the main body in the second stage, with the neck and rim being formed, and handles or spouts added, in subsequent stages. 4. Vessels with a round base formed in two main stages: the rim in the first stage, and the base in the second stage. 5. Vessels that were open at both ends, formed in two stages of throwing.

revolving (leaving a characteristic marking on the flat base) and then set aside to dry completely before firing. These forms had no foot ring but rather a simple flat base. The forms produced by this technique were one version of the coffee mortar (mushan qahwah), the garlic mortar (ko‘adah) (fig. 6.10), and the jar cover (ġa‫ܒ‬āa qadrah)—these three forms being open, bowl-like shapes—in addition to the bank or money box (‫ۊ‬azzānah). The “one-stage” coffee mortar was produced in one workshop only, that of the Hajazi brothers. There a number of these bowls were seen whose bases had cracked during a firing; the bases were later repaired with a mixture of cement and black kiln ash. Although the thick walls were of uniform thickness, this was not always the case for the string-cut bases, where differences in thickness led to thermal stress and resultant cracking. The one-step, right-side-up manufacturing process enabled the potter to produce a thicker-walled bowl, which, together with its flat base, would probably hold up much better if used as a mortar than the thinner-walled, ring-based coffee mortar made with the traditional two-step process. Various flowerpots (fig. 6.11) were also made using Group 1 techniques. In Group 2 (fig. 4.15 B), vessels were formed by throwing from a lump of clay to produce the lower walls, and closing in the base, at the same time forming the foot ring. A solid lump of clay was left at the “bottom” of this form as thrown. The form was then removed from the wheel and dried until the base (for example, foot ring) was leather hard. It was then replaced on the wheel inverted, with the foot ring and lower walls supported in a clay chuck. The solid lump of clay, now at the top, was opened and thrown to form the upper walls of the vessel, completing also the rim. Vessels in this Group included open bowl forms: the couscous bowl (maftūlīah), dough bowl (laqān), milk bowl (kaškūlah), and coffee mortar with foot ring (mushan qahwah).

6. Vessels with a foot ring at either end, formed in two stages of throwing, with neck and rim and handles added in subsequent stages.

Group 3 (fig. 4.12 D) involved the following forming sequence:

It should be noted that Group 1a above included a technique not used at Gaza. Only the Jaba‘ potters used this technique extensively. Similarly, Group 2a was observed only at Hebron.

1. throwing the lower walls of the vessel, forming the foot ring, and closing in the base, leaving a thick lump of clay at the “bottom” of this initial form;

In Group 1, forms were made on the wheel in one stage of throwing only, the completed form being cut from the wheel with a string while the wheel was still

2. drying the form until the thrown section was leather hard;

103 See also the Summary of Forming Techniques on pp. 151–61.

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243

Fig. 6.8 -. a, b) Preparing clay for use by kneading

a)

Fig. 6.10 -. Garlic mortar

Fig. 6.9 -. Overfired vessels due to amount of salt

Fig. 6.11 -. Bowl modified as flowerpot

Fig. 6.12 -. Ibrīq

b)

244

MALE POTTERS

3. inverting the form and placing it on the wheel with the foot ring and base held in a chuck, and then opening the solid lump of clay and throwing it to form the upper walls, completing the main form of the vessel; 4. drying the second intermediate stage to leather hard; 5. adding thrown clay rings to the top of the vessel (again supported in a chuck) to form the neck of the vessel; 6. adding spouts and handles. Vessels in this Group included the ibrīq (fig. 6.12). In Group 4, the Gaza water-carrying jar (jarrah) (fig. 6.13 a, b, c, d) also was the main example. This was a form that was no longer produced at Hebron, although it had been in the past. The primary distinction in forming techniques between the jarrah and the ibrīq series was that, for the jarrah (fig. 4.13 G), the top of the vessel was formed first, completing the rim, neck, and upper shoulder of the form. A thick lump was left at the bottom, and this initial form was removed from the wheel and set aside for drying until the top was leather hard. When that stage was reached (usually after at least one day), the form was placed back on the wheel, supported by a chuck, with the rim down. After the thick lump of clay was opened, the walls were thrown upward and closed over to form the base of the vessel. The forming of the Gaza jarrah was thus achieved by a sequence of forming stages very similar to that used for the Jaba‘ jarrah (see pp. 169, 172–74). The same general sequence was also used for the forming of cooking pots (‫ܒ‬anjarrah) (fig. 6.14), which were likewise round-bottomed and had no foot ring. In the fifth Group, the drum was the primary example. The detailed sequence of forming the drum has been described in the section on Hebron forming techniques (p. 220). Only one example occurred in the sixth Group, the butter churn (fig. 6.15). This vessel form was also produced at Jaba‘, but was not produced by the Hebron potters. See below, p. 257, for an account of the butter churn.

Firing Kilns Kilns used by the potters of Gaza were the general “Palestinian type”: updraft kilns with a large chamber, at the base of which was a smaller chamber that was the firebox. One such Gaza kiln is illustrated in fig. 6.16 a, b, c. This kiln, belonging to the workshop of the Hajazi brothers, was built by the potter Haj Ismail Hana; one informant reported that kilns were also occasionally built by masons experienced in kiln building. An overall view of two kilns of the Hajazi brothers is shown in fig. 6.17. The kilns of the Hajazi brothers were much larger than the other potters’ kilns. These brothers made mainly black ware, whereas the other potters usually made only red ware. The Hajazi kilns were also much taller, perhaps 3 to 4 m above ground level, while the other kilns were no more than 1.5 m above the ground with flat exterior roofs. By contrast, the Hajazi kilns looked like giant dome-shaped bee hives, but in overall design and proportions they were the same. The exterior walls of these kilns were made of stone, with mud used as mortar. Another kiln in the Harat al Daraj is shown in fig. 6.18, this one belonging to the Joha brothers’ workshop. As this kiln was built mainly below ground level, the outer stone wall was not plastered with mud but had earth heaped up against it to act as insulation. All the Gaza kilns had a loading door through which pots could be loaded into the chamber; the stokehole door through which fuel was placed in the firebox was located 90 degrees around the kiln from the loading door. A large room was attached to each kiln on the stokehole side; this room was usually stacked with fuel and protected the kiln from the weather as well as protecting the stoker during firing. The room usually had its floor level at the level of the base of the firebox and its top level at the top level of the kiln. The Joha brothers’ kiln had a common “roof ” covering both the kiln and the fuel, or stoking, room. The inner walls of the kiln and the firebox consisted of bricks. The bricks were made from the same type of clay as the pottery plus chaff and sand. The inner walls of the kiln were coated with a thin layer of clay-chaff plaster, which was periodically reapplied. The Gaza kilns’ firebox (bēt al nār) had openings into the kiln chamber made of ceramic cylinders called šarūq (fig. 6.19 a, b, c). In Hebron these openings were simply spaces where bricks had been left out, and this Hebron practice was more representative of the typical Palestinian

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a) Smaller jarrah

b) Smaller jarrah

d) Larger jarrah Fig. 6.13 -. a, b, c, d)

245

c) Larger jarrah

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246

Fig. 6.14 -. Cooking pot

Fig. 6.15 -. Butter churn

b)

a)

c)

Fig. 6.16 -. a, b, c) Potter’s kiln in Gaza

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Fig. 6.17 -. Two kilns of the Hajazi brothers

247

Fig. 6.18 -. Another Gaza kiln

b)

a)

c) Fig. 6.19 -. a, b, c) Flame passage openings between firebox and chamber of kiln

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kiln as seen at most pottery workshops included in the present study. Repairs to the kilns were done by the potters. Repairs to the outer walls were done by placing sherds, or damaged pots, in the gap, and plastering over the whole area with a clay-chaff mixture. The same mixture was used for any repairs required inside the chamber, where cracks were repaired as they appeared; more extensive repairs to the interior were made every four to six months. The firebox required complete replacement about once a year. The kiln as a whole was said by informants to last for as long as forty years, although obviously this was difficult to corroborate. The Arabic names of parts of the kiln are as follows: bāb al waqīd – the stokehole bēt al nār – the firebox šarūq – the ceramic flue between the firebox and the chamber bāb al tifrīg wa al t‘abāyah – the emptying and loading door madۚanah – the top large central flue furn – the kiln

Kiln Setting We did not see any kiln being set in Gaza, so this can only be recorded as described by informants. The first layers of vessels were set by a potter who was inside the kiln, with vessels being passed in by an assistant through the loading door. When this process became no longer practical because of the congestion of vessels around the loading door, the vessels were passed down through the large central top flue of the kiln. When all the vessels were in place, the loading door was sealed first by stacking up a layer of damaged vessels in the door opening, and then by sealing around the vessels with clay. Fig. 6.20 shows a fully sealed door, and fig. 6.21 shows the same door sealing broken away after a firing just before the fired vessels were removed.

Fuel The fuel used for firing Gaza kilns was mainly sawdust and wood chips. Given that Gaza had an extensive furniture industry, the fuel probably came as waste from workshops that made wooden stools. Occasionally olive leaves and waste paper and cardboard were used as supplementary fuels.

Firing Techniques and Stages Regarding firing techniques, no observations were made of the firing of white ware. The firing of red ware and black ware was similar at all stages up to the point where the maximum temperature was reached, so a common description will suffice for both up to that point. The first stage of firing was a period of preheating, or “water smoking,” which lasted 3–5 days in the summer and up to 10 days in the winter. The aim of this stage was to remove all free moisture from the ware. The reason for the length of time involved was probably that the potters used a montmorillonite clay with a fine pore structure, requiring a longer time to remove the water completely than other more open-structured clays did. In addition, the Gaza potters did not add sand to the clay, as did potters in other centers such as Hebron. The addition of sand would have allowed more rapid firing. For this first stage of firing, only sawdust and wood chips (fig. 6.22) were used as fuel. The second stage of firing was the process of bringing the kiln up to its maximum temperature, which took about 6–7 hours, or the greater part of a day. For this stage, the fuel again consisted of sawdust and wood chips that had been soaked in waste motor oil. During this stage, the kiln was continually stoked until the maximum temperature was reached. Temperatures were monitored in several Gaza firings, and the results are shown in fig. 6.23 a, b, c. These graphs show that each kiln produced different firing temperatures and had different temperature distributions in the chamber. In the Hajazi kiln, the temperatures reached were 980 °C maximum in the middle, 760 °C at the top, and a little over 700 °C at the bottom. The temperature difference from top to bottom was 280 °C. In the Joha kiln, maximum temperature was 1020 °C at the bottom of the kiln, 870 °C at the top, and 935 °C in the middle. The temperature difference from top to bottom was 150 °C. In the Abd al Baqi kiln, maximum temperatures measured in one

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Fig. 6.20 -. Sealed kiln before firing

Fig. 6.22 -. Sawdust and wood chips used as fuel

249

Fig. 6.21 -. Broken door of kiln after firing

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250

1 Bottom 2 Middle 3 Top

1000

800

800

3

700

700

1

600

600

3

500

500

500

400

400

2

400

300

300

1

300

200

200

100

100

195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212

100

Time (duration of firing, hours)

Time (hours after start of firing)

a)

3 2 1

200

112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

Temperature °c

900

900

700 600

1000

1000

2

900 800

1100

1100

1100

b)

c)

Fig. 6.23 -. a) Hajazi kiln, Gaza, at heating stage of firing b) Joha kiln, Gaza c) Abd al Baqi kiln, Gaza

Fig. 6.24 -. Red and black pottery; see fig. 4.33

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Fig. 6.25 -. Pottery cracked during firing

Fig. 6.27 -. Decoration with household enamel paint

Fig. 6.26 -. Large pile of wasters and damaged vessels

Fig. 6.28 -. Loading pots for market

251

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firing were 790 °C at the top of the kiln, 730 °C in the middle, and 620 °C at the bottom. Similar results were obtained in another firing, indicating consistency. The maximum temperature difference was 170 °C. These results show considerable differences between temperatures obtained in the different Gaza kilns. The hottest kiln, the Joha kiln, had the lowest temperature range and was hottest at the bottom and coolest at the top. This result was similar to that obtained from measurements in a Hebron kiln (fig. 5.56). The temperatures achieved in each section of the Joha kiln were also very similar to those achieved in the Hebron firing. Temperatures in the Hajazi and Abd al Baqi kilns were overall lower. The Abd al Baqi kiln was hottest at the top, a reversal, next hottest in the middle, and lowest at the bottom, different again. Apart from noting that the variations existed, no explanation can be offered for them. The third stage of firing was cooling, and it was during this stage that the difference between red and black pottery was achieved (fig. 6.24; fig. 4.33). For red ware, the top of the kiln was left open after the maximum temperature had been reached, and no further fuel was added. The kiln took between 2 and 4 days to cool, depending on the season. Obviously, since the potter had to be inside the kiln to remove the vessels, the kiln could not be unloaded until fully cool. Cooling was faster in winter and slower in summer. For black pottery, the top of the kiln was completely sealed, and the mixture of sawdust and diesel fuel was stoked into the firebox for a further 24 hours after the maximum temperature had been reached, producing a carbon-rich smoke. The top of the kiln was sealed by covering the top central flue with large sherds and broken pots, and finally with a layer of earth. The black color was achieved by incorporating black carbon into the pores of the clay body. Firing losses. According to one informant, average firing losses amounted to between 10 and 20 percent of the total number of vessels, including vessels that cracked in the firing (fig. 6.25) and those that were overfired, sometimes to the extent that they fused together into a solid mass (fig. 6.9). Some vessels with only minor cracking were repaired by filling the cracks with cement, and they were then sold at a reduced price if the customer noticed the repairs or, if not, at full price. The wasters, damaged vessels and sherds, were thrown onto a large pile near the kiln (fig. 6.26). This waster pile was characteristic of any workshop that had been functioning for any length of time. Only a limited number of wasters, those most completely representing whole vessels, had any use. They were

used for sealing the loading door or for repairs to outer walls of the kilns.

Products and Markets Gaza potters made red, black, and white vessels; white ware was made only in small quantities, and Gaza was most famous for its black ware. As far as we have been able to determine, all the forms described below were made in both red ware and black ware, although not all forms in both colors were made in any specific workshop. Some potters experimented with painting on pots, using household enamel paint (fig. 6.27). Dr. Frederick R. Matson (personal communication) documented the case of a Nile Delta villager from Egypt who had visited Gaza about fifty years before and brought the Gaza black ware technique back home with him. While the technique was adapted to local Egyptian conditions, the resulting product was still called Gazeus ware, recognizing openly its inspiration from Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. Oral tradition dates Gaza black ware back to the early eighteenth century. Gaza-made pottery was sold on the West Bank, in Israel, and throughout the Gaza Strip (fig. 6.28). No Gaza pottery was sold in Jordan or Egypt. About half of the Gaza-made pottery was sold locally, with the other half sold in Israel or on the West Bank. Israeli customers bought mainly flowerpots; on the West Bank utility forms were sold. While John Landgraf was at the Harat al Daraj wholesaler, a large truck pulled in, onto which white Gaza ibrīqs, white ceramic banks, and white two-handled zīrs were then loaded. The truck’s destination was Akka; John was told that the Palestinians of the western Galilee did not like the Gaza black ware.

Complete List of Gaza Pottery Forms, Compiled in July 1975 Bowls Milk bowl. The milk bowl (kaškūlah) (fig. 6.29) corresponded to the zibdīya (fig. 6.30); it was used for the reconstitution of dried sour milk balls (kišik), for salad, and for other foods. The smaller size was also used as a cover for the water storage jar (zīr). The measurements of the two sizes are given here:

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Diameter of the rim

18.7 cm; inside diameter 17 cm

26 cm; inside 24 cm

Diameter of the base

6.2 cm

8.7 cm

Height

6.2 cm

?

Vertical extent of rim

1.6 cm

2.0 cm

The decoration on the outer lower portion of the rim was typical for Gaza, where it was called za‫ې‬rafah or naqšah. The same decoration occurred on the rim of the Gaza jarrah and the Gaza zīr. On the outside of the bowl at the place where the diagonal wall met the vertical rim, a pointed ledge was drawn out along the bowl’s entire circumference. With the wheel still revolving, a series of rapid backand-forth wrist movements was made in which the potter touched the side of a finger to the pointed ledge, folding it downward. With a single revolution of the wheel, the potter produced along the entire circumference numerous downfolds that alternated with short sections of pointed ledges. This decoration, although unrelated, was not dissimilar to the folded ledge handles from some four thousand or more years earlier, at the end of the Early Bronze Age. Often the smaller version of the kaškūlah did not have this decoration. Dough bowl. The dough bowl (laqān) (fig. 6.31) was used for bread dough, for washing, as a large serving dish for the rice-meat mixture from the cooking pot (qidra), and as a flowerpot (in which case a small hole was cut into the center of the pot). Israelis especially used this bowl as a flowerpot. The measurements of two sizes of these bowls are given here:

Diameter of bowl (outside)

38.5 cm

60 cm

Diameter of bowl (inside)

36 cm

56.5 cm

Height

16.4 cm

26.2 cm

Diameter of base

12 cm

19 cm

Vertical extent of outer rim

2 cm

?

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In addition to the folded ledge decoration, the vertical part of the rim often had combing. Except for its larger size, the dough bowl was identical to the kaškūlah. Couscous bowl. The couscous bowl (maftūlīah) was used for the preparation of couscous (maftūl ). The bottom had numerous holes punched into it that were ca. 0.6 cm in diameter. This bowl was placed directly on top of a pot of boiling water, because steam rising through the holes was needed for making couscous. There were two versions of this bowl: one version was the dough bowl (laqān) with a diameter of 40 cm and holes punched into its base; the other version, also with a diameter of 40 cm, was ca. 19 cm high and had a rounded bottom with a diameter area of ca. 24 cm that was filled with punched holes. Without a vertical rise, its rim was simply a continuation of the diagonal walls with a simple rounded edge. The walls of the milk, dough, and couscous bowls were not curved but extended from the ring base in a diagonally straight line. Coffee mortar grinder with a ring base. The coffee mortar grinder with a ring base (mushan qahwah) was a hemispherical, relatively thick-walled bowl with a horizontally turned rim. With an outside diameter of 31.2 cm and an inside diameter of 25.8 cm, it was 14.2 cm high; it had a ring base with a diameter of 10.5 cm and ribbing on the upper half of the exterior. As its name suggests, it was normally used for grinding coffee but was sold to Israelis as a flowerpot. Coffee mortar grinder with a flat base. The coffee mortar grinder with a flat base (mushan qahwah) was a heavy, thick-walled bowl with an outside diameter of 27 cm and an inside diameter of 22.5 cm. It was 16 cm high, and the diameter of its flat base was 11.5 cm. The lower 10 cm of its exterior was covered with rouletting; also on the exterior were seven or eight “ears”: vertical prisms 5–6 cm long and 2 cm wide. The top of the prisms came up to the level of the rim, and their lower end gradually blended into the bowl’s side. One of the prisms was horizontally pierced to enable a loop of string to be passed through it so the bowl could be hung up when not in use. The use of the ceramic coffee mortar seemed to be confined to the Gaza region, since on the West Bank coffee grinders were made of wood. The same applied to garlic mortars.

254

MALE POTTERS

Garlic mortar. The garlic mortar (ko‘adah) was a thick-walled bowl used for crushing garlic and other herbs or condiments. With an outside diameter of 17 cm, an inside diameter of 14.6 cm, and a flat base with a diameter of 7.6 cm, it was 8.5 cm high and had walls that were 1.2 cm thick. This bowl was hemispherical in shape with a simple rounded rim.

Water Vessels Spouted drinking jug (ibrīq). The ibrīq was one of the most common vessels produced and sold in Gaza. The same applied to Hebron and Jaba‘. There were two sizes of these jugs in Gaza; we measured only the smaller of the two (fig. 6.12). Our measurements were taken from an ibrīq produced by the Hajazi brothers. It was 27 cm high, with a maximum diameter of 15.3 cm reached at 11.5 cm above the base. The ring base had an outside diameter of 5.8 cm. The smallest diameter of the neck was 4 cm near the point of its attachment to the body. The outside diameter of the rim was 6.2 cm, while the inside diameter was 4.5 cm. A 7-cm-wide area at the body’s midpoint was ribbed. There were two handles, one between the shoulder and the neck that was 2.8 cm wide and 1.2 cm thick, and the other connecting the neck and the spout that was slightly smaller—2.2 cm wide and 1.0 cm thick. Placed on the midpoint of the shoulder, the spout was 5 cm long and had an opening of 0.7 cm. Other workshops produced ibrīqs that had no ribbing or differed in color, being either red or white. Miniature water jug. This jug was perhaps intended for babies, although we have no information about its use. It had no handles and was ca. 15 cm high. It was sometimes painted with bright enamel designs. The same was true of some of the other Gaza vessels. Spouted flower jug. The shape of this vessel was like the small ibrīq, but without handles and with five spouts placed on the shoulder. We have no information on this jug except that it was used for flowers. It was not a wedding jug (compare the multi-spouted jars of Jaba‘). Handleless drinking jugs (šarbeh). There were two types of vessels made in Gaza that were known as šarbeh, and neither of them had handles. The first, the Egyptian šarbeh, was either black or red in color. Its body reached a maximum diameter of 13.9 cm at 8 cm above the base, the diameter of which was 7.3 cm. It was 32.4 cm tall. The long neck had two constrictions and a bulge in between (fig. 6.32), with a diameter of 10 cm at 19.5 cm above the base. The

upper constriction had an outside diameter of 4.5 cm, while the opening at the top had an outer diameter of 6 cm. There was also a distinct ridge between the upper part of the body and the lowest constriction. The second type, the Palestinian handleless drinking jug, was white in color, 30.8 cm high, and had a maximum diameter of 15.5 cm at 12.5 cm above the base. The diameter of the base was 6.1 cm, and the 10.4-cm-long neck had a minimum diameter of 4.3 cm. There was a distinct ridge at 3.7 cm below the rim. The rim itself was 2.2 cm high. One-handled water pitcher (šāf or ‫ܒ‬os) (fig. 6.33). This pitcher had two names. It was 27 cm high with a maximum diameter of 15.7 cm at 11.5 cm from the base. The base had a diameter of 6.5 cm. The neck was 8 cm high with a diameter of 7.6 cm; it gradually widened up to the rim, which had an outside diameter of 9.3 cm. The rims of some of these pitchers had a simple, slight depression-like spout to facilitate pouring. Opposite the spout, one handle was attached between the lower neck and the midpoint of the shoulder. This handle was 3.1 cm wide and 1.2 cm thick. There was a band of ribbing ca. 8 cm wide at the midpoint of the body. Two-handled water jug (mijūzah) (fig. 4.27). This jug was approximately 40 cm tall with a maximum diameter of 24 cm at 19 cm above the base. There was a band of ribbing ca. 7 cm wide between the neck and the lower part of the shoulder. The neck was 9 cm high with a ridge near its beginning point. The diameter of the neck was 8.6 cm; the diameter of the outer rim was 10.5 cm, and the inside diameter of the rim was 9 cm. The rim itself was 1.8 cm high. Two handles were attached opposite each other between the lower part of the neck and the lower shoulder. The base had a diameter of 10.6 cm. Gaza water jar (jarrah) (6.13 c). This was the traditional jar used by the women of the Gaza Strip to carry water from the well or spring to their homes (fig. 6.13 d). They carried it on their heads. The jarrah was 48.6 cm high, with a maximum diameter of 26 cm at 8.6 cm above the base. There was no distinct base. The neck of the vessel was ca. 10 cm high, with a diameter of 8.6 cm at ca. 8 cm below the top of the rim. There was a distinct ridge on the neck at ca. 7.5 cm from the top of the rim. At the same point on the inside there was a marked thickening, which might indicate that the upper part of the neck had been added there. Beginning at this ridge, and extending 4 cm above it, was a much-flattened concentric ribbing. There was also a band of more distinctive

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Fig. 6.30 -. Zibdiya

Fig. 6.29 -. Milk bowl

Fig. 6.31 -. Dough bowl

Fig. 6.32 -. Egyptian šarbeh

Fig. 6.33 -. One-handled water pitcher

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ribbing on the upper part of the shoulder between 12.5 and 18.5 cm below the top of the rim. Another band of ribbing 4 cm wide began on the curving wall 7 cm from the center of the bottom. The top of the rim was rounded, and 2.5 cm below it was an alternation of pointed ledge and downfolds, which extended around the entire circumference. This decoration was described above on the Gaza milk bowls. Two handles attached opposite each other extended immediately beneath the neck’s ridge to the ribbed section of the shoulder. The handles were 4 cm wide and 1.2 cm thick. The ledge and folds were each ca. 5 cm wide. Water storage jar (zīr or ‫ې‬abīah) (fig. 6.34). With a height of 48 cm, this handleless and neckless jar was in form a large version of the qidra, which will be described below. It was used for water storage. The body had a maximum diameter of 32.5 cm at 34 cm above the base, which had a diameter of 12.5 cm. The inner opening at the top was 13.6 cm in diameter, while the outer part of the rim was 16.6 cm in diameter. Four cm below the rim was the pointed ledge, where the folded-down decoration extended around the entire circumference. Here the ledge and folds were each ca. 1.4 cm long. The smaller milk bowl (kaškūlah), usually set upright on the jar’s rim, served as a cover. Jar cover (ġa‫ܒ‬āa qadrah). This vessel was essentially a small bowl with a height of 4 cm, a flaring rim 11.2 cm in diameter, and a flat base 4 cm in diameter.

Cooking Vessels In Gaza, two traditional forms of cooking vessels were sold and used: oven jars and cooking pots. Both vessel forms were meant to be placed inside an oven and never over an open fire. The oven jar was a container for cooking a traditional festive Gaza dish. These jars were too large to be placed inside an ordinary oven and instead were brought to a local bakery, where the ovens were larger. In the 1970s, these traditional forms represented a relatively small percentage of the Gaza potters’ workshop production. Oven jar (qidra). This jar was 37 cm high with a maximum diameter of 28 cm at 23 cm above the base, which had a diameter of 11.5 cm. The opening at the top was 10 cm in diameter, and the outside diameter of the rim was 11.4 cm. This jar had

neither handles nor a neck, but often there was a wavy band of combing or rouletting on the upper part of the shoulder ca. 4 cm below the rim. Filled with a mixture of rice, meat, onions, and garlic, the traditional festive meal of the Gaza Strip, this jar was usually placed in a large community oven and baked. Frequently the jar cracked in the oven and had to be discarded after being used once. One or more smaller sizes were also made. One-handled oven jar (‫ܒ‬abā‫ې‬ah). This jar was also designed for baking in an oven. A pigeon, tomatoes, and other items were placed in the jar and baked in an oven. The larger version stood 21.5 cm high and had a maximum diameter of 16.2 cm at 13 cm above the base. The base was 6.0 cm in diameter, while the 3-cm-high neck was 8.4 cm in diameter. The diameter of the outer rim was 9.8 cm. A single handle was located between the neck and the lower shoulder. A smaller version was 17.6 cm tall, with a maximum diameter of 12.5 cm at 10.8 cm from the base, which had a diameter of 5.1 cm. Its neck measured 7.4 cm in diameter, while the diameter of the outer rim was 8.5 cm. This jar too was designed to be placed either in the family tābūn or in the community oven. It looked much like the one-handled water pitcher (šāf or ‫ܒ‬os) except that it had no neck. Cooking pot (‫ܒ‬anjarrah) (fig. 6.14). This was a pot with a rounded bottom. The larger version was ca. 24 cm high with a maximum diameter of 22.3 cm. The outward flaring rim had an inner opening that was 11.6 cm in diameter, while the outer rim measured 15.5 cm in diameter. The two opposite handles, measuring 3.3 cm wide and 1.1 cm thick, connected the short neck, 13.8 cm in diameter, with the shoulder. A slightly smaller version was 19.5 cm high with a maximum diameter of 18.1, and the diameter of the outer rim was 13.6 cm. In the 1970s, the ceramic cooking pot, which was meant to be heated with wood or brush as the fuel, had been largely replaced by aluminum pots; these pots could withstand the intense localized heat of the pressurized kerosene burner, the primus, which was then the standard stove throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.104 This modern usage of wheel-made cooking vessels may be an indication of how such pots were used for cooking in the past. From the eighth century B.C., when wheel-made, sand-tempered cooking pots began to be made, perhaps these thinner-walled vessels were not set over open fires but rather within ovens. In more recent times, only calcite-tempered cooking pots were

104 Editors’ note: Since at least the late 1990s, propane gas has replaced the kerosene burner as the standard stove in Palestine.

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set over open fires. Within an oven the heat was relatively uniform, so that all the parts of the pot could be heated evenly. This was not the case for a vessel placed directly over a fire, where the bottom of the pot would at least initially be subjected to quite a different temperature than the pot’s top or sides. The same is true of modern cooking ware in that some ceramic pans can be placed in an oven but never over an open fire. Thinner-ware pyrex filled with liquid survives an open flame because this type of glass has a lower coefficient of expansion; that is, it does not expand much with heat. Calcite-tempered vessels probably survived an open fire due to the same phenomenon. Why, however, calcite-tempered items survived and grog tempers did not was not clear at the time of this study.

Milk Vessels Butter churn (hadadat zibdee) (fig. 6.15; fig. 6.35). The butter churn was essentially a large jar 47 cm long, which was closed at both ends. Each end had a foot ring (ring base). Its maximum diameter of 28 cm was near (13.5 cm from) the broad and flattened end, with a ring base that had a diameter of 6.3 cm. From the point of maximum diameter, the walls gradually tapered to a ring base 7.7 cm in diameter at the opposite end. This tapered end had some ribbing extending 11 cm above the base. An opening had been made in the side of the vessel, the center of which was ca. 14 cm from the broad end. Here a rim 13.6 cm in diameter with a short neck (the total height of the neck and the rim measuring 7 cm) had been added. Two handles 4.5 cm wide and 1.4 cm thick had been attached, which were opposite each other and in line with the longer axis, between the neck and the body. When in use, this vessel was suspended by the handles, partially filled with sour milk, and shaken back and forth until butter was formed, which, being lighter, floated to the top. The remaining liquid was made into dried sour milk balls (kišik). On most of the West Bank, however, sheepskin or goatskin churns were used by both village and Bedouin women. The ceramic churn was used in the Chalcolithic period in the fourth millennium B.C. In the 1970s, the ceramic butter churn was still being made in Gaza and Jaba‘. Milking jar (ma‫ۊ‬labeh) (fig. 6.36). This jar was used as a container for milking sheep or goats; the milk went directly into the jar. It was 27 cm high, with a maximum diameter of 12.7 cm at 13.7 cm above the base, which had a diameter of 5 cm. The neck began at 19 cm above the base. The body, but not the neck, was covered with broad ribbing (0.7 to 1.2 cm wide).

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The diameter of the outer rim was 9.7 cm, while the inside diameter of the rim was 7.8 cm. There were two handles, 2.7 cm wide and 1.2 cm thick, which were attached to the jar between the lower part of the neck and the lower shoulder. A similar jar was made at Jaba‘, where it was called a baqlūlah. Dipper juglet (kūz laban) (fig. 6.37). This juglet was very similar in shape to the ma‫ۊ‬labeh except that it was smaller, had only one handle, and had a spouted rim. It was used as a dipper juglet for both sour milk (laban) and water. Its height was 18.3 cm, with a maximum diameter of 9.3 cm at ca. 9 cm above the base. The base was 4.3 cm in diameter. With a narrowest diameter of 7.2 cm, the neck began at ca. 12.5 cm above the base. The outer diameter of the rim was 8.4 cm. A single handle was attached between the lowest part of the neck and the point of maximum diameter on the body. The handle was 3.1 cm wide and 1.1 cm thick.

Cylindrical Vessels Bee hive (‫ې‬alīah). These were large cylinders measuring 55 cm in length, with a diameter at each end of 24 cm and 22.2 cm, respectively. The diameter of the body varied between 19 cm and 22 cm. In use, these cylinders were closed at one end with a bowl and at the other end with clay. On the West Bank, one could see unbaked clay-chaff bee hives of approximately the same shape and size. They were closed at one end by a cover with a handle, which was removed only when the contents of honey and wax were being harvested. The other end was actually an integral part of the cylinder and had a small hole for the bees to fly in and out of. Drum (tableh). The drum was the only form that was never black ware. All of the other forms described here were black in color, since black was the traditional color for Gaza pottery. The Gaza drums were indistinguishable from the Hebron drums. We observed a man on the Sharia al Fuakhir who specialized in placing goatskins on drums. The skins came from freshly killed animals and had their hair still on them, which he removed with a sharpened piece of metal immediately before stretching a piece of skin over the drum. Before removing the hair, he soaked the skin in a bucket of water. The outer surface of the skin was always mounted face up on the drum. Drums were made in both red and white colors and were often decorated with enamel paint. Only one of the Gaza potters made white pottery.

258

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Ceramic flue (šarūq). We have no exact measurements for these open cylinders, which stood about 20 cm high and had a diameter of ca. 20 cm. They functioned as the openings between the firing chamber and the kiln itself. Jar stand or sewer pipe (‫ې‬atārah means “sewer pipe”). This was a short cylinder with a height of 9.6 cm, a diameter of 19.4 cm at one end, and a diameter of 16.2 cm at the other end.

Miscellaneous Vessels

Two other brothers from the al Dufda clan “were in Faluja before 1948.” “There were a total of eleven potters’ workshops in Faluja in 1948,106 and all of these potters originally came from Gaza; Faluja was a village of the Gaza sub-district. . . . After 1948 [one of these potters] opened a workshop in Jericho’s Aqabat Jaber Refugee Camp, and then after 1967 went to Jordan. After 1948, two of Faluja’s al Dufda potters reopened workshops in Gaza, which are in operation today [that is, in 1977]. Only one [member of another family] reopened a workshop in Gaza. [Two other clans] reopened [workshops] in Gaza but have since closed their shops.”

Bank (called by any one of three names: ‫ې‬azzānah, ‫܈‬aqātah, ‫ۊ‬awāšah). There were two forms. The first and more frequent form, which narrowed at each end, was 11.6 cm high and had a maximum diameter of 7.3 cm. The base was 4 cm in diameter, and there was a coin slot on the top. This form cost only 20 Israeli agorot, which was less than 3 U.S. cents. It was found in white and sometimes red. The second form was black and was also 11.6 cm high, with a diameter of 6.6 cm. In contrast to the first form, its sides were straight with a slight point at the top, the end with the coin slot. These banks were for children.

Summary of Our List of Gaza Potters and Workshops as of 10 July 1977 We listed twenty-five items, including workshops with the names of their owners and sometimes additional workshop personnel, as well as individual potter’s names.105 In some cases, we commented on the roles of the owner or owners and other workers, whether potters or assistants, in the shop. We also referred to Gaza potters working elsewhere, and to Gaza potters who had worked in various other places, such as the brothers Hamdi and Salami Zaigh: “In 1933 the two brothers went to Haifa and worked there at Kafr Samir until 1948. Salami returned to Gaza, but Hamdi went to Jenin, where he opened a workshop. He gathered his clay from underneath the bridge on the road between Jenin and Sandala. The clay needed sand, which he obtained from Tulkarm. Between 1964 and 1966, he opened a workshop in Irbid in Jordan and obtained his clay from al Jib. Around 1965 he went to Lebanon and worked there. During the winter he would return to Gaza; in the summers he worked in both Lebanon and Syria.”

List of Discontinued Gaza Pottery Forms as of July 1977 barbā‫ ;ې‬pl. barābi‫( ې‬2)107 a spouted jar, with one handle, for holding sesame oil and olive oil far‫ې‬a; pl. far‫ې‬āt (4)

the medium-sized water jar, smaller than the jarrah and larger than the ‘aslīa

ġa‫ܒ‬āa ibrīq (1)

a cover for the ibrīq

ibrīq sūs (2)

a large jar like the zīr, with a spout and one handle, used for pouring out the licorice drink (sūs)

irwejdi

a small juglet for laban

jām; pl. jāmāt (5)

ceramic cylinders built into the walls of the uppermost story of a building, used to lighten a wall’s weight

kānūn; pl. kānūnāt (2)

a large bowl with three legs used as a brazier

kūbāia; pl. kubāiat (1)

a cup with a single handle

kufta (1)

a jar cover

lagān ġasīl

a very large bowl used for washing clothes and as a bath tub

martabān; pl. martabānāt a two-handled jar for stor(2) ing olives and pickled hot peppers mutwadī

a foot bath

105 See also the Gaza portion of the list of potters on p. 272. 106 Editors’ note: Faluja was attacked and depopulated in 1948–1949 by Zionist-Israeli forces. 107 Editors’ note: The number after an entry refers to the Group forming techniques with which it was made.

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Fig. 6.34 -. Water storage jar

Fig. 6.36 -. Milking jar

Fig. 6.35 -. Butter churn; see fig. 6.15

Fig. 6.37 -. Dipper juglet

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260

qādūs, pl. qawadīs (2)

a ca. 0.5-meter-long cylindrical vessel attached to a water wheel

qasrīa (2)

a toilet pot for children

sirāj; pl. srajāt or asrija (1)

an oil lamp

sukurja (1)

a very small bowl used for olives, hot peppers, or for children’s use

zīr abū bē‫ڲ‬a (2)

a very large zīr holding ca. 15 tinneke, or 300 liters, of water

Brief synopsis of the Gaza pottery scene forty years later. During an interview conducted in November 2013, Muhammad al-Arabi (51), a potter working in Gaza

City, reported that, of the more than fifty pottery workshops and factories that had existed in the past (this figure conforms to the one given by Meyer in 1907108), near the end of 2013 “barely five” remained throughout the Gaza Strip. This was about eight months before Israel’s 51-day assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014. Thus, over part or all of the past century, more than 90 percent of the Gaza workshops have closed. Another older Gaza potter, Sabri Attallah, who was interviewed in June 2017, said that more than forty workshops had closed, apparently within a much shorter and more recent time period; his number suggests a precipitous drop in recent years. He also noted the lack of both governmental and non-governmental financial support for pottery production in Gaza, concluding that “no one cares whether it continues to survive in Gaza.”109

Reasons for the decline in the number of Palestinian male potters This decline was not primarily because of a decline in the demand for traditional wares. As some of the male potters demonstrated, especially in Hebron and Haifa, they could replace one market with another, for example, Palestinians with Israelis. Some of the variables involved in the decline in the number of male potters from the mid-twentieth century onward were: 1. The status of the profession, which was the main factor. Potters producing unglazed ware had a lower status than those producing glazed ware, which is cleaner work. Glazed ware sold mainly to a different socioeconomic group and was identified with the socioeconomic status of this market. The primary reason for the decline in the number of potters producing unglazed ware was that their

children were going to school instead of learning pot making, and they could raise their social status by doing so. Hence older potters were not being replaced. 2. The movement of potters out of the country as refugees. There were few if any male potters in Jordan before 1948; after 1948 there were many, most of them 1948 refugees from al Ramla. Some potters from northern Palestine moved to Lebanon in 1948. Further, if the number of potters became too great to be sustained by the local market, it seems that potters would move to a different location rather than dropping out of the profession. 3. A not very significant factor was competition from other materials such as plastic and metal.110 Potters could change to other types of ceramic

108 MEYER, City of Gaza, 107. 109 This “brief synopsis” is based on two online articles found at www.al-monitor.com/pulse/fr/originals/2013/11/gaza-potteryindustry-siege-economy.html, and http://www.rosaluxemburg.ps/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Pottery-in-Gaza-Sabri-Attallah. pdf. 110 This was not true in Pakistan, where most of the population lived at a low socioeconomic level—“subsistence”—so that competition from new, non-ceramic wares had a severe effect, as no “replacement market” existed. Thus, in Pakistan the decline in the number of potters was much more highly correlated with competition from wares made with other materials.

CHANGE AND STABILITY

production—for example, making flowerpots for Israelis, or glazed ware and miniature vessels for tourists—and by doing so remain in the profession. This involved a combination of individual initiative on the part of potters and learning from existing sources outside the tradition, in response to the market demand for new wares, which in this

261

area was generated mainly by a new population (Israelis) and tourists, although the Palestinian market for new wares could also increase.

Change and stability in traditions Effects of the 1948 and 1967 Wars on the Male Potters One of archaeologists’ fundamental assumptions is that, when one culture is conquered by another, there will be a change in pottery styles. Stated in reverse, a change in pottery styles “on the ground,” that is, as made in pottery workshops, along with other evidence of change, indicates a change in proprietorship of that piece of ground. One of the main aims of our fieldwork was to examine recent changes in the male potters’ work, especially in relation to major political events. Our approach essentially was to ask older potters, where possible, about when they first started making pottery in terms of materials used, forming techniques, range of vessels produced, fuels and firing, and marketing (who bought), and then to ask them what changes had occurred after 1948 and 1967, as well as about other changes not directly connected to the events of those years. Another question that we asked them was where they had worked over their lifetime. From this research, we learned that the direct effects of the wars of 1948 and 1967 on the potters included the following: 1. Some of the potters joined the rest of the population and fled as refugees. The most dramatic example of this was the Palestinian city of al Ramla, where before 1948 there were probably fifty potters and after 1948 there were none. Most of the al Ramla potters fled to Jericho and Jordan. Jericho, from having no potters before 1948, became an important center for year-round work because of its warm, dry climate, its new market of refugees, its central location for the West Bank and the East Bank of the Jordan River, and the convenient availability of suitable

materials. These potters continued to produce a range of vessels after 1948 similar to those they had produced before 1948, and to use similar techniques, apart from different raw materials and fuels. The Jericho refugee camps were abandoned in 1967, with the Jericho potters moving east to Jordan. 2. Some potters remained in the same location and adapted production to the new market. The Christian potters of Haifa are the most extreme example of this phenomenon; their pre-1948 production was mostly water storage jars for Palestinians, with a decreasing proportion of water jars produced after 1948 and an increasing proportion of flowerpots made for Jewish Israelis. After the 1967 war, cheap pots from Gaza, Hebron, and elsewhere shut down the Palestinian market altogether for the Haifa potters, who then learned how to produce modern artistic glazed ware and sold their pots to the Israeli market. Thus their repertoire and techniques changed totally. At two large centers, Hebron and Gaza, when we studied the repertoire of pots produced in all workshops, we found considerable differences among the workshops in that some still produced only traditional pots for Palestinians and some produced only new forms (flowerpots) for Israelis, with most somewhere in between. This divergence tended to correlate somewhat but not entirely with the age of the potters. A secondary effect of the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank was an increase in tourism, so that in the 1970s one group of Hebron potters produced entirely for the tourist market,

MALE POTTERS

262

with an almost total change in repertoire and techniques. Not so in Gaza, where there were not many tourists; but the Gaza potters then began to make many flowerpots for the Israeli market, which Hebron potters were already doing.111

to Syria to work, they worked in the Syrian tradition if they were employed by Syrian potters. Sometimes the opposite would be true and, if they could show that their techniques were superior in a practical way, the influence was reversed.

Some Palestinian potters who remained lost access to their sources of materials, for example, at the village of ‘Irtah, near Tulkarm, which lies right on the 1948 cease-fire line, with its clay source on the Israeli side. The potters of ‘Irtah did not change their repertoire but had to undertake a long search for a new clay source; they ended up transporting clay from al Jib near Jerusalem.

Although many potters knew of different working techniques in other areas, they did not necessarily adopt them unless the market required the adaptation. For example, a Jaba‘ potter learned how Hebron potters produced white ware, but he was not asked by customers for white ware and so he did not produce it. In contrast, he was asked for black ware and so began to produce that but only about ten years before the time of our study.

3. One major consequence of the wars of 1948 and 1967, resulting from the movement of potters, was a wide exchange of information among potters about the techniques and products of potters in other areas. Since most of the potters were then illiterate, information could be exchanged only by direct contact. For example, before 1948 some of the Hebron potters had worked in Jaffa, where they had learned about the Haifa potters’ techniques of using seawater to wet their clay and using sand as temper. These newly learned techniques enabled the production of white pottery and faster firing times. When the potters returned to Hebron during the 1948 war, they told the other Hebron potters about these techniques, which were then adopted mainly because of the advantage of faster firing times, meaning less work and greater production. As a side effect of the change in materials, however, the pottery produced was more porous, so that some vessels such as oil storage jars dropped out of the Hebron repertoire.

The Role of the Market regarding Change Generally among all the potters we studied, there was a wide knowledge of their tradition in the broader sense. They knew what potters made, and how, in other centers. This knowledge was spread by the movement of potters from one place to another. Some potters in larger centers such as Hebron, Gaza, and presumably al Ramla before 1948, tended to move to other areas when the number of potters became too great for the market, normally changing their techniques to suit the new area. So if they went

In general, the “conservatism” of potters so often referred to does not emerge here for the profession as a whole, although some individual potters may be conservative. The potters adapt to the market, especially the most profitable sector of the market. So the conservatism in pottery making of periods in the past may simply reflect unchanging societies. Hypothetically, does the greater the difference that exists between two societies in close contact mean the greater the change in pottery repertoire and techniques in both societies? Even if a new market emerges, and the potters want to adapt to it by producing different wares, they may not be able to follow through if this requires knowledge outside their tradition, especially if the people who have that knowledge consider it secret. Note the example of one Hebron potter who, for some fifteen years, tried to copy the Kutahya ware as made by Armenian potters in Jerusalem and only really succeeded after 1967, when Israeli ceramic suppliers made the materials and technology available. Archaeologically, we would almost invariably recover only the successful adaptations, since little evidence of the unsuccessful attempts would likely survive.

Summary of Degrees of Change A final question regarding changes in the tradition is, in which parts of the potter’s work did change most readily occur, and where was it least likely to occur? The sequence seems to be as follows:

111 Editors’ note: Given the Israeli blockade of Gaza since 2007, we assume that in 2020 there is no longer an Israeli market for Gaza pottery.

CHANGE AND STABILITY

1. The use of fuel—potters could change their fuel from one firing to the next. 2. The forms produced—a master potter could easily copy any form, and many of the potters produced variations within standard forms, for example, different rim treatments or even distinctive experimental forms. For these innovations to become permanent, they had to be accepted by the market. 3. Forming techniques—potters could fairly readily adapt forming techniques if a new form required new techniques, but they tended to work within the existing tradition.

263

4. Materials—a change in materials usually required extensive experimentation and could affect other parts of the process, such as drying, firing, productivity, and the function of vessels. 5. Kilns—kilns seem to have been the most stable and consistent part of the tradition; all Palestinian kilns had the same basic design. Kilns only changed when there was a complete change in the tradition, for example, after glazes were introduced.

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APPENDIXES Toponyms Revised by Jean-Baptiste Humbert Location

Arabic

Location

Diacritics

Arabic

Diacritics Fuqeīqīs

Abu Nabud

ΩϭΑΎϧϭΑ΃

Abū Nābūd

Fuqeiqis

‘Ain Hud

Ωϭϫϥϳϋ

‫ލ‬Ain Hūd

Gaza City

‫ލ‬Ain es-Sul৬ān

Hebron

ϝϳϠΧϟ΍

Al-঩alīl

‘Ain es Sultan

ϥΎρϠγϟ΍ϥϳϋ

αϳϘϳϘϓ ΓίϏΔϧϳΩϣ

Madīnat Ġazah

‘Ajjur

έϭ ͊Οϋ

‘Ajjūr

Huwwara

Γέ΍ϭΣ

ণūwwārah

Akka

Ύϛϋ

‘Akkā

‘Ifnaini

ΔϧΎϧϔϋ

‫ލ‬Ifnānah

‘Aqabat Jaber

‘Irtah

ΡΎΗέ·

’Irtāত

Al-‘Arrūb

‘Isfiyah

Ύϳϔγϋ

‫ލ‬Isfīyā

Aqabat Jaber al ‘Arrub

έΑΟΔΑϘϋ Ώϭ ˷έόϟ΍

Bardala

ΔϟΩέΑ

Bardalah

Issawiya

Beisan

ϥΎγϳΑ

Bīsān

Jaba‘

ΔϳϭΎγϳϋ ϊΑΟ

‫ލ‬Issāwīyah Jaba‫ލ‬

Beit ‘Anan

ϥΎϧϋΕϳΑ

Bīt ‘Anān

Jabalya

ΎϳϟΎΑΟ

Jabālīyah

Beit ‘Awwa

΍ϭϋΕϳΑ

Bīt ‘Awwā

Jalud

ΩϭϟΎΟ

Jalūd

Beit Ummar

έϣ΍ΕϳΑ

Bīt Ūmmar

Jedeidah

ΓΩϳΩΟ

Jadīdah

Bītūnyā

Jerusalem (al Quds)

αΩϘϟ΍

Al-Quds

Biddū

al Jib

ΏϳΟϟ΍

Al-Jīb

αϟϭΟ

Jūlis

Beitunia Biddu

ΎϳϧϭΗϳΑ ϭ˷ΩΑ

al Bina

ΔϧϳΑϟ΍

Al-Bīnah

Julis

al Bireh

ΓέϳΑϟ΍

Al-Bīrah

Jurish

εϳέϭΟ

Jūrīš

Bīr Nabālā

Kafr al Labad

ΩΑϠϟ΍έϔϛ

Kafar al-Labad

Al-Burj

Kafr ‘Aqab

ΏϘϋέϔϛ

Kafar ‘Aqab

Dālīah al-Karmal

Kafr Samir

έϣΎγέϔϛ

Kafar Sāmir

Dāmūr al-Nā‫ލ‬amah

Kamb al Tayaran

ϥ΍έϳρϟ΍ΏϣΎϛ

Kāmb al-৫ayarān

Dawāymah

Karama (Jordan)

Δϣ΍έϛ

Karāmah (Urdun)

Daīr al-Qamar

Khursa

ΎγέΧ

঩ursā

Daīr Sāmit

al Kom

ϡϭϛϟ΍

Al-Kōm

Al-঍āhirīyah

Kufr Yasif

Dūrā

Lattun

Bir Nabala al Burj Daliat al Karmel Damur al Naameh (Lebanon) Dawaimah Deir al Qamar

ϻΎΑϧέϳΑ ΝέΑϟ΍ ϝϣέϛϟ΍Δϳϟ΍Ω ϪϣϋΎϧϟ΍έϭΎϣΩ Δϣϳ΍ϭΩ έϣϘϟ΍έϳΩ

Deir Samit

ΕϣΎγέϳΩ

Dhahiriya

ΔϳέϫΎυϟ΍

Dura

΍έϭΩ

Faluja

ΔΟϭϟΎϓ

Fālūjah

Lifta

έ΍ ˷ϭϓ˴

Fawwār

Maqqurah

Fawwar

ϑϳγΎϳέϔϛ ϥϭρϟ ΎΗϔϟ ΡέϘϣ

Kufr Yāsīf La৬৬ūn Liftā Maqqur‫ލ‬a

270

TOPONYMS

Location

Arabic

Diacritics

Location

Arabic

Diacritics

al Mina

Ύϧϳϣϟ΍

Al-Mīnā

al Sawwiya

Muntar

έΎρϧϣ

Mun৬ār

Seileh

ΔϠϳγ

Al-Nabī Ya‫ލ‬qūb (‫ލ‬Irtā‫)ލ‬

Shufat

ρΎϔόη

Šu‫ލ‬afā৬

Silwad

Ω΍ϭϠγ

Silwād

Sinjil

ϝΟϧγ

Sinjil

Nabi Yakub, in the village of ‘Irtah Nablus

ϲϓ ΏϭϘόϳ ϲΑϧϟ΍ ΡΎΗέ·Δϳέϗ αϠΑΎϧ

Nāblus

ΔϳϭΎγϟ΍

Al-Sāwwiha Sīlah

Nazareth

ΓέλΎϧϟ΍

Al-Nāৢrah

Nuei‘ma

Δϣόϳϭϧϟ΍

Al-Nūy‫ލ‬mah

Qabalan

ϥϼΑϗ

Qabālan

Taanach = Ta‘anach

Qalandia

ΎϳΩϧϠϗ

Qalandīyā

al Tabaqa

ΔϘΑρϟ΍

Al-৫abaqah

Qalqilya

ΔϳϠϳϘϠϗ

Qalqīlīyah

Talfit

ΕϳϔϠΗ

Talfīt

Qaluniya (Moza, Heb.)

ΎϳϧϭϟΎϗ

Qālūnīyā

Tammun

Εϭϳέϗ

Qarīyūt

Tarim

Qubaībah

Tell er-Reqeish

Suweileh

Qaryut Qubaibah

ΔΑϳΑϗ

΢Ϡϳϭλ

ৡūweileত

ϙϧ˷όΗ

Ta‫ލ‬annak

ϥϭϣρ ϡϳέΗ εϳϗέϟ΍ϝΗ

৫ammūn Tarīm Tall al-Raqaīš

Qusra

Γέλϗ

Quৢrah

Tubas

αΎΑϭρ

৫ūbās

Ramallah

ௌϡ΍έ

Rām Allah

Tulkarm

ϡέϛϟϭρ

৫ūlkarm

Ramana

ΔϧΎϣέ

Ramānah

Usarin

ϥϳέλϭ΍

Ūৢarīn

al Ramla

ΔϠϣέϟ΍

Al-Ramlah

Ya‘bad

ΩΑόϳ

Ya‫ލ‬bad

Salāmah

Yatta

Ύρϳ

Ya৬৬ā

Salama

ΔϣϠγΔϣϼγ

Salem

ϡϟΎγ

Sālem

Yurqa

Samu‘

ωϭϣγ

Samū‫ލ‬

Wadi Abu al Qamrah

Sandala

ΔϟΩϧλ

ৡandalah

Wadi Horah

Potters’ workshops From al Ramla (fled 1948): - to Jericho (3) - to Ramallah: - to al Bireh (1) - then Qalandia (1) ‘Irtah (1) Jaba‘ (2) Nazareth (2) Haifa (2) Akka (1) Hebron (10, of which 1 closed) Gaza (15, of which 1 closed)

p. 163 p. 163 p. 164 p. 166 pp. 167–68 p. 187 pp. 187–88 p. 192 pp. 196–97 pp. 237–39

Δϗέϭϳ ΓέϣϘϟ΍ϭΑ΃ϱΩ΍ϭ ΓέϭΣϱΩ΍ϭ

Yūrqah Wādī Abū al-Qamrah Wādī ণūrah

271

Potters’ names by John Landgraf

Women Beit ‘Awwa Fuqeiqis (Ifqaqis) Beit ‘Anan

No named potters No named potters Hajit Wazna Shahada and her mother Other unnamed women mostly inactive Umm Hamdan, Warda ‘Ali Amina al A‘abna

al Jib

Umm ‘Abdalla, Debe Mohammed Dagash Beitunia

Safia Talib (Umm Taiasir) Sabha Shaqer Miriam Jaber (Umm Yusuf)

Sinjil

Halima 'Abd al Jaber Masalmah Safia Shahada al Fuqa Jamila Yusuf Khalil

Qusra

Wasile Hassan Ode (Umm Fathi) Sabha, mart al Shukri Sara Musa Abu Rede (Umm Nassar)

Jurish

Unnamed potter Hajit Zainab

Qabalan

Hajit Nimri

Kafr al Labad

Jamila, mart Mohammed Abu Tafish mart Azat Abu Bakar

Ya‘bad

Fatmah Qasim Fatmah ‘Atatri

ΎϬϣ΃ϭΓΩΎΣηΔϧίϭΔΟΎΣϟ΍

Δϧϳϣ΃ ˬϲϠϋ ΓΩέϭ ˬ ϥ΍ΩϣΣ ϡ΍ ΔϧΑΎϋϷ΍ εϏΩΩϣΣϣΔΑϳΫˬௌΩΑϋϡ΍ έϳγϳΗϡ΍ ΏϟΎρΔϳϔλ έϛΎηΔΣΑλ ϑγϭϳϡ΍ έΑΎΟϡϳέϣ ΔϣϟΎγϣέΑΎΟϟ΍ΩΑϋΔϣϳϠΣ Ύϗϭϔϟ΍ΓΩΎΣηΔϳϔλ ϝϳϠΧϑγϭϳΔϠϳϣΟ ϲΣΗϓϡ΍ ΓΩϭϋϥγΣϪϠϳγϭ ϱέϛηϟ΍ΔΟϭίΔΣΑλ έλΎϧϡ΍ ΓΩέϭΑ΍ϰγϭϣΓέΎγ ΏϧϳίΔΟΣ ΓέϣϧΔΟΣ ˬεϓΎρϭΑ΍ΩϣΣϣΔΟϭίΔϠϳϣΟ έϛΑϭΑ΍Ε΍ίϋΔΟϭί ϡγΎϗΔρΎϓ ϱέΗΎΗϋΔρΎϓ

ণajit Wazna Shaতada

Umm ণamdan, Warda ‘Ali Amina al A‘abna Umm ‘Abdallah, Dhebe Moতammed Daġaš ৡafia ৫alib (Umm Taīsīr) ৡabতa Šaker Miriam Jāber (Umm Yūsuf) ণalīma ‘Abd al Jāber Masālmah

ৡafia Šaতada al Fūqa Jamīla Yūsuf Khalīl Wasīle ণasan ‘Odeh (Umm Fatতi) ৡabতa, mart al Šukrī Sāra Mūsa Abu Rada (Umm Nāৢৢar) ণajit Zaīnab ণajit Nimri

Jamīla, mart Moতammed Abu ৫āfish mart ‘Azāt Abu Bakr Fā৬mah Qāsim Fā৬mah ‘A৬ā৬rī

Men Ramallah district

Hashem Hassan Sharaf Ibrahim Sharaf

al Ramla to Nablus to Jericho al Ramla to Haifa to Shufat al Ramla to Ramallah (al Bireh) to Qalandia ‘Irtah

Hashem Sharaf

Jaba‘

Mohammed Yunis Fakhuri

Said Samur

Khalil Mohammed Fakhuri

Michael Assis died 1972 Mohammed Hanafi Hanna Musmar

Haifa

έϭϣγΩϳόγ

Hāšem ণassan Šaraf Ibrahim Šaraf Hāšem Šaraf Sa‘īd Samūr

Unnamed potter

Hussein Khalid Fakhuri Nazareth

ϑέηϥγΣϡηΎϫ ϑέηϡϳϫ΍έΑ· ϑέηϡηΎϫ

Betros ‘Atalla father of the three brothers below Boulos, Raja, and Munir ‘Atalla three brothers in two workshops Yusuf Fakhuri Hanna Fakhuri Yonis Abdullah al Masri died 1964

ϱέϭΧΎϓΩϣΣϣϝϳϠΧ ϱέϭΧΎϓαϧϭϳΩϣΣϣ ϱέϭΧΎϓΩϟΎΧϥϳγΣ αϳγϋϝϳ΋ΎΧϳϣ ϲϔϧΣΩϣΣϣ έΎϣγϣΎϧΣ ΙϼΛϟ΍ΓϭΧϻ΍Ωϟ΍ϭ ͿΎρϋαέρΑ ϝϔγ΃ϡϬ΋Ύϣγ΃ΔΟέΩϣϟ΍ ΓϭΧϻ΍ ͿΎρϋέϳϧϣϭΎΟέˬαϟϭΑ ϥϳΗηέϭϟ΍ϲϓΙϼΛϟ΍ ϱέϭΧΎϓϑγϭϳ ϱέϭΧΎϓΎϧΣ ϱέλϣϟ΍ௌΩΑϋαϧϭϳ

Khalīl Moতammed Fākhūrī Moতammed Yūnis Fākhūrī ণusēin Khālid Fākhūrī Michael ‘Assīs Moতammed ণanafī ণanna Musmār Be৬ros ‘A৬āallah Būlos, Rajā, and Munīr ‘A৬āallah Yūsuf Fākhūrī ণanna Fākhūrī Yūnis ‘Abdullah al Maৢrī

272

POTTERS’ NAMES

Akka (Acre)

Ahmed, son of Abdel Rahman

Hebron

ϥϣΣέϟ΍ΩΑϋϥΑ΍ˬΩϣΣ΍

Aতmed

Nine workshop owners Jaudat al Fakhuri Mu‘ati Fakhuri ‘Abed al Halim Fakhuri Harbi Fakhuri, succeeded by his son Azmi Rasmi Fakhuri Ramadan Rasmi Fakhuri Rabia Rasmi Fakhuri Mohammed Rasmi al Fakhuri Naim al Fakhuri

ϱέϭΧΎϔϟ΍ΕΩϭΟ ϱέϭΧΎϔϟ΍ϲρόϣ ϱέϭΧΎϔϟ΍ϡϳϠΣϟ΍ΩΑϋ ϲϣίϋϩΩϟϭϭˬϱέϭΧΎϓϲΑέΣ ϱέϭΧΎϓϲϣγέ ϱέϭΧΎϓϲϣγέϥΎοϣέ ϱέϭΧΎϓϲϣγέϊϳΑέ ϱέϭΧΎϔϟ΍ϲϣγέΩϣΣϣ ϱέϭΧΎϔϟ΍ϡϳόϧ

Jaudat al Fākhūrī Mu‘a৬ī Fākhūrī ‘Abd al ণalīm Fākhūrī ণarbī Fākhūrī and son Azmi Rasmī Fākhūrī Ramadan Rasmī Fākhūrī Rabia‘ Rasmī Fākhūrī Moতammed Rasmī al Fākhūrī Naīm al Fākhūrī

Other Hebron potters Haj Yusuf Fakhuri Rajab Fakhuri Ibrahim Qattan Aref Fakhuri Abu Halif Abed Hamuli al Fakhuri

ϱέϭΧΎϓϑγϭϳΞΣ ϱέϭΧΎϓΏΟέ ˷ ϥΎρϗϡϳϫ΍έΑ΍ ϱέϭΧΎϓϑέΎϋ ϑϠΧϭΑ΃ ϱέϭΧΎϔϟ΍ΔϟϭϣΣΩΑϋ

ণaj Yūsuf Fākhūrī Rajab Fākhūrī Ibrahim Qa৬৬an ‘Aref Fākhūrī Abu ণalif ‘Abd ণamuli al Fākhūrī

Gaza Gaza: ণārat al Daraj

Hamdan and Hamdi Hajazi (brothers) Husni Abdallah al Masri Taufiq Hamid al Zibdah Salih and Hassan Joha (brothers) Haj Ismail Hana

Gaza: ণārat al Qarqāš

Said Yonis al Masri Mustafa Mahsan Atallah Tamar Hassan Isma‘il al Shobaki Abd al Baqi Filfil Taha Isbih Mohammed Abd al Latif Ali Haraz Yusuf al Shobaki Atallah Salman Atallah

Other Gaza potters on a list dated 10 July 1977

Hana al Mughrabi Mohammed Joha Khamis al Shobaki Hussein al Shobaki Jabir al Shobaki Omar al Shobaki Talib al Shobaki Talal al Shobaki Omar Joha Mohammed al Masri Nimir Hassan Hamdi Habashi Hamdi Zaigh Salami Zaigh Idris al Dufda Jalal al Dufda Mohammed al Dufda

ϱίΎΟΣϱΩϣΣϭϥ΍ΩϣΣΓϭΧϻ΍ ϱέόϣϟ΍ௌΩΑϋϲϧγΣ ΓΩϳΑίϟ΍ΩϣΣϕϳϓϭΗ ΎΣΟϥγΣϭ΢ϟΎλΓϭΧϻ΍ ΎϧΣϝϳϋΎϣγ΍ΞΣ ϱέόϣϟ΍αϧϭϳΩϳόγ ௌΎρϋϥγΣϣϰϔρλϣ ϥγΣέϣΎΗ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍ϝϳϋΎϣγ΍ ϝϔϠϓϲϗΎΑϟ΍ΩΑϋ ΢ϳΑλϪρ ϑϳρϠϟ΍ΩΑϋΩϣΣϣ ίέΣϲϠϋ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍ϑγϭϳ ͿΎρϋϥΎϣϠγௌΎρϋ ϲΑέϐϣϟ΍ΎϧΣ ΎΣΟΩϣΣϣ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍αϳϣΧ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍ϥϳγΣ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍έΑΎΟ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍έϣϋ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍ΏϟΎρ ϲϛΑϭηϟ΍ϝϼρ ΎΣΟέϣϋ ϱέόϣϟ΍ΩϣΣϣ ϥγΣέϣϧ ϲηΎΑΣϱΩϣΣ ώϳ΍ίϱΩϣΣ ώϳ΍ίΔϣϼγ ωΩϔοϟ΍αϳέΩ΍ ωΩϔοϟ΍ϝϼΟ ωΩϔοϟ΍ΩϣΣϣ

ণamdān and ণamdi ণajāzi ণusnī ‘Abdāllah al Maৢrī Taūfīq ণamid al Zibdah ৡāliত and ণasan Joতā ণāj Ismā‘īl ণanā Sa‘īd Yūnis al Maৢrī Mustafa Maতsan ‘A৬āallah Tāmar ণasān Ismā‘īl al Šūbakī ‘Abd al Bāqī Filfil ৫aha ৡbīত Moতammad ‘Abd al La৬īf ‘Ali ণaraz Yūsuf al Šūbakī ‘A৬āallah Salmān ‘A৬āallah ণanā al Muġrabī Moতammad Jaতā Khamīs al Šūbakī ণusēin al Šūbakī Jabir al Šūbakī ‘Omar al Šūbakī ৫ālib al Šūbakī ৫alāl al Šūbakī ‘Omar Jaতā Moতammad al Maৢrī Nimir ণasān ণamdi ণabaši ণamdi Zāīġ Salāmi Zāīġ Idrīs al ঋufda‘ Jalāl al ঋufda‘ Moতammed al ঋufda‘

273

Glossary of technical terms by Owen Rye

annulus A circular ring shape.

ash The mineral left over after wood has burned; it contains many alkaline salts that can react with the silica in the clay to make a glaze.

biscuit firing A preliminary firing of ware that makes the clay both hard enough and porous enough to glaze easily.

blunger A machine for mixing clay and water to form a slip.

burnish To produce a sheen on the surface of clay by rubbing with a smooth object when the clay is leather hard.

calcareous Containing calcium carbonate.

calcination Preparing a material for further processes by preheating it; for example, clay can be calcined to around 700 °C to remove combined water from the clay mineral.

calcite Crystalline form of calcium carbonate.

carination A ridge shape.

chert Amorphous (non-crystalline) siliceous stone.

chuck A device for holding a vessel (usually part-formed) in place on the potter’s wheel.

coil (verb) To make clay objects by building with rope-like coils of clay.

damper A movable item at the base of the chimney that restricts the flow of gases out of the kiln; it is pushed in to achieve reduction.

earthenware Pottery fired at low temperatures to a porous state that can be made impervious to liquids by the use of glaze; it is usually but not always buff, red, or brown in color.

firebox The portion of a kiln where the fuel is burned.

flywheel A large-diameter wheel intended to maintain momentum —the potter kicks on top of this flywheel located at the bottom of the potter’s wheel, which is located in a pit.

foot ring Ring base.

glaze A glassy layer fused onto the surface of a ceramic vessel.

grog Clay that has been fired and then ground into granules of greater or lesser fineness.

kaolin A clay mineral (kaolinitic).

leather-hard Condition of clay that has dried sufficiently to be stiff, but is still damp enough to be joined to other pieces with slip.

levigation Refining clay by water flotation.

lime blowing Damage to pottery caused by the expansion of calcium oxide forming calcium hydroxide after firing limestone or calcite grains past the dissociation temperature.

marl An impure calcareous clay; sometimes used to describe a low-grade fireclay.

Moza A geological formation distinctive to Palestine/Israel.

open firing Firing in which the flame may impinge on the ware; firing ware without using a kiln.

oxidation A chemical reaction with oxygen.

oxide Any element combined with oxygen.

pit-kick wheel A type of potter’s wheel that is driven by the potter kicking on top of a large flywheel.

plasticity The property of a material enabling it to be shaped and to hold its shape.

pottery Objects, and especially vessels, which are made from fired clay.

press mold (verb) To form a shape from clay by pressing the clay into a mold.

pug mill A machine that mixes and extrudes clay; to pug means “to mix.”

274

GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS

pyrometer A device for indicating the temperature in the kiln as measured by a thermocouple to which it is connected.

reduction A reaction taking place in the absence of oxygen; firing with insufficient oxygen in the kiln to burn all the fuel.

refractory Having a high melting point, resistant to heat.

refractory bricks Bricks that withstand high temperatures.

rendzina A fertile lime-rich soil with dark humus above a pale soft calcareous layer, typical of grassland on chalk or limestone.

rill, rilling A type of decoration on the upper part of the water jug.

roulette A gear wheel fixed on an axle; in vessel making, it is rotated against a rotating vessel of soft clay to make a decorative set of lines around the vessel.

settling bed A pit into which clay slip is poured to allow coarse impurities to settle to the bottom.

sherds Pieces of broken pottery.

slake, slaking Forming a slurry by soaking dried clay in water.

slip A fluid suspension of clay in water.

slurry A fluid mixture of plastic clay and water.

soak Maintain a temperature in the kiln without deviation in order to smooth-glaze or to burn out carbonaceous materials.

spall, spalling Cracking or breaking away of corners or faces on bricks or fired clay.

stack To set a kiln with pottery.

stokehole The opening where solid fuel is placed into a kiln firebox; aperture for feeding wood into a kiln.

temper A term used by archaeologists to describe what is known in ceramics as non-plastics: material added to clay to decrease shrinkage, to facilitate forming, and in some instances to prevent large cracks from forming during drying or firing.

terra rosa Literally, “red earth.”

thermocouple A device for measuring temperature by converting heat into an electrical voltage; in practice it is connected to a pyrometer, a gauge that indicates the temperature.

throw To make pottery on a potter’s wheel.

throwing from the hump Throwing many smaller vessels from one lump of clay (hump) on the potter’s wheel.

tournette A disc shape used to rotate a vessel while forming; it may be made from fired or unfired clay, or often from wood.

vitrify To fire to the point of glassification.

volatilize, volatilization To form a vapor from a liquid, evaporate.

wasters Vessels or portions of vessels damaged in any way during the firing process.

water smoking Slow heating at the beginning of a kiln firing, which is intended to remove all water from the clay.

wedge (verb) To knead or mix plastic clay by cutting or rolling by hand to make it uniform.

wheel head Disc on a potter’s wheel, where the clay is placed to shape it (with the wheel head revolving).

275

Palestinian census figures for 1967 and 1997 1967 Census Population Numbers

Place Hebron

1948 Refugees from Israel

No. of households

Total

2,808

7,430

38,309

66

515

2,630

657

1,007

4,954

52

273

1,468

12,397

23,526

118,358

27

297

1,173

212

272

1,261

JERUSALEM DISTRICT (excluding East Jerusalem)

5,974

6,215

29,904

RAMALLAH DISTRICT TOTAL (urban areas)

11,655

5,299

25,171

239

444

1,984

18

375

1,823

8,495

7,821

44,223

Qabalan

19

433

1,970

Qusra

34

256

1,164

26,599

29,939

152,381

2

252

1,163

Ya‘bad

581

889

4,857

‘Irtah

47

205

912

Jaba‘

123

554

2,817

14,384

15,382

78,295

206,970

60,636

356,261

Beit Ummar Dura Beit ‘Awwa HEBRON DISTRICT al Jib Beit ‘Anan

Beitunia Sinjil NABLUS URBAN AREA TOTAL

NABLUS DISTRICT TOTAL (urban, villages, camps) Kafr al Labad (in Tulkarm district)

JENIN DISTRICT TOTAL (urban, villages, camps) GAZA STRIP TOTAL (urban, villages, camps)

276

PALESTINIAN CENSUS FIGURES

1997 Palestinian Population* by Sex and Governorate

Governorate

Sex Ratio

Both Sexes

Female

Male

Jenin

103.8

203,026

99,619

103,407

Tubas

103.1

36,609

18,026

18,583

Tulkarm

102.2

134,110

66,329

67,781

Qalqilya

105.7

72,007

35,005

37,002

Salfit

103.6

48,538

23,843

24,695

Nablus

103.3

261,340

128,522

132,818

Ramallah & al Bireh

100.4

213,582

106,594

106,988

Jerusalem

102.1

328,601

162,600

166,001

Jericho

101.7

32,713

16,222

16,491

Bethlehem

104.8

137,286

67,048

70,238

Hebron

104.9

405,664

197,975

207,689

West Bank

103.2

1,873,476

921,783

951,693

North Gaza

103.7

183,373

90,008

93,365

Gaza

103.6

367,388

180,418

186,970

Deir al Balah

102.4

147,877

73,058

74,819

Khan Yunis

102.5

200,704

99,097

101,607

Rafah

102.0

122,865

60,813

62,052

Gaza Strip

103.1

1,022,207

503,394

518,813

Palestinian Territories

103.2

2,895,683

1,425,177

1,470,506

*The two 1997 tables include “population counted during the period of 10-24/12/1997, uncounted population estimates according to post-enumeration survey, and population estimates for those parts of Jerusalem annexed by Israel in 1967.”

The two 1997 tables (Table 1 and Table 7) were accesssed on 2 October 2020 at http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/pcbs_2012/Publications.aspx?catid=3. Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 1998. Population Housing, and Establishment Census 1997, Census Final Results-Summary (Population, Housing Units, Buildings and Establishments), pp. 41, 47. Ramallah-Palestine [30/11/1998]

PALESTINIAN CENSUS FIGURES

277

1997 Palestinian Population by Refugee Status, Region, and Sex

Palestinian Territories Refugee Status Registered Refugee Non-Registered Refugee Not Refugee Not Stated Total

Percentage

Both Sexes

Female

Male

39.8 1.6

1,033,515 41,203

505,322 21,838

528,193 19,365

58.0 0.6 100.0

1,507,207 15,691 2,597,616

741,413 8,055 1,276,628

765,794 7,636 1,320,988

Gaza Strip Refugee Status Registered Refugee Non-Registered Refugee Not Refugee Not Stated Total

Percentage 64.0 1.1

Both Sexes 640,140 11,431

Female 315,964 5,711

Male 324,176 5,720

34.5 0.4 100.0

345,227 3,719 1,000,517

169,127 1,969 492,771

176,100 1,750 507,746

West Bank Refugee Status Registered Refugee Non-Registered Refugee Not Refugee Not Stated Total

Percentage 24.6 1.9

Both Sexes 393,375 29,772

Female 189,358 16,127

Male 204,017 13,645

72.8 0.7 100.0

1,161,980 11,972 1,597,099

572,286 6,086 783,857

589,694 5,886 813,242

LIST OF FIGURES © J. L., John Landgraf © O. R., Owen Rye

1.1 -. Mamluk handmade forms (J. L.) ....................................................................................................................................... 6 1.2 -. a) Woman potter at Fuqeiqis adding a layer, or coil (J. L.) b) Woman potter, probably at Qabalan, making a typical Palestinian tābūn (J. L.) c) Woman potter crushing a clay chunk with a rolling stone at Qabalan, assisted by her husband (J. L.) ............ 9 1.3 -. Graph showing thermal expansion of minerals (relating expansion to temperature) (J. L.).................................. 14 1.4 -. A pile of ancient sherds collected from a nearby archaeological site to be crushed into grog (J. L.)................... 15 1.5 -. View of cattail (bulrush) growing; it can be used as a tempering agent (J. L.) ......................................................... 15 1.6 -. Woman at Beit ‘Anan cooking over a mōqade (U-shaped clay holder for a cooking fire) (J. L.)............................. 16 1.7 -. a) The typical local Palestinian calcite used as a tempering agent (J. L.) b) Hammering calcite chunks (J. L.) c) Crushing calcite with a rolling stone (J. L.) d) Crushed fine calcite from al Jib, with a sieve on the left side (J. L.) ...................................................................... 17 1.8 -. A painted jar (J. L.) ............................................................................................................................................................ 19 1.9 -. Al Jib potter’s husband (a) filling a bag with cooking pots and (b) loading them onto a donkey to be distributed and sold in regional markets (J. L.) ............................................................................................................. 21 1.10 -. a, b) Firing graphs of firings at al Jib (two) and Qusra (one) (J. L.) ........................................................................... 24 1.11 -. a, b) Dung cakes used as fuel by Sinjil potters (J. L.) ................................................................................................... 25 2.1 -. View of the Dura region (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................................ 26 2.2 -. a, b) Beit ‘Awwa potter attaching a handle to a typical water jar between the rim and the shoulder (J. L.) ........ 29 2.3 -. The preparation of clay at Fuqeiqis a) Soaking clay in a metal pan (J. L.) b) Adding chaff to the clay (J. L.) c) Sieving grog using a very fine sieve (J. L.) d) Mixing clay and tempers in a way similar to the kneading of dough (J. L.) e) Adding the second portion of the tempering agents to the clay (J. L.) ................................................................ 31 2.4 -. a, b) Forming the bottom from a thick disc (Fuqeiqis) (J. L.) c) Rolling a lump of clay into a cylinder (J. L.) d, e, f) Forming the upper part of the jar by coiling (d, Fuqeiqis; e, f, Beit ‘Awwa) (J. L.) ..................................... 33 2.5 -. a, b, c) Stages of forming the water jar (J. L.) ................................................................................................................ 34 2.6 -. a) Pit or hole dug before a firing at Fuqeiqis (J. L.) b) Starting a fire at Fuqeiqis (J. L.) c) Potter poking the fuel to increase the firing temperature at Beit ‘Awwa (J. L.) d, e, f) Three firing stages for a Beit ‘Awwa jar (J. L.) .................................................................................................. 35 2.7 -. Rolling a large stone to crush the clay chunks (J. L.) ................................................................................................... 37 2.8 -. Wedging a lump of clay (J. L.) .......................................................................................................................................... 39 2.9 -. A pile of enough clay lumps made to complete a pot (J. L.) ...................................................................................... 39

280

LIST OF FIGURES

2.10 -. a) The first stage in forming the base as a disc (J. L.) b) Working from the formed base of a large water jar (J. L.) c) A slab added to the base for raising the walls (J. L.) d) Making a clay loaf (J. L.) e) Pulling up the clay to form the jar’s walls (J. L.) f) Using a wooden tool to help in drawing up the wall (J. L.)..................................................................................... 40 2.11 -. a, b) Potter trimming the rim with her thumb (J. L.) c) Placing the pot in the sun for a short drying phase (J. L.) ...................................................................................... 41 2.12 -. a) Forming the upper part of the jar by pulling the clay upward and inward (J. L.) b) Finishing the flat rim with a flat stick (J. L.) ............................................................................................................. 42 2.13 -. a) Forming a handle (J. L.) b, c) Drawing an incision line down the handle’s length (J. L.) d) Building the upper layers of a water jar (J. L.) e) Making the rim with a small piece of clay (J. L.) f) Applying the rope decoration to the wet clay (J. L.) ................................................................................................ 43 2.14 -. a) Older jar showing tree designs above the handles (J. L.) b) Using a chicken feather to paint a jar (J. L.).............................................................................................................. 44 2.15 -. Preparing the firing space (J. L.) ...................................................................................................................................... 46 2.16 -. Raising a jar above the ground using three stones (J. L.) ............................................................................................ 46 2.17 -. a, b, c, d, e) Various firing stages at Beit ‘Anan (J. L.) .............................................................................................46-47 2.18 -. Firing graph for the water jars at Beit ‘Anan (J. L.) ...................................................................................................... 49 2.19 -. Metal scraps covering the pottery pile to protect it from rain (J. L.)......................................................................... 49 2.20 -. Trash composed of fiber used as a fuel (J. L.)............................................................................................................... 49 2.21 -. Potters carrying branches to the firing site (J. L.) ......................................................................................................... 49 2.22 -. Uncovering fired pots, which show black spots on the surface (J. L.) ...................................................................... 49 2.23 -. a, b, c, d) Stages of building the intermediate form by hand and with a wooden tool (J. L.) ................................ 52 2.24 -. a, b, c, d) Stages of attaching the handles to the cooking pot (J. L.) .......................................................................... 53 2.25 -. Firing graph for the cooking pots at Beit ‘Anan (J. L.) ................................................................................................ 54 2.26 -. Arranging the water jars before firing (J. L.) ................................................................................................................. 55 2.27 -. Covering the pots with metal pans (J. L.) ...................................................................................................................... 55 2.28 -. A distant view of al Jib (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................................... 56 2.29 -. Breaking down the dried clay using a hammer (J. L.) .................................................................................................. 58 2.30 -. a, b) Tools for grinding and sieving the calcite (J. L.) .................................................................................................. 59 2.31 -. A lump of clay used to form the lower part of the cooking pot (J. L.) ..................................................................... 59 2.32 -. The roughly shaped cup created in the first stage of forming the cooking pot (J. L.) ........................................... 59 2.33 -. The al Jib potter’s exclusive use of a plate in the initial forming of the cooking pot (J. L.) ................................. 59 2.34 -. a, b, c) Stages of raising and forming the lower part of the cooking pot body (J. L.)............................................. 60 2.35 -. a, b) Shaping the thickened rim (J. L.) ............................................................................................................................ 60 2.36 -. a, b) Making a handle from a clay roll, or coil (J. L.) .................................................................................................... 60 2.37 -. a, b, c, d, e) Stages of attaching the handle from the V-shaped roll (J. L.) ................................................................ 61 2.38 -. Potter using her forefinger to make a hole in the handle (J. L.) ................................................................................. 62 2.39 -. Wet-smoothing the cooking pot (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................... 62 2.40 -. a, b) Applying an incised decoration (J. L.).................................................................................................................... 62 2.41 -. A pot with incised decoration complete (J. L.) ............................................................................................................. 62

LIST OF FIGURES

2.42 -. 2.43 -. 2.44 -. 2.45 -. 2.46 -.

2.47 -. 2.48 -. 2.49 -. 2.50 -. 2.51 -. 2.52 -. 2.53 -. 2.54 -. 2.55 -. 2.56 -. 2.57 -. 2.58 -. 3.1 -. 3.2 -. 3.3 -. 3.4 -. 3.5 -. 3.6 -. 3.7 -. 3.8 -. 3.9 -. 3.10 -. 3.11 -. 3.12 -. 3.13 -. 3.14 -. 3.15 -. 3.16 -. 3.17 -. 3.18 -. 3.19 -. 3.20 -. 3.21 -. 3.22 -. 3.23 -. 3.24 -. 3.25 -.

281

Cooking pots placed upside down in the cooking room to dry overnight (J. L.) .................................................... 64 Evening out the lower walls of the cooking pot by finger-pressing the clay (J. L.) ................................................. 64 Trimming the outer ridges with a knife (J. L.)............................................................................................................... 64 Wet-smoothing the surface of the pot with her fingers (J. L.).................................................................................... 64 a) Smoothing the bottom with a reed tool (J. L.) b) Final wet-smoothing with radial movements using one fingertip (J. L.) c) The bottom of the pot after the final wet-smoothing (J. L.) .................................................................................. 65 Pots being raised off the ground in a shallow firing pit (J. L.).................................................................................... 67 a, b, c) Sarcopoterium covering the pots, blazing, and fading quickly (J. L.)............................................................ 67 Building up from the flat base of a water jar formed on a straw tray (J. L.) ............................................................ 76 The walls of the jar drawn up into a large bowl (J. L.)................................................................................................. 76 Diagonal marks left after pulling the walls up with the help of a spoon tool (J. L.) ............................................... 76 The serrated margin formed by trimming and pressing the upper edge (J. L.) ....................................................... 76 a, b, c, d) Adding a series of layers to build the upper walls (J. L.) .......................................................................76-77 Handles that have been formed (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................... 77 Attaching a handle to the jar’s middle part (J. L.) ......................................................................................................... 77 Two handles attached to the jar’s maximum diameter (J. L.) ...................................................................................... 77 The completed jar (J. L.) ................................................................................................................................................... 77 Water jar placed inside the house (J. L.) ......................................................................................................................... 78 View of Sinjil from the north (J. L.) ............................................................................................................................... 79 Crushing clay using a rolling stone (J. L.) ...................................................................................................................... 81 Potters’ tools, including a sieve and grinding stone (J. L.)........................................................................................... 81 A mixture of clay and grog ready for use (J. L.)............................................................................................................ 81 Forming tools, including a straw tray (J. L.) .................................................................................................................. 81 Forming the flat base (J. L.) ............................................................................................................................................. 81 Wet-smoothing the base (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................................ 81 Adding a clay slab to the foundation to build the wall of a pot (J. L.) ...................................................................... 82 Kneading a lump of clay before making a clay slab (J. L.) .......................................................................................... 82 a, b, c) Making a clay slab (J. L.) ...................................................................................................................................... 82 Joining the first slabs to the clay disc (J. L.)................................................................................................................... 84 a, b) Pulling the clay to smooth the lower walls (J. L.)................................................................................................. 84 Building the pot’s lower wall, with view of flared-out base (J. L.) ............................................................................. 84 a, b, c) Thinning the walls by hand and with the help of a wooden tool (J. L.) ....................................................... 85 Potter using a broken piece from a wooden hoop (J. L.) ............................................................................................ 85 The final product of the first stage, shaped like a shallow bowl (J. L.) ..................................................................... 85 a, b) Building the second layer from the grooved slabs (J. L.) .................................................................................... 86 The walls of the water jar drawn up to form a deep bowl (J. L.) ............................................................................... 86 a, b, c) Forming the upper walls from additional clay slabs (J. L.) ............................................................................. 86 The completed body of a jar (J. L.) ................................................................................................................................. 87 a, b) Making a handle with an oval section (J. L.) ......................................................................................................... 88 a, b, c) Attaching the handle and strengthening the join with extra clay (J. L.)........................................................ 88 Measuring the handles’ placement with hand spans (J. L.) ......................................................................................... 89 a, b, c) Forming the neck from two short slabs (J. L.) ................................................................................................. 89 Adding small clay pieces to form the top (J. L.) ........................................................................................................... 91

282

3.26 -. 3.27 -. 3.28 -. 3.29 -. 3.30 -. 3.31 -. 3.32 -. 3.33 -. 3.34 -. 3.35 -. 3.36 -. 3.37 -. 3.38 -. 3.39 -. 3.40 -. 3.41 -. 3.42 -. 3.43 -. 3.44 -. 3.45 -. 3.46 -. 3.47 -. 3.48 -. 3.49 -. 3.50 -. 3.51 -. 3.52 -. 3.53 -. 3.54 -. 3.55 -. 3.56 -. 3.57 -. 3.58 -. 3.59 -. 3.60 -. 3.61 -. 3.62 -. 3.63 -. 3.64 -. 3.65 -. 3.66 -. 3.67 -. 3.68 -. 3.69 -.

LIST OF FIGURES

Rubbing the inside with a slip-moistened rag (J. L.) .................................................................................................... 91 Painting jars with red paint made from miġre (J. L.)...................................................................................................... 91 a, b, c) Stages followed in painting a jar (J. L.) .............................................................................................................. 92 Laying the jars over the first dung layer and beginning a second layer (J. L.) ......................................................... 93 After covering the pots with dung, placing metal pieces at the edges (J. L.)............................................................ 93 Lighting the straw to start the fire (J. L.)........................................................................................................................ 95 Firing graph of three firings at Sinjil (J. L.).................................................................................................................... 95 Halima’s jars placed over the dung in a firing pit (J. L.)............................................................................................... 95 The largest jars being placed on their sides facing east (J. L.) .................................................................................... 95 The top of the dung pile covered with a large amount of straw (J. L.) ..................................................................... 95 Some of the pots that were fired (J. L.) .......................................................................................................................... 97 Jamila spreading a layer of ash on the ground to prepare for firing (J. L.) ............................................................... 97 Jamila’s son with his goats, providing enough dung to cover the pots (J. L.) ....................................................... 97 One of Jamila’s daughters carrying a jar to the firing place (J. L.) ............................................................................. 97 Placing jars and adding dung around and between the jars (J. L.) ............................................................................. 99 Used burlap bags added to the firing (J. L.)................................................................................................................... 99 A jar that cracked during the firing (J. L.) ...................................................................................................................... 99 Landscape with quarry near Qusra (J. L.) .................................................................................................................... 100 a, b) A crushing stone and sieve used in clay preparation at Qusra (J. L.) ............................................................. 102 Making a clay disc from a clay lump (J. L.) .................................................................................................................. 102 Forming a clay slab used to build the walls (J. L.) ...................................................................................................... 103 a, b, c, d) Stages of building the lower walls of the jar (J. L.) .................................................................................... 103 Tools used for smoothing the walls (J. L.) ................................................................................................................... 106 Making a jar handle (J. L.) .............................................................................................................................................. 106 a, b) Attaching the handles by adding bits of clay (J. L.) ........................................................................................... 107 a, b, c, d) Stages of forming the upper body of the jar (J. L.) ................................................................................... 107 The two finished jar types made with or without a short neck (J. L.) ..................................................................... 108 Applying slip to the jar exterior (J. L.) .......................................................................................................................... 108 a, b) Jars laid over a layer of dung cakes, and a pile of dung cakes ready to cover the jars behind it (J. L.) ...... 108 a, b, c) Stages of firing the water jars (J. L.) ................................................................................................................. 109 The fired forms (J. L.) .....................................................................................................................................................109 A painted jar (J. L.) ..........................................................................................................................................................111 Using an old cooking pot as a mold (J. L.) .................................................................................................................. 111 Making a clay disc to form the cooking pot base (J. L.) ............................................................................................ 112 a, b, c) Forming and smoothing the cooking pot’s lower walls and base (J. L.).................................................... 112 Drying the finished base in the sun (J. L.) ................................................................................................................... 113 a, b) Metal pan with hole scooped out of the ash, and pot then set in the pan (J. L.).......................................... 113 The interior of the base still covered with cloth (J. L.) .............................................................................................. 113 Filling the grooves with extra pinches of clay (J. L.).................................................................................................. 114 a, b) Smoothing the lower surfaces with the help of a wooden spoon tool (J. L.) ................................................ 114 a, b) Clay slabs used to form the walls (J. L.) .............................................................................................................. 114 The interior surface after being wet-smoothed (J. L.)................................................................................................ 115 a, b) Handles attached to the pot’s maximum diameter (J. L.) ................................................................................. 115 Firing the cooking pots (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................................ 115

LIST OF FIGURES

283

3.70 -. Scene with children at Qabalan (J. L.) ......................................................................................................................... 116 3.71 -. a, b, c, d) Crushing and sieving tempering agents: grog in a) and calcite in b, c, d) (J. L.) ................................. 118 3.72 -. a, b, c, d) Adding chaff and kneading the clay mixture (J. L.) .................................................................................. 119 3.73 -. a, b) Forming the flat base on a straw tray (J. L.)....................................................................................................... 120 3.74 -. Making a clay slab (J. L.) ................................................................................................................................................120 3.75 -. a, b) Using clay slabs to build the lower jar walls (J. L.) ............................................................................................ 121 3.76 -. Smoothing the wall exterior with a wooden spoon (J. L.) ........................................................................................ 121 3.77 -. a, b, c) Raising the jar walls from a second layer of clay slabs (J. L.) ...................................................................... 122 3.78 -. a, b, c, d, e) Continuing with another slab layer to form the jar up to the neck level (J. L.) ............................... 124 3.79 -. Making a handle from a clay lump (J. L.) .................................................................................................................... 125 3.80 -. a, b, c) Attaching a handle with a small piece of clay (J. L.) ..................................................................................... 125 3.81 -. a, b) Shaping the neck and rim with small dabs of clay (J. L.) ................................................................................. 126 3.82 -. Aluminum pot to be used by the potter as a mold (J. L.) ......................................................................................... 126 3.83 -. The completed cooking pot of Qabalan (J. L.) .......................................................................................................... 126 3.84 -. Kafr al Labad seen on the horizon (J. L.) ................................................................................................................... 127 3.85 -. Making a flat disc from a clay lump (J. L.) .................................................................................................................. 129 3.86 -. a, b) The potter using her fist to shape the base of a cooking pot (J. L.) .............................................................. 129 3.87 -. Forming a shallow bowl as the bottom of the base (J. L.) ....................................................................................... 129 3.88 -. Forming a rope-like roll, or coil (J. L.)......................................................................................................................... 129 3.89 -. Using stones to support the walls and handles (J. L.) ............................................................................................... 130 3.90 -. a, b) Making a clay coil and pressing it into the rim (J. L.) ....................................................................................... 130 3.91 -. a, b, c) Applying the coil to form the upper part (J. L.) ............................................................................................ 131 3.92 -. The finished rim of the cooking pot (J. L.)................................................................................................................. 132 3.93 -. Completed pots set out to dry in full sun (J. L.) ........................................................................................................ 132 3.94 -. Forms made at Kafr al Labad (J. L.) ............................................................................................................................ 132 3.95 -. Ya‘bad pots with landscape background (O. R.) ........................................................................................................ 133 3.96 -. a, b) Clay preparation by Fatmah Qasim at Ya‘bad (O. R.) ...................................................................................... 135 3.97 -. a, b) A stone handmill and sieve used to crush and sieve the calcite temper (O. R.) ......................................... 135 3.98 -. Kneading the clay body to prepare it for pot making (J. L.) .................................................................................... 135 3.99 -. a, b) Forming a clay disc (J. L.) ..................................................................................................................................... 137 3.100 -. a, b, c) Forming a clay coil and attaching it to the disc (J. L.) .................................................................................. 137 3.101 -. a, b, c) Building up the wall as a cylinder from the base (O. R.) ............................................................................ 138 3.102 -. a, b) Applying pressure from the inside and outside to shape and smooth the vessel (J. L.) ............................. 138 3.103 -. a, b, c) Attaching the handles to the spherical body (O. R. a, b) (J. L. c) ............................................................. 139 3.104 -. Burnished cooking pots set aside to dry (J. L.) .......................................................................................................... 139 3.105 -. Placing the pots over a layer of dung and twigs (O. R.) .......................................................................................... 142 3.106 -. Using stones to support the dung cakes (O. R.) ....................................................................................................... 142 3.107 -. Firing graph of Ya‘bad potter’s firing (J. L.) ............................................................................................................... 142 3.108 -. The top of the setting fully ablaze (O. R.) ................................................................................................................. 142 3.109 -. a, b) Removing vessels with a steel pitchfork, and vessels not yet removed sitting on ash (O. R.) .................. 143 3.110 -. A typical Ya‘bad cooking pot almost completed (O. R.) ......................................................................................... 143 3.111 -. A brazier made at Ya‘bad (J. L.) .................................................................................................................................... 143 4.1 -. to 4.6 -. Stages of clay preparation at Hebron (O. R.) .............................................................................................. 147 4.7 -. A Gaza potter’s wheel (Winifred Mumford, Australian National University, 1978) ............................................ 149

284

4.8 -. 4.12 -. 4.13 -. 4.14 -. 4.15 -. 4.16 -. 4.17 -. 4.18 -. 4.19 -. 4.20 -. 4.21 -. 4.22 -. 4.23 -. 4.24 -. 4.25 -. 4.26 -. 4.27 -. 4.28 -. 4.29 -. 4.30 -. 4.31 -. 4.32 -. 4.33 -. 4.34 -. 4.35 -. 4.36 -. 4.37 -. 4.38 -. 4.39 -. 4.40 -. 4.41 -. 4.42 -. 4.43 -. 4.44 -. 4.47 -. 4.48 -. 4.49 -. 4.50 -. 4.50 -. 4.51 -. 4.52 -. 4.53 -. 4.54 -.

LIST OF FIGURES

to 4.11 -. Gaza: assembly and parts of the potter’s wheel (O. R.)............................................................................. 149 Stages of forming vessels by the tijlis technique (Winifred Mumford, 1978) ......................................................... 152 Stages of forming vessels by the tijlis technique (Winifred Mumford, 1978) ......................................................... 152 A flat-based vessel to be cut off with a string (O. R.) ................................................................................................ 154 Sequence of forming a pedestal base (O. R.) ............................................................................................................... 154 a) Forming the wick lip of an oil lamp (O. R.) b) Cutting the lamp from the wheel with a string (O. R.) .......................................................................................... 155 Cooking pot and lid with knob (O. R.) ......................................................................................................................... 155 The foot ring of a Hebron vessel formed with a Group 2 technique (O. R.) ......................................................... 155 Pedestal-footed flowerpot, Hebron (O. R.).................................................................................................................. 155 Two-handled flowerpot, Hebron (O. R.) ...................................................................................................................... 155 a, b, c) Forming the lower walls and foot ring (O. R.) ................................................................................................ 156 Completing the main form (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................ 158 Taking the second stage outside for drying (O. R.) .................................................................................................... 158 a, b, c, d) Completing the top of a water jar (O. R.) .................................................................................................... 158 Adding handles (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................................... 159 a, b, c, d, e, f) Forming stages of the zīr (O. R.) ........................................................................................................... 159 Jarrah from Gaza (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................................. 160 Cooking pot from Gaza (O. R.) ..................................................................................................................................... 160 Hebron cooking pot (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................................... 160 Drums for sale at Bethlehem market (O. R.) .............................................................................................................. 160 a, b, c) Planter from Hebron (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................. 161 a, b, c) Ibrīqs from Jaba‘, Hebron, and Gaza (O. R.) .................................................................................................. 161 Black and red ibrīqs (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................................ 161 Hashem Sharaf, potter of Jericho, 1983 (Hamed Salem) ........................................................................................... 162 Jaba‘ pots drying on the roof of a potter’s workshop, with village background (O. R.) ....................................... 170 Jaba‘ Fakhuri family tree (J. L.) ....................................................................................................................................... 170 Mohammed Yunis and his son making pottery at Jaba‘, 2000 (Hamed Salem) ..................................................... 170 Plan of Jaba‘ workshop (J. L.) ......................................................................................................................................... 171 Vessels painted with enamel paints (O. R.) ................................................................................................................. 171 The slaking pit is left front; the larger pit is to the right (O. R.) .............................................................................. 171 Clay drying to plastic state ready to use (O. R.).......................................................................................................... 171 General layout of a wheel and its surrounding area (O. R.) ..................................................................................... 172 a, b, c) Forming the unique form of the Jaba‘ jarrah (O. R.) ...................................................................................... 172 to 4.46 -. Final stages in making the jarrah (O. R.) ...................................................................................................... 173 Adding the neck to the top of a water jar (O. R.) ........................................................................................................ 173 Combed decoration on both sides (O. R.) ................................................................................................................... 173 Wedding jar from Jaba‘ (O. R.) ...................................................................................................................................... 173 a, b, c, d, e) Forming sequence of the Jaba‘ wedding jar (O. R.) .............................................................................. 176 f, g, h, i, j, k, l) Forming sequence of the Jaba‘ wedding jar (cont.) (O. R.) .............................................................. 177 A money box, or bank (O. R.)....................................................................................................................................... 178 A candlestick (O. R.) .......................................................................................................................................................178 Kneading the clay (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................................... 178 Cutting off a vessel with string (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................ 178

LIST OF FIGURES

4.55 -. 4.56 -. 4.57 -. 4.58 -. 4.59 -. 4.60 -. 4.61 -. 4.62 -. 4.63 -. 4.64 -. 4.65 -. 5.1 -. 5.2 -. 5.3 -. 5.4 -. 5.5 -. 5.6 -. 5.7 -. 5.8 -. 5.9 -. 5.10 -. 5.11 -. 5.12 -. 5.13 -. 5.14 -. 5.15 -. 5.16 -. 5.17 -. 5.18 -. 5.19 -. 5.20 -. 5.21 -. 5.22 -. 5.23 -. 5.24 -. 5.25 -. 5.26 -. 5.27 -. 5.28 -. 5.29 -. 5.30 -. 5.31 -. 5.39 -.

285

a, b) The Jaba‘ kiln of Mohammed Yunis (O. R.)........................................................................................................ 178 Large central top flue of the Jaba‘ kiln (O. R.)............................................................................................................. 179 a, b) Repairing the firebox (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................. 179 Vessels placed in the kiln (O. R.).................................................................................................................................... 179 a, b, c) Water jars from Jaba‘ (O. R.) .............................................................................................................................. 183 Yogurt jar (O. R.) ..............................................................................................................................................................183 Ibrīq (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................................................................183 Wedding jar (O. R.) ..........................................................................................................................................................183 a, b) Ceramic duck (O. R.) .............................................................................................................................................. 184 Candlestick (O. R.) ...........................................................................................................................................................185 a, b) Butter churn (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................................185 Clay preparation pits at Haifa potter’s workshop on the Mediterranean coast (O. R.) ........................................ 186 Haifa potters (J. L.)...........................................................................................................................................................187 Biscuit-fired vessels ready for glazing (O. R.) .............................................................................................................. 191 Glaze-fired vessels (O. R.)............................................................................................................................................... 191 Shuttle kiln (O. R.)............................................................................................................................................................191 Clay preparation pits at Hebron potter’s workshop, with landscape (O. R.) ......................................................... 195 Making handles for ibrīqs (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................... 200 An old jarrah from Hebron (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................ 200 Scrap rubber used as fuel in al Fahs (O. R.) ................................................................................................................ 201 Haj Yusuf, Hebron potter (O. R.) .................................................................................................................................. 201 Small vessels for the tourist market (O. R.)................................................................................................................. 201 Decorating a tile before glazing (O. R.) ....................................................................................................................... 205 Forming slip in a slaking pit (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................. 207 The red-brown pug mill is in the background (O. R.) ............................................................................................... 207 Workshop of Mu‘ati Fakhuri, clay preparation pools (O. R., Jean-Baptiste Humbert) ........................................ 207 The blunger is in the right foreground (J. L.) ............................................................................................................. 208 Correct stage to remove the clay (O. R.) ...................................................................................................................... 208 a, b) Preparing clay by foot wedging to produce an even consistency (O. R.) ....................................................... 209 Pug mills for final preparation of the clay (O. R.) ....................................................................................................... 209 A potter’s wheel set in a pit (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................... 210 A potter’s wheel constructed above the floor (O. R.) .................................................................................................. 210 a) Potter’s wheel driven by an electric motor (O. R.) b) Equipment of Hebron workshop (1977) (O. R.) .................................................................................................... 211 Chuck holding vessel on wheel head (O. R.) ............................................................................................................... 213 Water jar with three varieties of rim (O. R.) ................................................................................................................. 213 A q‘ab after partial drying (O. R.) .................................................................................................................................. 213 The q‘ab replaced on the wheel for finishing (O. R.) .................................................................................................. 213 Flowerpots with two handles including rings (O. R.) ................................................................................................. 213 The zīr, the largest Hebron vessel (O. R.) .................................................................................................................... 213 a, b, c) Forming the foot of a zīr (O. R.) ....................................................................................................................... 213 Intermediate form stored for drying (O. R.)................................................................................................................ 214 to 5.38 -. Stages in the forming of the large water jar (O. R.) .............................................................................214–15 to 5.43 -. Stages in the forming of the water drinking jar (O. R.) ............................................................................. 217

286

5.44 -. 5.45 -. 5.46 -. 5.47 -. 5.48 -. 5.49 -. 5.50 -. 5.51 -. 5.52 -. 5.53 -. 5.54 -. 5.55 -. 5.56 -. 5.57 -. 5.58 -. 5.59 -. 5.60 -. 5.61 -. 5.62 -. 5.63 -. 5.64 -. 5.65 -. 5.66 -. 5.67 -. 5.68 -. 5.69 -. 6.1 -. 6.2 -. 6.3 -. 6.8 -. 6.9 -. 6.10 -. 6.11 -. 6.12 -. 6.13 -. 6.14 -. 6.15 -. 6.16 -. 6.17 -. 6.18 -. 6.19 -. 6.20 -.

LIST OF FIGURES

Forming the large end of the drum (O. R.) .................................................................................................................. 218 a, b, c, d, e) Completing the drum by forming the other end (O. R.) ...................................................................... 219 Barrel-shaped flowerpot (O. R.)..................................................................................................................................... 219 Vessels in the potter’s yard ready for dispatch (O. R.) ................................................................................................ 221 Plan and elevation of Mu‘ati Fakhuri’s kiln (Winifred Mumford, 1978).................................................................. 221 a, b) Views of the same kiln (O. R.)............................................................................................................................... 223 Smoke billowing from the kiln (O. R.) .......................................................................................................................... 225 Stacking flowerpots in the kiln (O. R.) .......................................................................................................................... 225 a, b) Filling spaces near the loading door (O. R.) ........................................................................................................ 225 Placing the last vessels in the kiln (O. R.) ..................................................................................................................... 225 a, b, c, d) Sealing the loading door with mortar (O. R.).............................................................................................. 226 a, b) Firing the kiln (O. R.) .............................................................................................................................................. 227 Graph of time versus temperature, Mu‘ati kiln firing, Hebron (O. R.).................................................................... 227 a) Thermocouples placed in kiln (J. L.) b) John Landgraf recording temperatures (O. R.) ....................................................................................................... 228 Vessels after firing (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................................... 228 a, b, c, d) Unloading the kiln after firing (O. R.) .......................................................................................................... 229 a, b) Piles of wasters (O. R.)............................................................................................................................................ 230 a, b) Wasters caused by overfiring (O. R.) .................................................................................................................... 230 General view of Mu‘ati Fakhuri’s yard (O. R.) ............................................................................................................. 231 Vessels being taken to market (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................... 231 Handleless water jug (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................................... 234 Water jug with handles (O. R.) ....................................................................................................................................... 234 Spouted water drinking jar (O. R.) ................................................................................................................................. 234 Smallest bowl (O. R.) .......................................................................................................................................................234 Medium-sized bowl (O. R.)............................................................................................................................................. 234 a, b, c, d, e) Various flowerpot forms (O. R.) ............................................................................................................... 235 Clay preparation pits of potter’s workshop at Gaza (O. R.) ...................................................................................... 236 Map of Gaza with potter locations, 1977 (J. L.) .......................................................................................................... 238 to 6.7 -. Clay body preparation, Gaza (O. R.) .............................................................................................................. 241 a, b) Preparing clay for use by kneading (J. L.) ............................................................................................................ 243 Overfired vessels due to amount of salt (O. R.) .......................................................................................................... 243 Garlic mortar (O. R.) .......................................................................................................................................................243 Bowl modified as flowerpot (O. R.) .............................................................................................................................. 243 Ibrīq (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................................................................243 a, b, c, d) Smaller and larger jarrahs (O. R.)...................................................................................................................245 Cooking pot (O. R.) .........................................................................................................................................................246 Butter churn (O. R.) .........................................................................................................................................................246 a, b, c) Potter’s kiln in Gaza (Winifred Mumford, 1978) ............................................................................................ 246 Two kilns of the Hajazi brothers (O. R.) ...................................................................................................................... 247 Another Gaza kiln (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................................... 247 a, b, c) Flame passage openings between firebox and chamber of kiln (O. R.) ...................................................... 247 Sealed kiln before firing (O. R.) .................................................................................................................................... 249

LIST OF FIGURES

287

6.21 -. Broken door of kiln after firing (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................ 249 6.22 -. Sawdust and wood chips used as fuel (J. L.) ................................................................................................................. 249 6.23 -. a) Hajazi kiln, Gaza, at heating stage of firing (J. L.) b) Joha kiln, Gaza (J. L.) c) Abd al Baqi kiln, Gaza (J. L.)...................................................................................................................................... 250 6.24 -. Red and black pottery (J. L.) ........................................................................................................................................... 250 6.25 -. Pottery cracked during firing (O. R.) ............................................................................................................................. 251 6.26 -. Large pile of wasters and damaged vessels (O. R.) ..................................................................................................... 251 6.27 -. Decoration with household enamel paint (O. R.) ....................................................................................................... 251 6.28 -. Loading pots for market (J. L.) ....................................................................................................................................... 251 6.29 -. Milk bowl (O. R.) ..............................................................................................................................................................255 6.30 -. Zibdiya (O. R.) ....................................................................................................................................................................255 6.31 -. Dough bowl (O. R.) .........................................................................................................................................................255 6.32 -. Egyptian šarbeh (J. L.) .......................................................................................................................................................255 6.33 -. One-handled water pitcher (J. L.) .................................................................................................................................. 255 6.34 -. Water storage jar (O. R.) .................................................................................................................................................. 259 6.35 -. Butter churn (O. R.) .........................................................................................................................................................259 6.36 -. Milking jar (O. R.).............................................................................................................................................................259 6.37 -. Dipper juglet (O. R.) ........................................................................................................................................................259

Album copyright John Landgraf PAGES: 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302 top, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308, 309, 310, 328

Owen Rye PAGES: 294, 295, 302 bottom, 307, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 329

Album

289

Sinjil

290

Women potters

Sinjil

291

Qusra

292

Beit ‘Anan Beit ‘Awwa

293

Beit ‘Anan

294

Ya‘bad

295

Ya‘bad

296

Kafr al Labad

297

Sinjil

298

Qabalan

299

Qabalan

300

Sinjil

301

Sinjil

302

Fuqeiqis Ya‘bad

303

Kafr al Labad

304

Fuqeiqis

305

Kafr al Labad Qabalan

306

Kafr al Labad

307

Lubban al Sharqiyah

308

Kafr al Labad

309

Sinjil

310

Male potters

al Jib

311

Hebron

312

Jaba‘

313

Jaba‘

314

Jaba‘

315

Jaba‘

316

Jaba‘

317

Hebron

318

Hebron

319

Jaba‘

320

Hebron

321

Hebron

322

Hebron

323

Hebron

324

Hebron

325

Hebron

326

Hebron

327

Hebron

328

Hebron

329

Bethlehem