Aegean-Style Early Philistine. Pottery in Canaan During the Iron. I Age: A Stylistic Analysis of. Mycenaean IIIC:lb Pottery and Its. Associated Wares.
UNIVERSITY MUSEUM MONOGRAPH 108
UNIVERSITY MUSEUM SYMPOSIUM SERIES 11
The Sea Peoples and Their World:
A Reassessment
edited by Eliezer D. Oren
Published by
THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 2000
12
Aegean-Style Early Philistine
Pottery in Canaan During the Iron
I Age: A Stylistic Analysis of
Mycenaean IIIC:lb Pottery and Its
Associated Wares
Ann E. Killebrew
University ofHaifa, Haifa
The end of the Late Bronze Age in Canaan is usu ally identified by the disappearance of imported My cenaean IIIB and Late Cypriote lIB pottery types which are ubiquitious at 13th century B.C.E. sites throughout Canaan. The dawn of the Iron Age is tra ditionally seen as a period devoid of international trade and cultural connections with the west. Recent excavations in Israel have modified this interpreta tion and it has become clear that relations between Canaan and areas in the eastern Mediterranean, es pecially with Cyprus and the southern and western coasts of Anatolia, continued throughout the 12th century B.C.E., albeit representing a different type of relationship and carried out on a more limited scale. This paper presents recent ceramic evidence regard ing interconnections between southern Canaan, Cy prus, and coastal Anatolia during the initial stages of the Iron I period, focussing on early Philistine pot tery and its implications for the initial appearance and origins of the early Philistines in Canaan. At several sites in Canaan, most notably Lachish (Stratum VI [Ussishkin 1985]), Tel Sera' (Stratum IX [Oren 1985; 1993:1330-1331]), Tel Miqne-Ekron (Stratum VIlla, Field INE [Killebrew 1996b:26-27; 1998a]), Beth Shean (Level VI Uames 1966; Oren
1973; Yadin and Geva 1986; Mazar 1993; 1997: 157-158]), Megiddo (Stratum VIlA [Ussishkin 1998]) and Akko (M. Dothan 1986), pottery in the typical Late Bronze II Canaanite tradition continues to appear well into the Iron I period (l2th century B.C.E.), sometimes alongside small amounts of im ported wares which differ from those most frequently imported during the Late Bronze lIB (l3th century B.C.E.). Most notable are Grey Burnished Trojan wares originating from Troy (e.g. Lachish and Miq ne-Ekron [Allen 1994]), imported Mycenaean IIIC:1 pottery, probably originating from Cyprus or the Do decanese, and previously unknown Cypriote types such as the White-Painted Wheel-made ware (see Kil lebrew 1998c for a summary of the Late Mycenaean IIIB and Mycenaean IIIC wares in Canaan). This in dicates a limited, but significant contact with Cyprus, coastal Anatolia and perhaps other islands, such as Rhodes, in the eastern Aegean. In northern Canaan, most of the imported Mycenaean IIIC: 1 pottery con sists of closed forms, especially stirrup jars, and bear elaborate painted decoration. Limited petrographic analysis of these vessels suggest that they were im ported, possibly from Cyprus. In the southern coastal plain of Canaan, at Tel
