A Third Millennium Levantine Pottery Production Center: Petrography, and Provenance of the Metallic Ware of Northern Israel and Adjacent Regions

The typology, petrography, and provenance of the Metallic Ware of northern Israel and adjacent regions is discussed. Comprising a full range of household forms excluding cooking pots, Metallic Ware also included symbolic items such as animal figurines and bed models. Sherds of Metallic Ware from eight sites, which were analyzed petrographically, revealed a similar geological provenance: Lower Cretaceous formations that can be found mainly in the Hermon massif and north, in Lebanon. Metallic Ware's stylistic affinity to contemporary Canaanite pottery suggests that the former was produced in workshops around the upper Jordan Valley. It was distributed in large quantities to sites as far away as 100 kilometers, indicating the existence of a highly integrated and perhaps centralized economy in Early Bronze Age II in the area.