Qurayyah Painted Ware outside the Hejaz: Evidence of a community of practice in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages?

Qurayyah Painted Ware (QPW) is the most solid evidence of contacts between the Hejaz and the southern Levant in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. However, even after decades of research, there is still much uncertainty regarding the chronology of these contacts and their nature. Here, we present an exceptionally rich collection of QPW fragments documented recently in the copper smelting sites of the Timna Valley. We argue that the distribution of this painted ware in the southern Levant extended from the early thirteenth to ninth centuries BC and that its prominent presence in industrial contexts in the Aravah Valley is related to the transmission of metallurgical ‘know-how’ from the Hejaz, which included rituals in which QPW vessels took part. While the original exchange probably involved craftspeople from the Hejaz in the Aravah's metalworking, the continuous use of QPW throughout several centuries in the southern Levant is best explained as a reflection of an enduring community of practice of the local populations with the metalworkers of the Hejaz.