Production and Distribution of Geometrical-Painted (HMGP) and Plain Hand-Made Wares of the Mamluk Period

A Case Study from Northern Israel, Jerusalem and Tall Hisban

Authors

  • R. Smadar Gabrieli University of Sydney and University of Western Australia
  • David Ben-Shlomo Hebrew University, Jerusalem
  • Bethany J. Walker University of Bonn

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.v1i2.25754

Keywords:

Hand-made pottery; HMGP; production and distribution; petrographic analysis; Mamluk archaeology., hand-made pottery, HMGP, production and distribution, petrographic analysis, Mamluk archaeology

Abstract

A program of petrographic analysis of Mamluk-period Hand-Made Geometrically Painted Ware (HMGP), supplemented by hand-made plain vessels and cooking pots, was undertaken as an offshoot of a wider study of the hand-made pottery industries of the 12th–16th centuries in Bil?d al-Sh?m. The aims of the wider project were to establish a chronological framework for the development of HMGP, and to examine issues of production and distribution and their socio-economic implications. Methodological and practical considerations restricted the research area to northern Israel, with control groups from Jerusalem and Hisban. The petrographic analysis of 152 vessels identified three major petrographic groups, and eight minor ones. The results suggest that hand-made plain wares and HMGP were manufactured by multiple industries; that HMGP itself cannot be viewed as a single industry, or even as having a uniform production mode; and that both plain and decorated hand-made pottery are often products of a specialized craft, with regional and likely intra-regional distribution.

Appendix 1 (Separate PDF):

List of samples and their archaeological details, with petrographic attribution

Author Biography

  • Bethany J. Walker, University of Bonn

    Bethany Walker is Research Professor of Mamluk Studies at the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg of the University of Bonn in Germany. An archaeologist and historian, her research has been published in numerous American, European, and Middle Eastern journals in both fields. With over twenty years field experience in the eastern Mediterranean, she directs two long-term archaeological projects in Jordan (the Tall Hisban excavations and the Northern Jordan Project), and is affiliated with numerous others in the region. Her recent monographs include Jordan in the Late Middle Ages: Transformation of the Mamluk Frontier and her edited Reflections of Empire: Archaeological and Ethnographic Studies on the Pottery of the Ottoman Levant. Walker's research in recent years has focused on rural societies, the dynamics of state-village relations, medieval Islamic environmental and agricultural history, local resource management, and ceramic analysis (primarily transitional and coarse wares).

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Published

2015-02-20

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Gabrieli, R. S., Ben-Shlomo, D., & Walker, B. J. (2015). Production and Distribution of Geometrical-Painted (HMGP) and Plain Hand-Made Wares of the Mamluk Period: A Case Study from Northern Israel, Jerusalem and Tall Hisban. Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 1(2), 193-229. https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.v1i2.25754