Re-Examining Space Fillers and Potmarks

A New Perspective on their Role in Early Bronze Age Canaanite Glyptic and Ceramic Traditions

Authors

  • Yitzhak Paz Ben Gurion University of the Negev

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v24i1.3

Keywords:

Southern Levant, Seals, Space Fillers, Potmarks, Early Bronze Age, Canaanite, Symbolic Imagery

Abstract

Early Bronze Age Canaanite glyptic and pottery traditions encompass many iconographic components, some of which are not fully understood. While various aspects of Canaanite glyptic traits have been thoroughly discussed, the component arbitrarily dubbed 'space fillers' has been neglected. Incised 'potmarks', which are part of the Early Bronze Age ceramic production process, have also been studied only sporadically. This article aims to show a relationship between iconographic motifs and symbols that have been designated as space fillers, and incised signs on pottery vessels that have been classified as potmarks. Through the examination of a specific case study, I challenge the notion that these symbols are meaningless, and aim to show that both components play a role in the same iconographic milieu whose set of ideas spread through the southern Levant during the third millennium BC.

Author Biography

  • Yitzhak Paz, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
    Yitzhak Paz is a lecturer at the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Be'er Sheba and Eilat), Israel, whose research focuses on the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. He is a graduate of Tel Aviv University, on whose behalf he has conducted salvage excavations at sites such as Tel Lod and Tel Baraqet (community archaeology project). He is also co-director of the Japanese expedition to Tel Rekhesh, a multi-period mound in the lower Galilee, Israel. His publications include: 'Fortified settlements of the EB IB and the emergence of the first urban system', Tel Aviv 29 (2002): 238-61; 'Community archaeology in proto-historical Tel Bareqet, Israel: school children and agency for active public engagement in cultural heritage projects', Public Archaeology 9 (2010): 34-47; and (with R. Greenberg) 'The fortifications of Beth-Yerah during the Early Bronze Age', Levant 37 (2005): 81-103.

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Published

2011-06-24

Issue

Vol. 24 No. 1 (2011)

Section

Articles

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Paz, Y. (2011). Re-Examining Space Fillers and Potmarks: A New Perspective on their Role in Early Bronze Age Canaanite Glyptic and Ceramic Traditions. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 24(1), 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v24i1.3