Tel Beth-Shemesh: Iron IIA Judahite Pottery Typology and Finger Impressed Jar Handles

Abstract

The article presents two pottery assemblages exposed in 2017 at Tel Beth-Shemesh, in the Level 3 Iron IIA Judahite administrative centre that replaced the Iron I Canaanite villages of Levels 7–4. The assemblages contribute to the study of the typological-chronological development of Iron IIA pottery in Judah. Both date to the mid-/late Iron IIA, i.e., the first half/mid-9th century BCE. Two storage jars in the assemblages bear finger impressions. Contrary to recent suggestions that these impressions testify to early Iron IIA Judahite or Israelite centralised administration, we understand them as a Bronze Age phenomenon affiliated with the Canaanite population of the Shephelah and the northern valleys that reached its apogee during the late Iron I/early Iron IIA.