Midianite pottery explained

Midianite pottery, also known as Qurayya ware^[1] is a ware type found in the Hejaz (northwestern Saudi Arabia), southern and central Jordan, southern Canaan and the Sinai, generally dated to the 13th-12th centuries BCE, although later dates are also possible.^[2]

Research history

Midianite pottery was discovered during the 1930s by Nelson Glueck in his surveys in southern Jordan and his excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh in the southern Arabah valley. Glueck identified these wares as Iron Age II Edomite pottery.^[2] During his surveys and excavations in the Arabah in the late 1950s and 1960s, Beno Rothenberg found similar decorated wares; and after the discovery at Timna valley of the several Egyptian findings belonging to the 19th and 20th Dynasties, Rothenberg dated this pottery to the 13th-12th centuries BCE. Petrographic studies carried out on some of the Timna wares led to the conclusion that they originated in the Hejaz, most probably in the site of Qurayya.^[3]

Description

Midianite bowls bear some resemblance in form with the Iron Age Negevite pottery bowls, who in turn resemble Edomite pottery in their decoration.

References

1. Book: Nayeem, Muhammed Abdul . 1990 . Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula . Hyderabad ., p. 116
2. N. Glueck, 'Some Edomite Pottery from Tell el-Kheleifeh, Parts I and II', Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 188 (1967), 8-38.
3. B. Rothenberg & J. Glass, 'The Midianite Pottery', in J.F.A. Sawyer & D.J.A. Clines (eds.) Midian, Moab and Edom: The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze and Iron Age Jordan and North-West Arabia, JSOT Supl. 24, Sheffield: JSOT Press., 1983, 65-124; P.J. Parr, 'Pottery of the Late Second Millennium B.C. from North West Arabia and its Historical Implications', in D.T. Potts (ed.) Araby the Blest. Studies in Arabian Archaeology, The Carsten Niebhur Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Pub. 7, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1988, 73-89; ibid. 'Qurayya', in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 5, 1992, 594-596; J.M. Tebes, 'Pottery Makers and Premodern Exchange in the Fringes of Egypt: An Approximation to the Distribution of Iron Age Midianite Pottery', Buried History 43 (2007), 11-26.

Further reading

• Book: Glueck, Nelson . Rivers in the Desert . 1959 . HUC .
• Book: Nayeem, Muhammed Abdul . Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula . 1990 . Hyderabad .