Ancient cookware from the Levant [Texte imprimé] : an ethnoarchaeological perspective / Gloria London

"Ancient clay cooking pots in the southern Levant are unappealing, rough pots that are not easily connected to meals known from ancient writings or iconographic representations. To narrow the gap between excavated sherds and ancient meals, the approach adopted in this study starts by learning how food traditionally was processed, preserved, cooked, stored, and transported in clay containers. This research is based on the cookware and culinary practices in traditional societies in Cyprus and the Levant, where people still make pots by hand. Clay pots were not only to cook or hold foods. Their absorbent and permeable walls stored memories of food residue. Biblical texts provide numerous terms for cookware without details of how they looked, how they were used, or why there are so many different words. Recent studies of potters for over a century in the southern Levant provide a wealth of names whose diversity helps to delineate the various categories of ancient cookware and names in the text. Ancient Cookware from the Levant begins with a description of five data sources: excavations, ancient and medieval texts, 20th century government reports, early accounts of potters, and ethnoarchaeological studies. The final section focuses on the shape, style, and manufacture of cookware for the past 12,000 years. For archaeologists, changes in cooking pot morphology offer important chronological information for dating entire assemblages, from Neolithic to recent times. The survey of pot shapes in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan presents how different shapes were made and used"--Provided by publisher

Bibliogr. p. 283-302

Part I. Traditional ceramics in the Levant and Cyprus -- The Levantine Corridor and Cyprus : geographical parameters -- Ancient data sources : excavations and ancient texts -- Modern data sources : government reports, early visitors, and ethnoarchaeology -- Ceramic ethnoarchaeology -- Clay deposits, traditional mining, and clay preparation in Cyprus -- Manufacturing technique for Cypriot red clays -- Traditional firing techniques for ceramics -- How to treat clay pots prior to use with food -- Making breads, roasting grains, and cooking other food -- Foods processed, preserved, distilled, or transported in ceramics -- How to clean clay pots -- Part II. Ancient manufacturing techniques for cookware -- Ancient clay containers to process, cook, and preserve food -- Ancient manufacturing techniques and clay bodes -- Part III. Cookware through the ages -- Neolithic and Chalcolithic cookware -- Early Bronze Age cookware -- Middle and late Bronze Age cookware -- Iron Age and Persian era cookware -- Classical era cookware -- Medieval era cookware -- Late Ottoman/Mandate and recent wheel-thrown ceramics -- Late Ottoman/Mandate and recent handmade ceramics -- Implications of ethnoarchaeological studies for ancient cookware -- Glossary