A powder preparation kit from the Middle Bronze Age at Megiddo, Israel: Tools and raw materials
Introduction
An assemblage of stone, shell, bone and ceramic items was found in the 2014 excavation season at Megiddo, northern Israel (Fig. 1), in a Middle Bronze II–III (17th–16th century BCE) domestic context. The assemblage includes stone pestles, pounders and pebbles, a few shells, several bone objects, a ceramic lamp and lumps of red sediment, all found concentrated in a circular arrangement. A grinding stone and a perforated stone object were retrieved in the immediate vicinity and may be an integral part of the assemblage. Here we study this most unusual assemblage in order to understand what the artifacts were used for.
Middle Bronze Megiddo covered an area of ca. 12 ha. It was the urban hub of a city-state that ruled over the western Jezreel Valley – the bread-basket of Canaan – and guarded the most important international road in the Levant that led from Egypt to Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The city was well-fortified by a massive brick-wall and an earthen rampart, and was equipped with monumental gate, palace and temple. For a summary of the site and its finds, see (Ussishkin, 1992: 171–199). The assemblage discussed here was found in Level K-11 in Area K, located in the southeastern sector of the city (Fig. 2), which features remains of a domestic quarter (Fig. 3). Typical to this period, burials were found under the houses (Martin et al., 2018a, Martin et al., 2018b).
The significance of the assemblage was recognized immediately after exposure of the uppermost components (Fig. 4). These included a conspicuous lump of red material. Using an FTIR operated on-site, we immediately identified this red material as containing among other minerals the clay mineral kaolinite (Fig. 5). Kaolinite is a minor clay mineral in the southern Levant, and when present in soils it comprises between 15 and 25% of the clays, with the dominant clay being montmorillonite (Gal et al., 1974). This observation, as well as the red color of the material, highlighted the fact that it was a most unusual find. With this in mind, the assemblage was meticulously excavated and the objects were handled carefully and not washed. This enabled us to obtain invaluable information on the materials adhering to many of the artifacts' surfaces. This mode of discovery and excavation underlies the importance of operating an on-site laboratory.
Here we analyze the materials of the tools themselves, as well as the materials adhering to the tools in order to establish the use of this unique assemblage.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Once detected, the excavation of the assemblage was carried out delicately with small tools, the artifacts were photographed and the precise locations were documented with reference to the national grid using a total station. The artifacts were deliberately not washed once we realized that this was a major cache of associated objects. Only the large grinding stone and the perforated object were washed, as these were the first to be exposed.
Some of the initially exposed materials were analyzed
Field observations
The assemblage (Locus 14/K/107) was unearthed at elevation 162.76 m asl (bottom). The assemblage rested on a floor in a space of a domestic structure of the courtyard type, belonging to Level K-11, which belongs to an advanced stage of the Middle Bronze II and to the first half of the Middle Bronze III; a full analysis of the pottery of this layer is underway. Radiocarbon determinations provide results in the second half of the 17th century BCE and the first half of the 16th century for the
Discussion
The assemblage contains local materials, as well as some that were obtained from considerable distances. Some of the materials were clearly procured with considerable effort because of their functional advantages (e.g. barite). Viewed together with the colored raw materials, this seems to be a carefully assembled group of objects — probably a toolkit.
The assemblage is composed of objects that can be classified into two main types: tools that were involved in pounding and grinding (grinding
Conclusions
The carefully excavated assemblage of artifacts from Middle Bronze Age Megiddo includes many items that were clearly used for grinding materials. The assemblage also included at least some of the materials that were ground, based on the fact that they still adhered to many of the tools. After grinding these materials would have produced red, black, grey and white powders. These powders could have been used as decoration in nearby burials.
The following is the supplementary data related to this
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Peter Ostrin for his expert help during the excavation and Filipe Natalio for preparing the 3D reconstruction of the perforated basalt artifact. The Megiddo Expedition is conducted under the auspices of Tel Aviv University. Consortium members are the Collège de France, The George Washington University, Purchase College, the Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP), Fuller Theological Seminary and Loyola Marymount University. The Expedition is directed by Israel Finkelstein
References (25)
- et al.
Sediments exposed to high temperatures: reconstructing pyrotechnological processes in Late Bronze and Iron Age strata at Tel Dor (Israel)
J. Archaeol. Sci.
(2007) - et al.
Study of kaolinite rock in coal bearing stratum, North China
Procedia Earth Planet. Sci.
(2009) - et al.
Characterization and assessment of Saudi clays raw material at different area
Arab. J. Chem.
(2010) - et al.
The Glycymeris query along the coast and shallow shelf of Israel, southeast Mediterranean
Paleogeogr. Paloeclim. Paleoecol.
(2006) Radiocarbon dating
- et al.
Petrography, geochemistry, and evolution of barite concretions in Eocene pelagic chalks from Israel
J. Sediment. Petrol.
(1987) Scarabs and other glyptic finds
- et al.
Clay mineral distribution and origin in the soil types of Israel
J. Soil Sci.
(1974) - et al.
On the goethite to hematite phase transformation
J. Therm. Anal. Calorim.
(2010)
An early case of color symbolism: ochre use by modern humans in Qafzeh Cave 1
Curr. Anthropol.
A Middle Bronze Age Stone Tool Assemblage from Megiddo: Determining Function and Significance
Cited by (1)
Evaluation of carbon-based nanostructures suitable for the development of black pigments and glazes
2019, Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering AspectsCitation Excerpt :Black pigments have been used since human kind discovered that they can take a burnt stick and make a mark on the solid surface. Carbon based materials were important in painting and drawing of old artworks and primitive paintings of prehistoric people [1–6]. Later some other black pigments such as manganese oxide MnO2, magnetite Fe3O4, haematite Fe2O3, jacobsite MnFe2O4 and many others were also discovered [7–16].