The Egyptianized Pottery Cache from Megiddo’s Area J: A Foundation Deposit for Temple 4040

Abstract

In 1996, a cache of 16 Egyptianized ceramic vessels was excavated at Megiddo by the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition. Its stratigraphy was difficult to ascertain as the discovery was made early on in the renewed excavations, and the ceramic typology was difficult to assess due to the apparent specialized function of the vessels. This paper reconsiders the cache in light of the finalized stratigraphic understanding of Area J, reexamining the unpublished excavation records from the square in which it was found. The study concludes that the cache is a foundation deposit related to Temple 4040 and both are redated to the Intermediate Bronze Age on the basis of Egyptian ceramic parallels and the new High Chronology for the Early Bronze Age.

Keywords:

• Early Bronze Age
• Intermediate Bronze Age
• Megiddo
• Egypt and the Levant

Acknowledgment

I wish to thank Edna Sachar for editing an early draft of this article.

Notes

1 See the reinterpretation of the earthquake hypothesis in Adams 2013b; Adams et al. 2014. See also Ussishkin 2015; but see a different view in Finkelstein 2013.

2 The results are published in Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2000a; Finkelstein, Ussishkin and Peersmann 2006; Adams 2013a, 2013b; Adams and Bos 2013; Adams, Finkelstein, and Ussishkin 2014.

3 The result of the radiocarbon measurement for the sample dating the end of Level J-6a falls on a part of the calibration curve for which either a date near 2600 or a date near 2500 is possible (Regev et al. 2014: Fig. 8).

4 The levels indicated in the east section drawing of Square D/10-11 in Megiddo III (Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2000a: Fig. 3.45) are approximately 40 cm too low, and the wall designated as Wall 96/5 is actually Wall 96/J/34 (cf. Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2000a: Fig. 3.46). The digitization of the section drawing obscured some important details. Additionally, the placement of almost all the locus numbers is incorrect. For the current report, this section drawing was re-digitized from the original field drawing (Fig. 6). Additionally, there is an error in the caption to Finkelstein and Ussishkin 2000a: Fig. 3.44: ‘Note Level J-6 remains (right)’: Level J-6 architecture does not appear in this photograph. Rather the wall at the lower right is Level J-4 Wall 96/J/1. This photograph is reproduced here as Fig. 5 with corrected description.

5 While the field notes indicate that large sherds were found and that some of this pottery was restorable, the pottery could not be located; the one of two registered pottery baskets from this locus found at the Israel Antiquities Authority facility in Beth-Shemesh contained only very small sherds. According to the pottery reading sheets, one of these baskets contained a single ‘MB’ sherd; the sherd could not be located, hence it could not be determined what was intended by ‘MB’. However, Joffe, in his study of the 1994–1996 pottery from Area J, indicated that IB (EB IV) sherds were recovered from pits around the area that was outside the scope of his study (Joffe 2000: 183). Pit 94/J/56 was one of only a small number of pits that were excavated in the 1994–1996 seasons.

6 Locus 96/J/38 covered the entire square, not just the limits of the pottery scatter of the cache.

7 The section shown in Fig. 6 was drawn only after the 1998 season.

8 In Square F/10, the bottom of Wall 96/J/1 was at 156.44 m, as was the original corridor floor (Finkelstein, Ussishkin and Peersmann 2006: Fig. 3.13; note that this figure lacks a datum point: the upper northern corner of the stone socle of Wall 96/J/1 is at 157.80 m).

9 Excavation in 2010 at the threshold of Temple 5192 did not reveal a similar cache. However, evidence of later robbing at precisely this location obfuscates the picture (Adams 2013b: Fig. 2.72). Further, no chamber was found on the east side of Temple 5269 during excavations there in 2010 (Fig. 3). Rather, the temple appears to have been constructed on the edge of a steep drop-off on this side of the site, which necessitated very deep foundations (Adams 2013b: 118).

10 The eastern Wall 08/J/37 seems to have no subterranean foundations, placed directly on top of the leveled construction area (Fig. 6). The northern Wall 08/J/40, however, had a foundation trench nearly 1m deep (Adams 2013b: 96–99). The reason appears to be that deeper foundations were required on the down-slope side of a building constructed on a slope. This is the case for the foundations of the western temples as well, which were significantly deeper on the down-slope side (Adams 2013b: 96–99, 117–118).

11 For a Late Bronze Age Canaanite adaptation of the Egyptian foundation deposit tradition, see Bunimovitz and Zimhoni 1993.