Glossary Pottery and vessels
Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware
Small dark juglets with pricked decoration filled with white, made in the Egyptian Delta and the Levant and found in Cypriot tombs of about 1700–1550 BCE.
The ware is named after a site in the Nile Delta. Its juglets are black or grey and burnished, decorated with bands of pricked dots filled with white paste, and probably held perfumed oil. They were made in the Delta and the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age.
In Cyprus they turn up in tomb groups of Middle Cypriot III and Late Cypriot I, part of the traffic that linked the island with Egypt and the Levantine coast. In the Late Bronze Age Cypriot Base Ring juglets took over their role as the favoured small oil container in Egyptian markets.
Related terms
- White-filled
Incised or impressed decoration packed with a white paste, so that the pattern shows up pale against a dark or red surface.
- Burnishing
Rubbing the surface of an unfired pot with a smooth pebble, bone or tool to compact the clay and give it a sheen after firing.
- Open and closed shapes
The basic division of vessel forms: open shapes have a mouth as wide as the body, closed shapes narrow to a neck or small opening.