Edna J. Stern
Israel Antiquities Authority, Archaeological Research, Senior Research Archaeologist, Medieval Pottery Specialist
The core of my research is the time period known in Israeli archaeology as "the later periods", from the Umayyad to the Ottoman periods, with an emphasis on the Crusader, and recently the Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
My main projects and activities deal with medieval archaeology and material culture in Israel, focusing mainly on ceramics, as well as maritime trade networks, comparing material culture of rural sites vs. urban sites and the archaeology of sugar production. I have also dealt with remains of the Roman and Byzantine periods, in excavations and publication of burials and finds.
In my research, I attempt to look at the broader picture and not to focus only on a single time period or type of artifact. My belief is that sites and artifacts can only be fully understood if studied in their historical, geographical and social context.
My experience includes directing and participating in surveys and excavations; research and preparation of these excavations and finds for publication; writing and publishing monographs and articles; presenting my research at local and international conferences and universities; cooperation with foreign archaeologists in Israel and in Cyprus; developing and running an ongoing series of international workshops on Islamic and Crusader pottery in Israel; and training archaeologists within the Israel Antiquities Authority; part-time teaching at the Maritime Civilizations Department at the University of Haifa.
My main projects and activities deal with medieval archaeology and material culture in Israel, focusing mainly on ceramics, as well as maritime trade networks, comparing material culture of rural sites vs. urban sites and the archaeology of sugar production. I have also dealt with remains of the Roman and Byzantine periods, in excavations and publication of burials and finds.
In my research, I attempt to look at the broader picture and not to focus only on a single time period or type of artifact. My belief is that sites and artifacts can only be fully understood if studied in their historical, geographical and social context.
My experience includes directing and participating in surveys and excavations; research and preparation of these excavations and finds for publication; writing and publishing monographs and articles; presenting my research at local and international conferences and universities; cooperation with foreign archaeologists in Israel and in Cyprus; developing and running an ongoing series of international workshops on Islamic and Crusader pottery in Israel; and training archaeologists within the Israel Antiquities Authority; part-time teaching at the Maritime Civilizations Department at the University of Haifa.
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Books by Edna J. Stern
The catalogue is divided into three part: Part I presents the glazed table wares, comprised largely of glazed bowls, and less of closed glazed vessels. There is a wide range of locally produced wares, as well as wares imported from Egypt, Syria, Byzantium, Italy, Spain, and North Africa, and China. Part II deals with simple, mostly unglazed, domestic and industrial wares, as well as glazed cooking wares. Part III discusses the common oil lamps. The initial aim of the book is to assist the field archaeologist in pottery sorting, as well as to help the interested ceramic specialists, students and readers in identifying and dating the various types.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Amir Drori (1937-2005), who was the founder and first director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (1989-2000)."
Most of the assemblages comprised pottery that could be dated to the late 13th–early 14th century, and included a small amount of utility vessels and a large number of glazed wares, predominantly Paphos-Lemba production. Considerable amount of kiln debris identified the site as one of the Paphos-Lemba pottery workshops.
Other material culture remains included glass, stone and metal artefacts, as well as residual Roman-period pottery and stone vessels. A considerable number of faunal remains, some of them complete skeletons, were also found - most of them of animals that died in the event.
Ceramics and excavations by Edna J. Stern
Pottery from the Crusader states and Kingdoms is reviewed here, with an emphasis on the local production. The organization of production centers in the Latin east and the continuity and change are topics discussed here, as well as cultural identity of the potters and the emergence of specialized ceramic production for export.
Additionally, the article characterizes pottery production as a growing industry during the Frankish rule and briefly draws comparisons to the sugar industry. As a result, the article appeals to a broad audiance, encompassing not only ceramic specialists but also readers interested in the economics and culture of Latin kingdoms in the East.
Most of the pottery was found in small fragments. However, in Area 10, a corridor into the access ramp S 4b, large quantities of restorable local and imported ceramic vessels with a large quantity of prestigious glass vessels and a hoard of Mamluk and Venetian silver coins dated to the first half of the fifteenth century were found. The small amount of cooking ware and the high quality of the ceramic and glass serving vessels suggest that it was a deposit of a dinning assemblage that belonged to castle inhabitants of a high-rank, perhaps the Mamluk governor of the Castle, and may have been discarded after an earthquake around 1457-8.
throughout most of its long history. This port also witnessed armies, explorers
and pilgrims passing through on their way to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. These activities are well attested in the historical record, as well as
by numerous archaeological excavations. However, during the mid-Mamluk and Early
Ottoman periods (mid-14th to 17th centuries CE) maritime movement at the
Jaffa port diminished considerably and the city appears to have been gradually
abandoned. Consequently, only few written sources refer to Jaffa and hardly
any archaeological finds dating from this period have been unearthed. This paper will examine ceramic evidence from the vicinity of Jaffa, in
particular from Ramla, and will show that this evidence indicates the activity of
Venetian and perhaps other European merchants in Jaffa during the mid-14th
to 17th centuries and illuminates relationships and networks unattested in the
written record.
Fragments of a unique Port St. Symeon glazed ceramic tile, almost completely restored, were found. It bears a sgraffito depiction of a cross-legged seated person wearing an oriental caftan and drinking from a conical beaker held in his left hand. It is covered with yellowish glaze, and the background has some additional yellow and green painted areas. This tile is extensively discussed here.
Vessels of this ware have a limited distribution and were produced for only a short time. The name indicates the production and consumption area and the type of glaze used. It appeared at a dramatic transitional moment in this region: its manufacture began during the Fatimid rule in the southern Levant (modern-day northern Israel and southern Lebanon) and continued during the first decades of the Crusader period.
Levantine Alkaline Glazed Ware may serve as an excellent case study for the examination of influence and cultural interactions between the Franks and the Fatimids, as well as other religious and ethnic minorities coexisting and interacting in this region, as this ware was clearly manufactured and used by these different eastern Mediterranean societies in a transition period. Produced over a relatively short time span, roughly from the mid-eleventh to the mid-/late twelfth centuries, the Levantine Alkaline Glazed Ware was apparently not widely circulated. This ware is rather unknown in the eastern Mediterranean arena, or even in the Levant, despite its local origin. The reasons that it often remains unidentified are its simple, monochromatic decoration lacking a painted design and its resemblance to glazed bowls from the Early Islamic period.
Typological and archaeometric studies of pottery from various excavations in
Beirut and in Acre (‘Akko) and villages in its rural hinterland presented the
opportunity to define the Levantine Alkaline Glazed Ware.
change in ceramic production and consumption in the southern Levant between the Fatimid and the Crusader periods, in relation to the arrival of new populations having different cultural backgrounds and dietary habits. It combines the results of our previous studies with new chemical and petrographic analyses, in order to examine the productions of local pottery workshops, their typological repertoire and their markets. The results detail the developments that occurred in the local pottery production with the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In this article the fabrics and forms of local and imported wares were explored to determine the geological source of the raw materials, in an attempt to pinpoint the production locales according to the geological source of the fabrics. It is hoped that this study will serve as a first step toward a reconstruction of the Ramla pottery industry in the Mamluk period. For the imports, the tracing of the fabric composition was based on previously published production centers.
The research methods used in this study are not the traditional typological ones for classifying pottery from historical periods, but rather, a study of the fabric composition, a method similar to those used in studying protohistoric assemblages. Due to budget constraints, we could not perform petrographic thin-section analyses; rather, we employed an intermediate solution to distinguish between fabrics. All the selected vessels were examined by the naked eye and the fabric color was described according to the Munsell Soil Chart (2000). Fresh breaks of the sherds were examined under a binocular microscope at magnifications of ×20–×40. The findings were subsequently compared with former results of previous petrographic and petrological investigations for contemporary periods and fabrics. Although the highest possible degree of precision was used in this study, association of pottery types with particular fabric groups should be taken with caution considering the limitations of visual observation with a binocular microscope; nonetheless, this study offers a good starting point for further research.
The study of the fabric composition of the Mamluk and early Ottoman-period ceramics from
Ha-Ezel Street in Ramla indicates that at least three different local workshops produced
pottery in Ramla and its vicinity during this time span. Among the imported wares, five
inter-regional fabrics from Greater Syria and Egypt, five Mediterranean fabrics from Cyprus
and Italy, and another four fabrics from distant, and thus far unrecognized regions, were
identified.
The Abbasid-period assemblage consists of types well-known in Tiberias. Noteworthy is the inscribed glazed bowl, which seems to be a local imitation of Coptic Glazed Ware. The presence of a ceramic waster in this context reinforces other evidence cited above of pottery production in Tiberias during this period.
The pottery from the Crusader period is of great interest for a number of reasons: (1) it seems to be dated to a short timespan; (2) it is one of the first well-dated pottery assemblages to be published from Tiberias and from a non-Mediterranean coastal site in general; (3) it was found in an area that seems to be outside the Crusader city walls; and (4) it was uncovered in association with sugar production.
In addition, a rare find of a Byzantine broad-incised sgraffito glazed bowl with an incised design of a warrior was found as well, and is extensively discussed here, and compared to similar finds from Greece. .
The catalogue is divided into three part: Part I presents the glazed table wares, comprised largely of glazed bowls, and less of closed glazed vessels. There is a wide range of locally produced wares, as well as wares imported from Egypt, Syria, Byzantium, Italy, Spain, and North Africa, and China. Part II deals with simple, mostly unglazed, domestic and industrial wares, as well as glazed cooking wares. Part III discusses the common oil lamps. The initial aim of the book is to assist the field archaeologist in pottery sorting, as well as to help the interested ceramic specialists, students and readers in identifying and dating the various types.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Amir Drori (1937-2005), who was the founder and first director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (1989-2000)."
Most of the assemblages comprised pottery that could be dated to the late 13th–early 14th century, and included a small amount of utility vessels and a large number of glazed wares, predominantly Paphos-Lemba production. Considerable amount of kiln debris identified the site as one of the Paphos-Lemba pottery workshops.
Other material culture remains included glass, stone and metal artefacts, as well as residual Roman-period pottery and stone vessels. A considerable number of faunal remains, some of them complete skeletons, were also found - most of them of animals that died in the event.
Pottery from the Crusader states and Kingdoms is reviewed here, with an emphasis on the local production. The organization of production centers in the Latin east and the continuity and change are topics discussed here, as well as cultural identity of the potters and the emergence of specialized ceramic production for export.
Additionally, the article characterizes pottery production as a growing industry during the Frankish rule and briefly draws comparisons to the sugar industry. As a result, the article appeals to a broad audiance, encompassing not only ceramic specialists but also readers interested in the economics and culture of Latin kingdoms in the East.
Most of the pottery was found in small fragments. However, in Area 10, a corridor into the access ramp S 4b, large quantities of restorable local and imported ceramic vessels with a large quantity of prestigious glass vessels and a hoard of Mamluk and Venetian silver coins dated to the first half of the fifteenth century were found. The small amount of cooking ware and the high quality of the ceramic and glass serving vessels suggest that it was a deposit of a dinning assemblage that belonged to castle inhabitants of a high-rank, perhaps the Mamluk governor of the Castle, and may have been discarded after an earthquake around 1457-8.
throughout most of its long history. This port also witnessed armies, explorers
and pilgrims passing through on their way to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. These activities are well attested in the historical record, as well as
by numerous archaeological excavations. However, during the mid-Mamluk and Early
Ottoman periods (mid-14th to 17th centuries CE) maritime movement at the
Jaffa port diminished considerably and the city appears to have been gradually
abandoned. Consequently, only few written sources refer to Jaffa and hardly
any archaeological finds dating from this period have been unearthed. This paper will examine ceramic evidence from the vicinity of Jaffa, in
particular from Ramla, and will show that this evidence indicates the activity of
Venetian and perhaps other European merchants in Jaffa during the mid-14th
to 17th centuries and illuminates relationships and networks unattested in the
written record.
Fragments of a unique Port St. Symeon glazed ceramic tile, almost completely restored, were found. It bears a sgraffito depiction of a cross-legged seated person wearing an oriental caftan and drinking from a conical beaker held in his left hand. It is covered with yellowish glaze, and the background has some additional yellow and green painted areas. This tile is extensively discussed here.
Vessels of this ware have a limited distribution and were produced for only a short time. The name indicates the production and consumption area and the type of glaze used. It appeared at a dramatic transitional moment in this region: its manufacture began during the Fatimid rule in the southern Levant (modern-day northern Israel and southern Lebanon) and continued during the first decades of the Crusader period.
Levantine Alkaline Glazed Ware may serve as an excellent case study for the examination of influence and cultural interactions between the Franks and the Fatimids, as well as other religious and ethnic minorities coexisting and interacting in this region, as this ware was clearly manufactured and used by these different eastern Mediterranean societies in a transition period. Produced over a relatively short time span, roughly from the mid-eleventh to the mid-/late twelfth centuries, the Levantine Alkaline Glazed Ware was apparently not widely circulated. This ware is rather unknown in the eastern Mediterranean arena, or even in the Levant, despite its local origin. The reasons that it often remains unidentified are its simple, monochromatic decoration lacking a painted design and its resemblance to glazed bowls from the Early Islamic period.
Typological and archaeometric studies of pottery from various excavations in
Beirut and in Acre (‘Akko) and villages in its rural hinterland presented the
opportunity to define the Levantine Alkaline Glazed Ware.
change in ceramic production and consumption in the southern Levant between the Fatimid and the Crusader periods, in relation to the arrival of new populations having different cultural backgrounds and dietary habits. It combines the results of our previous studies with new chemical and petrographic analyses, in order to examine the productions of local pottery workshops, their typological repertoire and their markets. The results detail the developments that occurred in the local pottery production with the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In this article the fabrics and forms of local and imported wares were explored to determine the geological source of the raw materials, in an attempt to pinpoint the production locales according to the geological source of the fabrics. It is hoped that this study will serve as a first step toward a reconstruction of the Ramla pottery industry in the Mamluk period. For the imports, the tracing of the fabric composition was based on previously published production centers.
The research methods used in this study are not the traditional typological ones for classifying pottery from historical periods, but rather, a study of the fabric composition, a method similar to those used in studying protohistoric assemblages. Due to budget constraints, we could not perform petrographic thin-section analyses; rather, we employed an intermediate solution to distinguish between fabrics. All the selected vessels were examined by the naked eye and the fabric color was described according to the Munsell Soil Chart (2000). Fresh breaks of the sherds were examined under a binocular microscope at magnifications of ×20–×40. The findings were subsequently compared with former results of previous petrographic and petrological investigations for contemporary periods and fabrics. Although the highest possible degree of precision was used in this study, association of pottery types with particular fabric groups should be taken with caution considering the limitations of visual observation with a binocular microscope; nonetheless, this study offers a good starting point for further research.
The study of the fabric composition of the Mamluk and early Ottoman-period ceramics from
Ha-Ezel Street in Ramla indicates that at least three different local workshops produced
pottery in Ramla and its vicinity during this time span. Among the imported wares, five
inter-regional fabrics from Greater Syria and Egypt, five Mediterranean fabrics from Cyprus
and Italy, and another four fabrics from distant, and thus far unrecognized regions, were
identified.
The Abbasid-period assemblage consists of types well-known in Tiberias. Noteworthy is the inscribed glazed bowl, which seems to be a local imitation of Coptic Glazed Ware. The presence of a ceramic waster in this context reinforces other evidence cited above of pottery production in Tiberias during this period.
The pottery from the Crusader period is of great interest for a number of reasons: (1) it seems to be dated to a short timespan; (2) it is one of the first well-dated pottery assemblages to be published from Tiberias and from a non-Mediterranean coastal site in general; (3) it was found in an area that seems to be outside the Crusader city walls; and (4) it was uncovered in association with sugar production.
In addition, a rare find of a Byzantine broad-incised sgraffito glazed bowl with an incised design of a warrior was found as well, and is extensively discussed here, and compared to similar finds from Greece. .
dating of the mills, i.e., the end of the eighteenth century until the 1920s. In addition, two sherds dating to the Crusader and Mamluk periods were identified, representing previous activities at the site.
sugar molds, and the transfer of workshops from the coastal area under Crusader rule farther inland during the Mamluk period. This change coincides with the transfer of government from ‘Akko to Safed, and archaeological and archaeometric investigations provide clear indications of the active involvement of the central government in sugar production.
The few ceramic finds from the excavation date from the Byzantine, Abbasid, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid and late Ottoman periods.
The pottery assemblage from the Mamluk period, which includes vessels that were used in the sugar industry and vessels that were imported from Italy alongside locally produced vessels, adds important information about the village during this period and offers us a glimpse of its inhabitants’ economy.
foothills on the eastern fringe of the northern 'Akko Plain. The tomb sheds new light on the Intermediate Bronze Age settlement pattern of the western Galilee an
SELJUK, AND OTTOMAN LANDS: EVIDENCE FROM
TECHNOLOGICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH. 6,7 .12 2018.
Koc University RESEARCH CENTER FOR ANATOLIAN CIVILIZATIONS
, İstanbul / Turkey
ON MEDIEVAL & MODERN PERIOD MEDITERRANEAN CERAMICS, AIECM3 Athens , 21-27 October, 2018.
The Latin East in the 13th century, Institutions, Settlements and Material Culture. Commemorating the 800th Anniversary of 'Atlit Castle. (The University of Haifa, 31 January–2 February 2018).
Culture and Archaeology:New Studies of Safed and the Galilee.
Zefat Academic College, 20, March 2017.
Excavations and Studies in Northern Israel.
26 January, 2017 .
Conference organised by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of Haifa
2nd International Conference on Art & Archaeology 2016
Art and Archaeology Strengthened by Measurement Techniques
December 11-14, 2016
Jerusalem, Israel
One of the major outcomes of our project has been the realization that, as food culture in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was shaped by cross-cultural exchanges and international transfers of technologies, its complexities and peculiarities can best be understood if a direct exchange takes place between archaeologists and historians dealing not only with food culture in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also in those areas affected by the Crusades, i.e., Europe, Byzantium, and the Levant.
With this workshop we would therefore like to set the results of our research within a broader geographical framework including Europe, Byzantium and the Levant during the 12th and the 14th centuries. We would like to encourage dialogue between historians and archaeologists in Israel and abroad engaged in the study of medieval foodstuff, cookbooks, kitchens, food preparation and processing and viniculture and sugar production. We also aim to examine food, diet and kitchens within various social and cultural contexts such as the monastic sphere, urban versus rural and the medieval castle as well as within specific geographical settings such as the Holy Roman Empire, Lusignan Cyprus and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In this way we hope to reveal the cultural and social mechanisms that shaped the culinary world of the Franks and also discover how developments in the Crusader states may have influenced food, food habits and food production in Europe and Byzantium.
We would like to collaborate the data from the historical sources with the archaeological evidence that includes mainly ceramic, numismatic and glass finds. As these finds constitute the trails the foreigners left, they are concrete material cultural reflections of their activity and interaction with the local populations.
The outcomes of the workshop are attempts to broaden our understanding of the actions and effects of foreign powers in a Mamluk province as well as to provide another facet to the developing field of Mamluk Archaeology as it will use a fresh approach, looking at what happened in the land through the “other,” namely Venetian and other Latin merchants and pilgrims.
pottery of these later eras via descriptions and scientific analyses, and to add examples of specificvessels along with drawings and photographs.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvcOitpz8oEteyWSdByMVuX365FUL6tEcK
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In the long-running history of conflicting western and local interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, an under-explored episode is the aftermath of the Mamluk conquest of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the subsequent maritime connections with Cyprus. Material remains can illuminate these relationships and networks that are poorly attested in the written record. The papal ban on trade with the Mamluks after the conquest of Acre in 1291, restricted direct trade from Europe. The Cypriots, however, had papal exemption from the ban, and Cyprus under the Lusignan and later Venetian rule, became a reshipment point for merchandise to the Levantine coast and Egypt. Notwithstanding, despite the papal embargo, Venetian merchants were granted permission in 1304 by the Amir of Safed to moor in the bay of Acre, later they were also allowed to settle and trade in Acre and to bring pilgrims to the port of Jaffa. Archaeological evidence to the activity of Venetian and Cypriot merchants in the southern Levant is scarce and it includes mainly glazed tableware. Ceramic evidence was found in excavations at the urban centres of Jerusalem, Ramla and Safed wherein the higher-rank Mamluk population and the foreign merchants resided. In the past decade I have identified small sherds of imported vessels in contemporary rural contexts, that were apparently consistently overlooked or misidentified as local product. These ceramics arrived by sea in small quantities, with the merchants and the pilgrims that frequented the coastal ports and anchorages and clearly reflect their activities. In this lecture I will present the Cypriot glazed bowls and a local production that may have been inspired from contemporary Cypriot ceramics, within the context of the maritime connections with Cyprus and the Venetian involvement during the 14th to 16th centuries.