notes on early bronze age commensality

NOTES ON EARLY BRONZE AGE COMMENSALITY Alexander Joffe

INTRODUCTION1 Over the past three decades Early Bronze Age social organization has been approached directly through settlement and architectural patterns (Joffe 1993), mortuary behavior (Chesson 1999) and household archaeology (Paz 2012). The subject has also been studied indirectly through analyses of ethnicity (Kansa et al. 2002), ceramic typology and distribution (Charloux 2006; Roux 2009), craft production and trade (Milevski 2009) and other aspects. But radical changes have been made to Early Bronze Age chronology (Regev et al. 2012), which have upended the period’s cryptohistorical framework (Dessel and Joffe 2000) into which previous studies have typically been fitted. At the same time, reinterpretation of Egyptian evidence has created the outlines of a new, if still externally derived (and controversial), history for the EB Southern Levant (de Miroschedji 2012; cf. Höflmayer 2014). These have changed the contexts for understanding EB social organization and development. One area that has received only limited attention is the relationship between ceramics and social organization. Though ceramic technologies and production have been well-discussed (e.g., Roux and de Miroschedji 2009), the implications of forms have not. One form, the platter bowl, undergoes important changes from the EB I through the EB III (Amiran 1969: 55, 58, 67; Bunimovitz and Greenberg 2004: 21). It is proposed here that changes in platter shape reflect evolving patterns of commensality and by extension, social organization. This discussion presents a rudimentary typology of platters and comments on their use.2

DEFINING PLATTER BOWLS Platter bowls are a near ubiquitous ceramic form during the Early Bronze Age but this confident assertion masks a host of problems. Platter bowl sherds are often difficult to distinguish from other large bowls and from a typological point of view, judging where bowls end and platters begin is difficult. Simply the variety of terms employed by different scholars to describe the form has been a source of confusion. The general assumptions seem to be that platters are wider than they are deep, have either straight or rounded sides, with rims that may be inverted, everted, or profiled (cf. Golani 2003: 121; Fischer 2008: 246, n. 100, 102). The implicit assumption is also that platters were used to serve food.

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I am grateful for the opportunity to honor Aren Maeir, a fine scholar and all-around good guy. I express thanks to the editors for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and for the opportunity to return to themes I have discussed periodically over the years. Finally, I wish to thank Pierre de Miroschedji, Valentine Roux, and Agnese Vacca for their comments on ideas expressed here, and the authors and publishers who granted permission to reproduce figures. 2 This discussion focuses on the Southern Levant. For a useful summary of ceramic typology from the Northern Levant and Syria, including platter bowls, see Vacca 2014.

A. JOFFE / Notes on Early Bronze Age Commensality

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As with the chronology itself, a clear typological division of forms into the newly resized phases of the EB is no longer possible. The observations of earlier typologies such as Wright’s (1937) and Amiran’s (1969) captured broad outlines of changing styles, but the past 20 years of ceramic studies have shown that individual styles and techniques often begin earlier and last longer than previously assumed. The stylistic nature and social basis of a redated EB II that is only 100-150 years long is also difficult to understand. Thus, barring a detailed statistical study of forms and distributions, from individual phases, sites, and regions – grounded in radiocarbon dates – the typological comments here should again be regarded as provisional.

‘PLATTER BOWLS’ BEFORE THE EARLY BRONZE AGE Shallow bowls with carinations begin by the Wadi Rabah tradition and continue throughout the Chalcolithic period (Garfinkel 1999: 115-119). In the later Ghassul-Beersheva cultures there are examples of wide, shallow bowls without carinations that have been described as platters (Garfinkel 1998), as well as deeper straight-sided vessels or basins (Garfinkel 1999: Fig. 131), and a very limited number of rectangular forms described as trays (Scheftelowtz et. al 2013). These are of course in addition to a wide variety of holemouth jars, bowls and jars of various shapes and sizes. Despite this variety the most characteristic vessel of the period are V-shaped bowls of many sizes. Found at virtually all Ghassul-Beersheva tradition sites, V-shaped bowls appear to have had specialized production techniques and centers (Courty and Roux 1997; Roux 2003) and they acted as both domestic and funerary objects. From the point of view of commensality, the V-shaped bowl should be regarded as a primary vessel for presentation and consumption of food, complemented by the aforementioned shapes. Footed vessels called chalices should also be mentioned. These are in effect Vshaped bowls on stands, for which suggesting a role in food consumption is attractive. But V-shaped bowls also have stone analogues, and both ceramic and stone examples have been found at unique ‘cultic’ sites such as Gilat and ‘En Gedi, as well as in mortuary contexts. Therefore their role in food consumption, if present at all, may be ritualized. While there are many other specialized domestic shapes, from spoons to the famous ‘churns,’ there do not appear to be specialized drinking vessels. ‘Feasting’ – a somewhat overused concept in archaeology today – in the later Chalcolithic is likely to have been largely funerary (compare Dietler and Hayden 2001; cf. Hill et al. 2016). That is, food was converted into displays that generated social capital primarily in the context of sending off the dead (Hayden 2009). In addition to food and its display, later Chalcolithic mortuary behavior routinely removed labor and specialized goods from circulation in an apparently competitive manner, but with complex underlying social and metaphysical ‘philosophies’ (compare Joffe 2003; Nativ and Gopher 2011). But in the barely stratified later Chalcolithic society, the nature of that social capital, and how individuals or groups used capital, remains obscure. In behavioral terms, it seems reasonable to suggest that later Chalcolithic food consumption revolved around the V-shaped bowl, which was used for both liquids and solids, as well as for food presentation. The contents of those vessels, probably stews, soups, and porridges, are not readily amenable to visual distinction or elaboration; quantity (and perhaps quality) would have been noted rather than special ingredients or styles of preparation (although preparation itself could have been a lengthy, social, and demonstrative process).


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There is also little or no decorative or other distinction between V-shaped bowls, much less the equally ubiquitous holemouth jars and pithoi, used for food storage and preparation. The larger point is that most Ghassul-Beersheva tradition vessels and their contents project little diacritical information about either the status or role of the user or the types or contexts of food consumption. Overall, the Chalcolithic world was the apotheosis of the Paleolithic tradition of enchantment that had persisted for at least 100,000 years. Religion was not separable from other spheres of behavior, from what became known as politics, economics, culture or existence; it surrounded and penetrated everything. The structures of commensality are reminiscent of the system of reciprocity spelled out by Mauss, incessant and seemingly perpetual, a languid flow of reciprocal relations that leveled fluxes of power only haphazardly glimpsed through material culture, and which were bound up with the real and imagined worlds (Mauss 2000). Perhaps more than anything else the collapse of the Chalcolithic – regardless of its ‘causes’ - was an example of ritual failure (Insoll 2013), where the real world decoupled from the world as imagined, and its sustaining rituals proved in vain.3

EB I The most platter-like forms in the early EB I are carinated bowls in Grey Burnished Ware (GBW – Fig. 1) and their footed variants (Wright 1958; Goren and Zuckerman 2000; Braun 2012: 8). The primary distribution of these forms is limited to the Jezreel Valley and surrounding areas. Their technology and surface treatment have long been recognized as unique. GBW distribution in living contexts, however, is complemented if not overshadowed by its appearance in tombs, for example at ‘En Esur Tombs 1, 3, and 20, where they comprise 55% of the assemblage (Yannai and Grosinger 2000), which suggests specialized or ritual use. Certainly GBW stood out from the mass of early EB I pottery, signified something about the owners, and highlighted the foodstuffs being presented and consumed. The question of whether or how early Grey Burnished Ware developed from later Chalcolithic forms, particularly carinated bowls and chalices (Braun 2011: 167), cannot be resolved here. But the persistence of V-shapes and holemouth jars, and the strong resemblance between Chalcolithic and EB I stone vessels (Braun 1990), has long suggested high levels of ‘continuity’ between the two periods, at least in terms of early EB I craft production. This may also include ritual and behavioral aspects connected with food and commensality. There are several variations of platters during the later EB I. These include small carinated bowls with flaring or everted rims (Beck 1985), and the somewhat larger style of inverted rim bowls (Beth Shan BL92B types; Fig 2.; Rotem 2012: 133). There are also early examples of inverted rim bowls made of North Canaanite Metallic Ware (see below). The inverted rim bowls become a standard EB form. Flat, red burnished platters, perhaps better described as trays (Adams 2013: Fig. 8.1), are present but less common.

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Yekutieli (2014) correctly notes the evidence for violence at the very end of the Chalcolithic and speculates about an iconoclastic revolution that produced an aniconic Early Bronze Age. It might be asked, however, whether iconoclasm and EB aniconism was the cause or the result of Chalcolithic ritual failure.


Fig. 1 Grey Burnish Ware (redrawn from Goren and Zuckerman 2000: Figure 10.2).

Fig. 2 Beth Shan Type BL92B bowls (Rotem 2012: plate 16).

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Beck suggests that both shallow and deep EB I bowls, including the flared rim platters, were begun on moulds and finished on a wheel (1985: 20-21; cf. Roux 2009). Rotem also suggests that the larger inverted rim bowls are made in a mould, with the rim added separately (Rotem 2012: 132; see also Fischer 2008: 255, 290). These suggestions deserve renewed technological study. One notable point is that both large and small EB I platters are typically red slipped on the exterior and interior, with hand burnish on the rim and interior. This indicates a comparatively higher labor input but also suggests that the bowls were being sealed against liquid contents. Another feature is variation in size: the small ‘Aphek’ bowls are typically small, ranging from approximately 15-25 cm in diameter, while the inverted rim bowls are 25 cm in diameter and larger. The small size of the ‘Aphek’ bowls may argue against them being classified as platters at all, rather than simply as bowls. The key point, however, is that the ‘Aphek’ bowl and inverted rim platter are new food presentation vessels, one sized for individuals, the other for small groups. The depth of both vessels suggests soups or stews that were presented and distributed to attendees. The late EB I emergence of platters largely unrelated to Chalcolithic predecessors represents another break with that attenuated tradition. The massive growth of towns, agricultural production, and trade during the later EB I marked the end of the whatever elements remained of the small and dispersed Chalcolithic tradition that had persisted into early EB I; platters and commensality followed suit. From the point of view of commensality it may be suggested that new forms of town life, intensified agriculture, and interregional trade necessitated new forms of social integration. This ‘feasting’ was less connected with religious rituals and displays as in the Chalcolithic and more with expanded recruitment/reward and provisioning of labor in the context of households enlarged by population growth and other extensification strategies (Dietler 1996). From these requirements, new commensal forms likely emerged, such as collective work events and exchanges (Dietler and Herbich 2001), along with new ceramic forms, but largely in the context of domestic food presentation and consumption. There is a growing convergence of agricultural production and storage, craft production, and social contexts, including commensality; the demands of each increasingly influence the other. But it is worth noting that at no point during the Early Bronze Age are there mass-produced, disposable ceramics indicative of a centralized production and provisioning system, such as the beveled-rim bowls (probably used for bread baking) in Late Uruk Mesopotamia (Goulder 2010; D’Anna 2012). Before EB III, no institution or social arrangement in the Southern Levant was capable of (or perhaps interested in) controlling labor at a scale that necessitated mass provisioning. Even the immense late EB I temple at Megiddo with its animal sacrifice economy utilized a standard ceramic repertoire and shows no sign of having provisioned the community at large (Adams et al. 2014; Wapnish and Hesse 2000; Ussishkin 2015). Similarly, food production facilities in EB settlements are not scaled for community-sized provisioning; there are an increasing number of communal storage facilities (Golani and Yanni 2016)4 but no communal bakeries or breweries as in Egypt (Geller 1992; Adamski and Rosinska-Balik 2014). This is not to say that domestic units could not have undertaken large-scale food consumption for episodes such as religious festivals and life cycle events, perhaps even those sponsored or demanded by EB I institutions, only that the emerging institutions themselves did not undertake large-scale food production themselves.5 As in all periods, EB food production and consumption were shaped by climate and environment. Superficially it appears that the baseline climate for most of the EB was stable and was capable of supporting Mediterranean crop and cereal production as well as agro-pastoralism (Langgut 2016). Ovicaprids and cattle dominate the fauna of EB sites and most animals were exploited for both

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The large-scale EB I storage facility at Amaziya (Milevski et al. 2016) is likely associated with the network of Egyptian settlements. 5 See, for example, the descriptions of Greek Orthodox festivals and associated cuisine in Salaman (1983).


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meat and secondary products. The ratio of goats to sheep varied from site to site, as did the proportions of cattle and less common species such as hunted deer and pigs. These proportions were related to local conditions, specifically aridity and access to water sources, and site-specific geographies that balanced agriculture and pasturing (Horwitz and Tchernov 1989; Maher 2014). The consumption of various grains and legumes also remains constant and was similarly shaped by local conditions (Lipschitz 1989). But certain EB I commensal behaviors stand out, namely the appearance of large numbers of loop handled drinking vessels in early EB I tombs such as Bab edh Dhra' T. 72 (Schaub and Rast 1989: Fig. 83) and late EB I tombs such as T. 80 at Tel Esur (Fig. 3; Gorzalczany and Shavit 2010).6 Loop handled cups, and the growing number of large vessels with spouts (often called ‘kraters’ or ‘vats,’ e.g., Fig. 4; Rotem 2012: Pl. 19: 14; Eisenberg and Rotem 2016: Fig. 5: 13; Golani 2003: Fig. 4. 13: 8, 13), and perhaps even the abundant spouted ‘teapots’ and burnished jars, reflects commensal drinking in EB I society. But the extraordinary number of drinking vessels in EB I tombs does not seem to be matched by proportions in daily assemblages. It is therefore unclear whether the loop handled cups were utilized primarily in the ritual realm of funerary gifts and behavior, or whether equally heavy drinking also went on in everyday life. This hypothesis deserves quantitative study.

Fig. 3 Loop handle cups ‘Ein Esur, Tomb 80 (Gorzalczany and Shavit 2010: Fig 11).

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Early EB I cups generally have rounded bottoms while later EB I examples tend toward flat bottoms. A first impression of this contrast is that the earlier examples were refilled by scooping from a basin (which are wellrepresented in Bab edh-Dhra tombs) while later were designed to be refilled from a vessel. This may have implications for the context of drinking, wherein the rounded bottom cups were refilled by the user and the flat bottomed by an attendant.


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But the large spouted vessels suggest beer had become an important part of the daily diet, which is logical given the likelihood that water was increasingly contaminated as a result of higher population densities. Beer has an immensely long history, perhaps reaching back to the Epipaleolithic (Hayden et al. 2012), but clearer signatures of brewing are difficult to find before the Early Bronze Age7. Wine8 and oil production, both for export to Egypt and for domestic consumption (and related specialist production of red burnished jars and juglets), also increased and may have had a domestic diacritical or sumptuary role in late EB I society as well as an important economic role (Joffe 1998; Mayyas et al. 2013).

Fig. 4 Vats Tell Abu Kharaz Phase IB, Area A (Fischer 2008: Fig. 106).

Dedicated drinking (and beverage production) in EB I suggests that individual and group bonds were created and amplified by producing and consuming alcoholic in both domestic and social settings. Indeed, as with social storage of agricultural products (Golani and Yannai 2016), beverage production may have provided another avenue for elites to assert control over society, only through means that tended to disguise the ends. If drinking had both utilitarian and social functions in the later EB I, then this may also have been the origin of Southern Levantine drinking cultures that reappeared periodically

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Arthur (2003) makes the important observation that beer production erodes the interior of ceramic pots and produces attrition from the base up to the rim. This is a common phenomenon on the interior of EB holemouth jars. I am grateful to John Arthur for his comments on this issue. 8 Vinegar production is an inevitable corollary of viticulture and can be produced from any fermentable carbohydrate source. Vinegars are found globally and are used for culinary and medicinal purposes.


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for the remainder of the Bronze and Iron Ages.9 There is, however, no iconographic or other evidence that these events had the formality (or respectability) of roughly contemporary Early Dynastic Mesopotamian banquets or symposia, which simultaneously highlighted class dependence and intraelite communication, and the gradual elevation of kingly power (Romano 2015; cf. de Miroschedji 1997: 203-204).

EB II There are at least three platter styles in the EB II (or what is left of it); carinated (Fig. 5), triangular rimmed (Fig. 6) and shallow with a groove below a thickened rim (Fig. 7) These variations extend the types already seen during the EB I but with the notable addition of grooved platters.10

Fig. 5 Platters with carinated rims Qiryat Ata Straum I (Golani 2003: Fig. 4. 26).

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Bunimovitz and Greenberg, for example, (2004) note the (re)appearance of stylized drinking vessels during EB IV or Intermediate Bronze Age. They propose that the Syrian-inspired cups and teapots represent emulation of a foreign drinking culture in the Southern Levant. Similar suggestions have been made for Late Bronze and Iron Age cultures, local, Philistine, and pan-Mediterranean (Joffe 1999; Faust 2015). For an important comparative example of the late third millennium ‘west Anatolian drinking set’ see Ünlü 2016. 10 Deep bowls with inverted and flattened rims (e.g., Ben-Tor and Bonfil 2003: p. 69, no. 17) should be classified as bowls rather than platters.


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Fig. 6 Platters with triangular rims Qiryat Ata Stratum I (Golani 2003: Fig. 4.25).

Fig. 7 Platters with under rim groove Beth Yerah Building EY 488, local stratum 9B (Eisenberg and Greenberg 2006: Fig. 8.62).

The carinated platters are often made of Northern Canaanite Metallic Ware. While Northern Canaanite Metallic Ware begins in late EB I (Paz 2010), a full discussion belongs in EB II and III.


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Metallic Ware is a unique convergence of ware, technologies, and shapes; Lower Cretaceous Hatira Formation clays, found primarily in the Galilee, the Hermon region, and parts of Lebanon, are manufactured into a variety of conventional EB forms – including platters but excluding holemouths (Greenberg 2002: 45) - and distributed primarily in the north (Greenberg and Porat 1996; Badreshany 2013: 16). At some northern sites, Metallic Ware exceeds 50% of the total EB II assemblage. These tight correlations suggest specialized workshops with ample fuel supplies and well-organized distribution networks (Badreshany 2013: 553, 579-585). The high-fired Metallic Ware is visually (and audibly) distinctive, thin and impermeable (Shoval and Paz 2015), which suggests new performance characteristics in terms of presenting liquid contents.11 Some larger vessels, such as storage jars, have combed decoration on the exterior, which further advertised their uniqueness. Greenberg suggests that Metallic Ware manifested an ‘ideology’ of standardization and conformity connected with urbanization that had stylistic, behavioral, political, and social implications (Greenberg 1999). In contrast, Rotem suggests that Metallic Ware simply represents high value pottery that was differentially absorbed into an increasingly stratified society (Rotem 2012: 164, 166).12 These contrasting interpretations cannot be easily tested or reconciled. But that difficulty points to a third interpretation, that from the late EB I onwards there was a dialectic between ceramic consumers and producers, the result of increasing consumer need, tighter communications networks, and new production techniques. As consumers in an increasingly stratified society sought to express their status, ceramic producers responded with new products that leveraged existing styles with new technologies. Elite demand then fed back on to producers for more diacritical content, as styles simultaneously trickled down into emerging ‘middle class’ consumers. Metallic Ware became ‘symbolic’ of a new way of living (at least in the north), which also had numerous invisible aspects in the realm of manners, preferences, and attitudes. As will be described, in EB III this material and nonmaterial dialectic exploded. In commensal terms, specialist made Metallic Ware assemblages helped shape EB II food preparation and presentation by providing ceramics with new levels of temperature resistance and impermeability. These characteristics may have opened up new possibilities for the EB II housewife, as did the new globular everted rim cooking pot and its flat bottomed relative (Greenberg 2006), both of which have a much smaller capacity than existing large holemouth cooking pots. These changes in cooking pots imply smaller and more diverse batches of food were being prepared along side ‘traditional’ bulk fare.13 But carinated platters are not the only EB II form.14 More typical are triangular and thickened rim varieties that are larger and shallower than the carinated types. Most analysts believe these platters, too, are made in a shallow mould (Golani 2003: 125). Another notable feature of EB II (and especially EB III platters) is the increasingly pronounced groove below the rim (e.g., Eisenberg and Greenberg 2006: Fig. 8.56.6; Fischer 2008: Fig. 262.7). London concluded that EB II and III platters were made in a mould and that the groove was where the rim was attached to the body (London 1988: 119). Other analyses, however, have shown that EB platters are coil built (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2009), and wheel formed and finished (Roux 2009). Either way, platters are formed and their bases

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For a comprehensive discussion of the performance characteristics of cooking pots and modern materials see Lemme 1989. 12 The practical aspects of safely transporting large vessels such as platter bowls and cooking pots (Paz and Iserlis 2009) have not been adequately explained. How many platter bowls a donkey could transport remains unclear (Shai et al. 2016), along with the economic and social organization of the distribution network. 13 Note, however, that there are round bottom holemouth jars in the EB II with diameters as small as 15-20 cm (e.g., Amiran 1978: Plate 43: 6-8, Plate 44: 7, 9). For important observations regarding ‘one pot cooking’ see Gordon and Jacobs-McCusker 1989. 14 Badreshany notes that platter bowls are characteristic of EB II-III in the Biqa Valley but are restricted to EB II on the Lebanese coast (Badreshany 2013: 268). The implications of this observation deserve close examination.


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scraped when leather hard, with the rims either formed through rotation or added as a coil (Roux pers. comm.). Most are red slipped and burnished on the interior. One sign of the importance of platters is the growing evidence in EB II and III for repairs. Broken platters are repaired by drilling holes on opposite sides of cracks and sections then tied together (e.g., Paz 2006: Fig. 730: 12; Fischer 2008: Fig. 262.4). There is no evidence the surface slip of the vessels was (or could be) repaired. If this is correct, it is likely these platters did not hold liquid contents but acted as trays. The spread of flatter platters with burnished decoration has important implications for commensality. Rather than simply liquid contents served in a deep, large platter, EB II and EB III presentation included smaller bowls of foodstuff arrayed on decorative platters. Drinking also remained an important part of EB II foodways. Red slipped and burnished mugs and juglets with wide mouths become common (Fig. 8; e.g., Eisenberg and Greenberg 2006: Fig. 8.74: 1-3), as do everted rim bowls with loop handles (e.g., Schaub and Rast 1989: 411, types 3704, 3712). The latter form is likely for dual use, suitable for consuming liquid food or beverage. The proliferation of drinking vessels, and the continued prominence of simple bowls, suggests a progressive elaboration of the EB II ceramic corpus. More drink, more food, and different types of food, were presented and consumed.

Fig. 8 Mugs Jericho, phase Sultan IIIB (Sala 2010: Plate LXXVI: 10-17).

An important contrast in commensality between EB I and EB II, however, is the disappearance of pottery from tombs, along with the tombs themselves (Ilan 2002). Outside of Bab edh Dhra and Jericho there are almost no EB II or EB III tombs in the entire Southern Levant. This lacuna has been interpreted as evidence of social ‘leveling’ in death in the Mediterranean zones (Harrison 2001) while the Bab edh Dhra tombs have been interpreted as the embodiment of the living household and its social relations (Chesson 1999). From the point of view of commensality and foodways, the Bab edh Dhra tombs were especially well endowed with the full range of EB II and III domestic pottery including platters and mugs (Schaub and Rast 1989: 417-440). In this ‘idealized’ representation of the EB II and III, the percentage of platter bowls remains constant between the two periods at six percent. In contrast, the percentage of handled cups increases from three to six percent, while the percentage of very large ‘banquet bowls’ jumps from one percent to 13% (Schaub and Rast 1989: Fig. 251). It must be concluded that during the EB II and III, throughout most of the settled Mediterranean zones of the southern Levant, the practice of funerary feasts and/or sending the dead to the hereafter with food and pottery either disappeared or was dramatically relocated away from burials to other sites. This is a difficult to explain rupture in practice and belief (which was mended in EB IV) and may have reflected new political and social relations of EB II and III, where kin and other groups


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resident in towns and ‘cities’ were less tied to the rural landscape.15 And as in EB I, there is no evidence that emerging EB II institutions undertook communal food storage or food production. But this statement needs to be qualified by the realization that EB II has experienced shrinkage thanks to the refined radiocarbon chronology. The monumental institutions of the EB III, to be discussed below, were all deeply involved with food and commensality. Like the period itself, the problems characterizing EB II may be more apparent than real.

EB III Carinated, triangular, and thickened/grooved rim platters continue in EB III. The most notable change is the growing dominance of red slipped interiors and radial burnished decoration (Fig. 9; e.g., Shai et al. 2014: Fig. 68). Radial burnishing begins in EB II but becomes a defining characteristic of the later period. Exterior slip and overall burnish of platters decrease correspondingly, along with firing temperatures (Medeghini et al. 2012), perhaps signs of larger-scale and lower quality production. Other important additions to the EB III corpus are platters with flat bottoms and rounded sides (Fig. 10) deep platters with flattened or hammer rims (Fig. 11; e.g., de Miroschedji 2000: Fig. 18.5.12-14; Getzov 2006: Fig. 3.45), oversized platters, some approaching a meter in diameter (Fig. 12; e.g., Adams 2013: Fig. 8.10; de Miroschedji 2000: Fig 18.5.15) and rare footed platters, so far unique to Tell Yarmouth (Fig. 13; e.g., de Miroschedji 2000: Fig. 18.9.1). The variability in platter rims (e.g., Esse 1991: Plate 11: 1-17) raises a series of questions. On the one hand, there is little doubt that the manufacture and decoration of platters required highly skilled specialists. On the other, the wide variations in rim shapes could suggest a large number of specialists and workshops, while the growing use of grog temper and lower firing temperatures could indicate reduced standards for a growing market (Ben-Shlomo et al. 2009: 2269). A likely interpretation is that local (rather than regional) specialist production over many years introduced minor variations (for example, if rims were finished by assistants, London 1988: 123) that have little real chronological or typological significance.16

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It should be further noted that nowhere in the mid-late third millennium Southern Levant are there elite funerary monuments that compare with those of Euphrates sites such as Jerablus Tahtani, Tell Ahmar, Tell Banat, and nearby sites like Umm el-Marra (Porter 2002; Cooper 2007). This contrast is fundamental and deserves further study. 16 In lieu of a formal discussion regarding the implications of ceramic ethnoarchaeology for the EB, a brief numerical speculation regarding platter bowls is in order. Roux’s extrapolations regarding Chalcolithic V-shaped bowls found that the thousands of examples found at individual sites could have been produced by a small number of potters in only days or weeks (2003: 20-21). By comparison, for the sake of argument, if we assume that three platter bowl specialists each formed three vessels per day for 200 days, with additional time interspersed for clay preparation, finishing and firing, then one year’s production would have been 1800 platter bowls. This figure, of course, has no basis in archaeological or ceramic reality but is intended to hint at the possibility that a very small number of specialists could have produced large portions of the specialized ceramics to which archaeologists assign so much significance. A more concrete figure derives from the EB strata at Tell Abu al-Kharaz. There a total of 203 platter sherds or whole vessels were recovered from all levels, comprising 2.1% of the total number of sherds or vessels (Fischer 2008: 245). The implications of these speculations for ceramic typology and chronology are potentially vast. Ethnoarchaeological and ceramic technological research over decades has established that there are many different ceramic production levels, households and workshops, itinerant potters, and so on. Different shapes are thus being made in different contexts, each of which has a different rate of production, and stylistic and technological change. Archaeological ‘reading’ of pottery for chronological change typically aggregates sherds found in different contexts, eliminates obvious outliers and arrives at an ‘average’ date, based on stylistic parallels and individual experiences. But since these vessels were made by specialists and non-specialists alike, with varying rates of technological and stylistic innovation and conservatism, then the dates arrived at either implicitly privilege one type over another or imagine an ‘average’. Either way, a very small number of EB ceramic producers have been leading us around by the nose for over a century.


Fig. 9 Radial Burnish Megiddo, Area J (Joffe 2000: Fig. 8.10).

Fig. 10 Flat bottoms Megiddo, Area J, Phase J6-b, Room 2 (Adams 2013: Fig. 8.8).

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Fig. 11 Deep platters with hammer rims Yarmouth, Area A, Pit 149 (nos. 12-13), and Area C, L.628-1 (de Miroschedji 2000: Fig. 18.5.12-14).

Fig. 12 Oversized platter Megiddo, Area J, Phase J6-b, Room 2 (Adams 2013: Fig. 8.8).

Fig. 13 Multi-legged platter Tel Yarmouth, Area B-I, 1616. Fl. (de Miroschedji 2000: 18.9.1).

Bunimovitz and Greenberg note that the size of EB III platters is much greater than earlier examples: whereas in EB II small platters tend to be 25-30 cm in diameter and large ones 40-50 cm, in EB III the average diameter (and surface area) doubles (2004: 21). They suggest that platters imply “meal based hospitality,” and would have required at least two persons to carry, that “attest to ostentatious consumption, reflecting the owner's ability to command both the price of the artifact itself and the quantities of food placed upon it.” Another explanation, however, is that platters as trays were placed on stands, where they could be admired, and smaller containers of food placed upon them. The footed platters from the Yarmouth palace may be ceramic examples of this (Fig. 14). Presentation remains an important aspect of modern cooking. This entails several levels of representation, including demonstrating the authenticity of the ingredients and the style of preparation. In her memoir, for example, Julia Child describes her introduction to perdreau or partridge at Restaurant des Artists “Its nicely browned head, shorn of feathers but not of neck or beak, would be curled around its shoulder, and its feet, minus claws, folded up at either side of its breast. It’s hardly an American presentation, but a game-lover wants to see all these tell-tale appendages, just to be sure it’s really a perdreau on the platter” (Child 2006: 114). Food presentation in EB III gives the impression of striving to communicate information about the food and hence the presenter.


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The EB III also saw an increase in the quantities of food being prepared, with both flat trays for display and deep platters with flattened and hammer rims for liquid items like soup or stews. Larger quantities of food were being prepared. Notable in this regard are large, flat bottomed basins with straight sides (e.g., Getzov 2006: Figs. 9-10) similar to lakan (copper basins), historically used for kneading dough (Fig. 15; Canaan 1962: 41).17 Commensal drinking also continued during EB III but the configuration of vessels and the contexts changed. There are strainer cups suitable for beer (e.g., Polcaro 2005: Fig 17: 1), and ‘mugs’ (Loud 1948: Plate 6: 1-2), although more prominent are a wide range of jugs and pitchers (e.g., Schaub and Rast 1989: Table 23, types 3426, 3443, 3461). These would have been suitable for drinking as well as for pouring. Even more common are the variety of red burnished, stump base pitchers, including examples with elaborate incised decoration (Fiaccavento 2014), which seem restricted to mortuary and palatial contexts. It is tempting to see these forms pointing to a rise in consumption of more potent liquids for the purpose of inebriation (Guerra-Doce 2015), as a function of social and political circumstances, or at least indicative of further differentiation of liquids by source and function.

Fig. 14 Food being served in small vessels on a supported platter (Lane 1908: 149).

17

Compare Dalman 1935:Figure 24 where the lakan is used for laundry.


16

Fig. 15 Basin Tel Yarmouth, Stratum B-II (de Miroschedji 2000: Fig. 18.7.5).

Certain contexts of EB III commensality are increasingly clear. EB III has long been thought of as a period of hypercentralization, in part because of the immense fortifications that accrued over time, as at ‘Ai, Tell Yarmouth, Tell Halif, Al Batrawy, (Nigro 2013: 197-198) and many other sites, as well as the decrease in the overall number of sites, indicative of population agglomeration (Levy-Reifer 2012). But the EB III should also be characterized as a ‘palatial’ period with a number of competing ‘royal’ establishments, some paramount and others subordinate, whose power and fortunes shifted across the centuries of the period (Fig. 16; de Miroschedji 2006, 2015; Greenberg forthcoming). More than anything else these ‘palaces’ mark a dramatic change in EB III society and a leap in political and social organization. They reshaped EB III society in profound ways, including commensality.

Fig. 16 Map of the fortified Early Bronze II-III settlements in the southern Levant (de Miroschedji 2013: Fig. 1).


17

A number of scholars including Golani and Yannai (2016) and Genz (2003) have pointed to the importance of social storage and staple finance in the evolution of complex institutions in the Southern Levant. Ideologies and institutions of accumulation are the roots of Early Bronze Age social complexity, including the rise of ‘palatial’ society in the EB III. This is not the place to fully analyze the complex stratigraphy and phasing of EB III sites (Greenberg forthcoming). Nor is it possible to present a full analysis of the Megiddo, Yarmouth, Jericho, Al Batraway, ‘Ai (?), Tell es-Saidiyeh, and Khirbet ez-Zeraqoun palaces, their individual and non-standardized evolution or contents, or to compare them in depth with contemporary or later Near Eastern establishments (Genz 2010; Yasur-Landau et al. 2015). It is sufficient here to note their size and internal complexity, the immense concentration of stored agricultural wealth in hundreds of pithoi, such as at Yarmouth (de Miroschedji 2003) and Jericho (Nigro et al. 2011: 587-590, Fig. 17-18), production of olive oil and perhaps other products at Yarmouth (Salavert 2008), the concentration of material wealth and exotic goods, as at Al Batrawy (Nigro 2014), and the evidence for ceramic production at Khirbet ez-Zeraqoun and Yarmouth (Roux and de Miroschedji 2009). Two features are evident: a high degree of participation or control of the agricultural economy (accomplished without writing and with little or no administrative technology), and a close relationship between elites and craft production.18 Mention should also be made of the temples at ‘Ai, Megiddo, and Zeraqoun, which, though lacking storage facilities, were the center of animal economies for sacrifice, as well as the still enigmatic “Building with Circles’ at Bet Yerah and its grain silos (cf. Mazar 2001). These institutions, whose connections with the ‘royal’ establishments remain obscure, could also extract (or attract) surplus labor and goods from the population. In terms of commensality there are indications that palaces engaged in ‘feasting’ of a more familiar royal sort. The large storage capabilities are one sign, as are the large ovens at the Al Batrawy palace (Nigro 2014: 199) and the Tell es-Saidiyeh ‘pantry’ (Tubb et al. 1996; Cartwright 2002) that palaces were producing large quantities of food.19 One possibility is that the palace provided ‘feasts’ for the community as a means of attracting and rewarding dependent labor. Another is that there was a nascent ‘court’ at each palace, consisting of specialists, dependents and hangers-on, or even of local headmen from surrounding communities or urban neighborhoods. These two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. But the idea that EB III centers had ‘courts’ may help explain the elaboration of commensality and ceramics. The dialectic between ceramic producers and consumers was not merely a question of producers stimulating demand for additional products. The larger issue is the relationship between the new palace culture and the rest of EB society. Of course, while some EB III elites may have had pretenses of royalty, that is, claims of divine kingship, they were in fact just wealthy agricultural and trading families with sufficient resources, including force, to impose their wills and styles on the rest of society. These newly emerged elites were at best bumptious and at worst, thuggish. Finding appropriate historical or evolutionary comparisons is therefore difficult. But given that food is a human constant, it is useful to cast a wide net for insights. In his book The Civilizing Process, sociologist Norbert Elias describes the evolution of medieval societies across Europe as a loosely integrated but competitive process. Manners, attitudes, codes of conduct, and behaviors, including those related to food, emanated from courts to one another and then trickled downward through the classes. Elias describes how:

18

Compare here the comments about the Middle Bronze Age palace at Tell Kabri as an oikos rather than a redistributive economy (Yasur-Landau et al. 2015: 618-620), based in part on the absence of evidence for administration. 19 Compare here the far larger and more diverse food production capabilities of Palace G at Ebla (Peyronel et al. 2016),


18

“customs, behavior, and fashions from the court are continuously penetrating the upper middle classes, where they are imitated and more or less altered in accordance with the different social situation. They thereby lose, to some extent, their character as means of distinguishing from the upper class. They are somewhat devalued. This compels those above to further refinement and development of behavior.” (Elias 1978: 100-101) The refinements Elias points to include table manners and types of food (especially consumption of meat), as well as general comportment, personal hygiene, and relations between sexes. This scenario gives much needed texture to earlier concepts such as ‘peer polity interaction’ (Renfrew 1986). Discussions of commensality in early Mesopotamia, as noted above, point to elite solidarity making behavior and elite provisioning of the lower classes, each of which would have reinforced identities and statuses (Pollock 2003). Discussions regarding later periods focus almost exclusively on written evidence from royal settings (e.g., Ermidoro 2015). Of course, in the absence of writing, the Early Bronze Age transmission of both manners and recipes was constrained, meaning that ‘high culture’ (sensu Goody 1982: 97-153; cf. Gellner 1982) could not emerge.20 The enormous literature on foodways in medieval Islamic states also provides scattered hints. For example, new elites such as Mamluks had to position themselves within long established traditions of behavior and piety, while the lower classes continued to make do. In Egypt, “since a great number of the masses could not afford to buy food and others could not prepare it properly at home, it was used by the Mamluk elite as an instrument to enhance their image as devoted Muslim ruler” (Levanoni 2005: 9). The poor also had to rent kitchen utensils and patronize cooking services provided by neighborhood butchers and bakers, while, as in medieval Europe, a literature developed regarding elite table manners. And, in general, the rich ate larger amounts and more elaborate food than the poor. Meats and sweets were particular signs of social rank (see generally Lewicka 2011). Nineteenth century Ethiopia also provides an interesting example of how foodways intersect directly with politics. For the coronation of King Menilek in 1887 Queen Taytu created not only an enormous feast but a new gastronomy designed as a means of national integration and a celebration of the queen’s Christian faith. (McGann 2009: 65-69). One could imagine that new styles of EB cuisine and commensality emerged in response to political events, such as the rise of the Tel Yarmouth polity that loomed so large in the south during EB III. Of course, no archaeological evidence suggests such events, nor is any likely to appear. But the Ethiopian example usefully suggests new possibilities that connect politics, food, and material culture.21 Comparisons with modern societies, too, yield useful information, including in the area of gender and commensality. Early modern urban provisioning and palatial cooking were male occupations, but women have been instrumental in transmitting gastronomy and manners to the rest of society. But role of gender is deeper than specialization. For example, Valencian men reinforce their masculinity by making paella (and nothing but paella, cooked in a specialized round pan called a paella) as part of a celebration of hospitality (March 1989). And throughout the world, drinking has been strongly gendered, with women’s participation conditioned by the intersection of social respectability and political circumstances (e.g., Gutzke 1994). 20

The lack of cookbooks in ancient Egypt noted by Millet (1999) should be contrasted with the evidence for recipes –although not cookbooks per se – in Mesopotamia (Ermidoro 2015: 192-220), and with the presence of formal medical texts in both. 21 For a more radical example between food and politics see Gordon and Jacobs-McCusker (1989: 60-62) on the “military nostalgia and a bourgeois romanticized view of a radical egalitarian agrarian life [which] lay at the base of the Eintopf ideal” and the connection with the “One-pot Sunday of the German Peasant Family” invented by the Nazi party.


19

The social differentiation of foodways also offers the possibility of detection in the archaeological record. If EB III society was indeed focused on ‘courts’ then specialists in violence would have been required to enforce the royal will, exact taxes and tribute, keep the peace, guard the city, and wage war against rivals or upstarts. These so-far invisible specialists would have been a specific class of retainer within the ‘court,’ along with others such as administrators and craft producers. And indeed, EB III was violent. This is implied by the massive fortifications, by the destructions at many sites, and now by the evidence of a siege at the site of Leviah (Paz 2011). To this may be added the bioarchaeological evidence of cranial trauma, indicative of a high level of interpersonal violence (Gasperetti and Sheridan 2013). But EB III society was not simply a condition of violent oppression of the masses by elites. There is evidence of local and international trade (Arnold et al. 2016) and that status items, such as carved bone tubes and ivory beads, were distributed into the urban ‘middle class’ (Greenfield et al. 2014). This provides broader context for the spread of commensal behavior from elites and ‘courts’ to other classes. But pottery – and food – may have been among the primary circulating goods and means of expression. The distribution of Khirbet Kerak Ware (KKW) from its core zones in the Jordan Valley, where it was used and produced by ethnic newcomers, to the south, similarly illustrates how ceramics were reinterpreted across EB III society for diacritical or sumptuary purposes. Not surprisingly, most of the KKW forms found in the south, such as hemispherical and sinuous sided bowls, kraters and biconical stands (and their local imitations), can be associated with drinking (Nigro 2009). Elite elaboration of material culture and manners, the development of new social categories, including those attached to the palace as well as residents of ‘urban’ neighborhoods and ‘serf-life’ peasants, the ‘trickle down effect’ into the urban classes and ethnic barrios, and the search for new means of distinction by consumers and producers alike – which includes both adoption and resistance to new foodways - had the effect of diversifying EB III commensality. Finally, commensality is not simply about competition, it also reinforced in-group solidarity, often in relation to larger belief systems. While iconography provides some evidence for EB religious beliefs (de Miroschedji 2011), little is known about the actual religious practice at household or even community levels, including temples. Perhaps in the home platters and their contents were utilized in the equivalent of Friday night or Sunday night dinners for Jews and Catholics, respectively, with all their finery. In this scenario, elaborate ceramics were not simply expressions of conspicuous consumption and competitive display but of pious reverence and self-respect. This interpretation has additional appeal if we posit EB III political society as increasingly violent, centralized, and demanding in terms of labor and other extractions. EB III was the harbinger for the remainder of the Bronze Age and perhaps beyond, in terms of power and exploitation. Sympathetically imagining the reinforcement of family and kin bonds in the face of difficult circumstances may have more explanatory power than simply seeing competitive showing off at work.

CONCLUSION Much more should be done to study commensality in the Early Bronze Age and to test some of the hypotheses presented here. Obviously flora and fauna evidence that underlies the reconstruction of ancient commensality must be examined more closely. Further study of non-food plant species, for example, will provide useful hints regarding land use and human modification of the landscape (Cartwright 2002; Klinge and Fall 2010), the canvases for food production and commensality. Human biological analyses also have enormous potential for revealing what was eaten and by whom. Dental


20

evidence, for example, shows an increase in caries from EB I to EB III consistent with the increase in consumption of fruits (Ullinger et al. 2013), although not indicative of their form (fresh, dried, or liquid), or the contexts of consumption. Biomolecular, trace element and similar analyses and have particular promise in this regard (e.g., Pfälzner et al. 2007; Al-Khafif and El-Banna 2015). Further research in household archaeology (particularly the comparison of elite and non-elite areas), microarchaeology, ceramic use wear and residue analyses, as well as quantitative analyses of ceramic assemblages, including platter attributes, are all promising areas, as are larger perspectives on food systems and urban provisioning. Finally, it is important to go beyond the bread and stew mentality that has characterized most studies of ancient Levantine diet, perhaps by tacking between archaeological and ethnographic evidence, and modern and medieval Middle Eastern cookbooks, for deeper insights into the dynamic relationships between ingredients, recipes, food, and people. Platters cannot be expected to offer full explanations for Early Bronze Age society. But the manners in which food and ceramics are entangled with ideas, behaviors, and social organization usefully create complex skeins that confound easy reconstructions. As Mary Douglas notes, “Drinks are for strangers, acquaintances, workmen, and family. Meals are for family, close friends, honored guests. The grand operator of the system is the line between intimacy and distance” (1972: 66). Understanding intimacy and distance in antiquity, and collapsing the distance between ourselves and the Early Bronze Age, is not easily accomplished. As in most endeavors, good food and strong drink are required.

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