Production Centres and Distribution Patterns of Khirbet Kerak Ware in the Southern Levant: A Typological and Petrographic Perspective

Abstract

Khirbet Kerak Ware (KKW) is one of the most conspicuous ceramic families in the southern Levant during the 3rd millennium BCE. The foreign origins of these vessels—as well as their technology, relative chronology and distribution patterns within the wider sphere of their appearance—have been the focus of previous discussions of this family. This paper presents the results of a large-scale project that combines typological and petrographic analyses of KKW from 25 sites in Israel. It suggests that the pattern of production and distribution of KKW involved both webs of long-distance exchange as well as local workshops or itinerant craftsmen producing vessels in the KKW technique away from the centres of intensive production and consumption.