Recent Studies

Small ceramic flasks with thick walls and narrow openings were produced in Phoenicia. These flasks were common in Phoenicia, the southern Levant and Cyprus in the early Iron Age, namely in the 11th–mid-9th centuries BCE. Their shape, size, decoration and find-contexts suggest that they contained some precious materials and were part of a commercial network operating in these regions. We analyzed the lipid contents of 27 such containers from 5 archaeological sites in Israel using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Biologically produced compounds preserved in ancient ceramics can provide invaluable information on the vessel contents. Analysis and interpretation of these so-called archaeological “residues” is therefore important for understanding and reconstructing aspects of social and cultural behaviors of ancient societies. Based on the reaction of unsaturated compounds with iodine, we developed and apply two new methods. The first is a simple and relatively rapid method for assessing the amounts of unsaturated compounds in archaeological ceramics using Xray fluorescence (XRF).

The same grinding curve approach was applied to the study of enamel and bone materials from vertebrates. Surprisingly, the enamel samples from 4 different taxa can all be well separated from each other and that this separation corresponds in part to varying amounts of carbonate in the lattice. The bone materials are not as well separated, but they too do not totally overlap (Fig 3). For more details see (Asscher et al., 2011b).

Is the calcite in the form of plaster or chalk? (From Tel es Safi, Israel)

The study of atomic disorder in minerals found in archaeological sites, offers many exciting and important opportunities to gain insights into archaeological processes. There are several reasons for this: