366 § ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
aromatic seeds upon cakes before baking. The various-sized cooking 
pots were the commonest pottery articles in the household. They were 
either wide-mouthed shallow vessels or small-mouthed ware with an 
almost spherical body. Both types were made with an especially heavy 
temper of tiny crushed stone fragments so as partly to compensate for 
the expansion and contraction of alternate heating and cooling while 
in use. Much pottery served for the storage of wine and oil. These 
jars might hold as much as a bath (23.25 quarts). The handles of the 
latter often bear inscriptions showing that they belonged to the royal 
Israelite treasury. A few actually bear the name of King Jehoiachin. 
Wide-mouthed jars were also used for the storage of grain and other 
dry materials. It was kitchen-sized jars of this type that Gideon used 
to carry his torches in the Midianite campaign (Judges 7). 
The destruction of Judah’s cities by Nebuchadnezzar in 588-7 B. C. 
was so ruthless that many of her cities completely disappeared from 
history and others made only a belated resurrection. Thus the exilic 
and post-exilic periods mark another era of depression. Native Israel- 
ite pottery shows this slump although it was offset by a good incoming 
Greek influence. Even before Alexander the Great, Greek pottery was 
invading the Palestinian market in quantity. In the Hellenistic period 
its influence improved the native wares. Although the Romans took 
over the government of Palestine in 63 B. C., their cultural influence 
was much slower in exerting its effect. It is represented chiefly by 
imported Roman pottery, especially that of the press-mold type such 
as Arretine ware with its intricate blending of floral and human 
patterns. Native ware is often characterized by a fine ribbed or cor- 
rugated effect. Present-day tourists find more of this kind than of 
any other ware of Bible times. 
Throughout antiquity the land of Palestine was a pottery unit, al- 
though the southern section naturally showed more Egyptian influence 
than did Galilee and northern Transjordan, whereas the latter showed 
more Syrian influence than did the south. Up to the time of Abraham 
or thereabouts, Transjordanian pottery was almost identical with that 
west of the Jordan. About that time, however, a variety of influences 
caused the inhabitants of the country south of the Jabbok River to 
return to a nomadic life in which they remained until shortly before 
Joshua’s invasion. After 1200 B. C. southern Transjordanian pottery 
took on some special features, particularly in decoration. From then 
on, its ware was more closely related to that of Syria and Arabia than 
to that of western Palestine. 
The Nabataeans, an Arabian tribe, who became so important in 
Transjordan after the days of Ezra and Nehemiah and remained so 
through much of New Testament times, introduced a special type of 
pottery inspired by Greek models. It represents one of the high- 
