Levantine Faience in context: A multidisciplinary study - PhD

Levantine Faience in Context (LFC) 

Summary

Faience is a man-made vitreous material that has been produced for centuries in various centres, including Egypt, the Near East, northern and western Europe, and the Indus Valley. It seems it was first used as an accessible replacement to semiprecious stones such as lapis-lazuli, but it soon gained its own status among luxury materials. Comprehensive studies of faience have primarily focused on what are identified as the "core regions" of production, such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the Levant, however, this material receives only limited attention and its identification remains challenging, as does the recognition of production techniques and sites. As a result, this material is often misunderstood and neglected in the archaeological research of the region. 

Excavations in Israel have unearthed hundreds of objects made of faience. To date, the earliest examples from the southern Levant date back to the Early Bronze Age, while the latest are from the Roman period, after which this material fell out of use. During this lengthy time, external powers often influence the material culture of the region. The corpus of finds encompasses various regions within Israel and a range of contextual types. There is also a diversity in the types of artifacts discovered; while the majority are small items such as beads and amulets, containers, serving vessels, and figurines have also been recorded. These features of the material record highlight the potential of a comprehensive, holistic, and interdisciplinary study of faience. 

This project intends to study faience finds, including vessels and small objects, from excavations in Israel, spanning the duration of its use in the region. The goal is to integrate chrono-typological studies and contextual analysis with elemental studies of chemical composition and technology. Ultimately, it is hoped to establish a protocol for working with faience vessels and objects from archaeological excavations in the southern Levant. This will enhance understanding of previous notions regarding production techniques, workshops, and trade. Furthermore, it will highlight the significance of faience as an ancient vitreous material, allowing the uncovering of patterns of adoption and transfer within a single region, particularly in relation to cultural interactions in the early periods, as well as the later dominance of the glass industry and other vitreous materials. 

In Context

In Israel, faience is identified as early as the third millennium, albeit in a small number of beads. By the second millennium, it becomes an integral part of the material culture, as the quantity of small objects such as beads and amulets increase, along with the addition of small containers to the repertoire. From the second half of the second millennium onward, there is a notable wealth of artifacts produced from this material. It is assumed that interconnections with Egypt led to the introduction of such objects to the Levant. However, scholars have debated whether a local industry also evolved during the second millennium and what its nature might have been. The faience containers and serving vessels are regarded as luxury objects and part of an international artistic koiné of the Late Bronze Age and in later periods.   

Many stylistic studies were devoted to these questions. In the last decades, analytical techniques are also used to determine the composition of major and trace elements of faience and its colorants, production stages, raw ingredients provenance and 3D reconstructions. Some of the earliest work was carried out by SEM on sections of samples taken from broken objects. This was supported by other work by XRF and other techniques on glaze surfaces of complete objects giving some elemental data, but with problems of quantifying exact compositions. More recently, SEM and FTIR have been applied to the material, but in recent years work has more and more concentrated on minimally invasive or non-invasive techniques. This has led to the increasing use of the environmental SEM, where complete objects can, at least in theory, be placed into the sample chamber and analysed. More precise analysis of a wider element can be carried out with the latest analytical techniques such as LA-ICP-MS where body and glaze composition can be determined down to parts per million in order to determine provenance of raw materials. Combined with Micro CT that gives reconstruction of the full 3D image of opaque objects, thus allowing the imaging of their interior, these are powerful techniques and will be applied here extensively.

Some work has been carried out on faience using isotopic techniques, especially lead isotopes to determine the provenance of colourants in yellow and green faience. Other isotopic systems such as strontium and neodymium isotopes have been successfully employed in glass of this period but never used in faience, and have the potential to show even more detail of provenance and production techniques 

Research Objectives and Expected Significance 

This research aims to provide a much-needed holistic study of faience in Israel. We wish to draw updated information on faience production techniques and workshops, trade and use from its typological, contextual, technological and chemical composition. Ultimately, we hope to put forward a protocol for work with faience objects and vessels from archaeological excavations in the southern Levant. This research project uses interdisciplinary thematic methods to be implemented in archaeological research. The archaeological evidence and scientific analysis will be studied to gain a better understanding of ancient societies vitreous material use. This will promote a better understanding of the significance of faience as an ancient vitreous material, enable us to reveal its pattern of adoption and transfer, especially in relation to the more dominant glass industry and other vitreous materials. 

Research Design and Methods 

This will be the first time a comprehensive, holistic interdisciplinary study on faience from the southern Levant is made. We will re-evaluate the accepted suppositions on faience, through contextual evidence and innovative analytical research methods in order to provide reliable updated data on faience use, circulation and production. 

Currently there are circa 2,000 documented faience finds stored in the Israel Antiquities Authority and we are aware of more un-documented, yet to be registered, finds from other excavations. 

The project will be to survey, catalogue, and classify the finds to compile a dataset of all finds recovered from excavations in Israel according to their chronology, typology and context. From this dataset we will choose representative examples to be analysed in several analytical methods in order to answer research questions on origin of raw materials, production techniques and workshops, as well as relation to the other vitreous industries throughout time and region. 

Work Conditions 

This will be a joint research programme between Professor Andrew Shortland (Cranfield University UK) and Dr Ruth Jackson-Tal and Nurith Goshen (Israel Museum, Jerusalem). Professor Shortland is an experienced researcher of early vitreous materials and Professor of Archaeological Science. Nurith Goshen is the Curator of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age archaeology with vast experience in excavations and research of material culture from sites in Israel and Ruth Jackson-Tal is the Curator of Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, with an extensive research record of glass and additional vitreous materials from excavations in Israel and the southern Levant. Each of the researchers will contribute their expertise and knowledge to the suggested research project, causing this productive scholarly collaboration to yield the added value of allowing an interchange of ideas, especially given their different academic backgrounds.  

The work will be carried out in several different institutions in Israel and the UK. The first is the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, where the best examples of faience objects from excavations in Israel are housed and the second is Cranfield University where analytical tests and research will take place. Project leads will collaborate with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) National Treasures, where all published faience finds found in Israel are stored and make use of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Earth Sciences, where the most advanced analytical equipment will be used for some of the analysis.  

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the IAA National Treasures, and the Hebrew University, Institute of Earth Sciences are located within walking distance one from the other in Jerusalem. Their proximity to the National Library and IAA archaeology library is a huge advantage in terms of the work conditions. 

Overall, the student will be exposed to a wide range of museum, archaeological and scientific skills and have the opportunity to investigate this very interesting and under studied corpus of material. Travel restrictions allowing, the student would be expected to spend significant periods in both Israel and the UK.