Biblical Archaeology Review - January-February 2018

bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW 47

was a center for the manufacture of basalt sculpture

in the second millennium B.C.E.^3

But it was a bit of a surprise to fi nd evidence for

basalt carving at the site in a later Israelite work-

shop. In addition to providing evidence for this little-

known Israelite craft, the workshop is the only one

of its kind in the Near East from the Iron Age, when

Hazor was a central administrative city and home

to a wealthy ruling class. It contained more than 20

unfi nished basalt vessels—also called preforms or

wasters—as well as tools that may have been used to

carve them. Add this to the assemblage of a similar

number of unfi nished basalt vessels found scattered

throughout the main excavation areas at Hazor in

the 1990s and early 2000s, and we have evidence

for a specialized basalt vessel industry at the site

spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Who were the basalt vessel carvers at Israelite

Hazor, and is there a connection between the Israel-

ite basalt carving industry and that of their Canaan-

ite predecessors?

By the Iron Age, basalt vessel manufacturing was

already a longstanding tradition in the region, as

beautifully carved deep basalt vessels/mortars are

known from the Natufi an period (c. 13,000 B.C.E.).

Basalt vessels then continued to form important

components of prehistoric stone industries and

peaked during the Early Chalcolithic period (c.

4500–3900 B.C.E.). Although not as outré as their

prehistoric predecessors, Bronze Age (c. 3200–1200

B.C.E.) basalt vessels refl ect great skill and variety.

Indeed, the vessels found at Hazor include at least

four types popular from the Middle Bronze Age

through the Iron Age.

The Iron Age basalt workshop at Hazor was dis-

covered on the northern edge of the tell, in an area

that served as the main point of passage between

the lower and upper cities and the location of an

administrative palace during the Middle and Late

Bronze Ages. Defi ned by walls on its northern and

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MARKS OF BATTERING, PECKING, AND CHISELING

apparent on the unfi nished vessels from Hazor allow

us to reconstruct the manufacturing process step-by-step

and consider possible tools used in carving these

basalt vessels.

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