Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware is this very distinctive black or dark grey pottery with impressed decoration is found in Egypt and the Levant during the period 1750-1550 .BC, which covers the late Middle Bronze Age / Second Intermediate Period.

 This example, from an enormous Swiss collection is in the common dark grey colour and is easily the largest one I've ever come across. The surface is not good, with accretions from burial and there has been some repair to the rim.

200mm / 8 inches 150mm 1750 BC - 1550 BC.

From a Swiss collection.

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The ware takes its name from its type site at Tell el-Yehudiyeh in the eastern Nile Delta of Egypt, and is also found in a large number of Levantine and Cypriot sites.  It was first recognised as a distinctive ware by Flinders Petrie during his excavation of the type site. The ware first appears in strata dating to the MBIIA period, reaching the peak of its popularity in the MBIIB-C periods when it is encountered very frequently in contemporaneous Canaanite and Delta sites. The last vestigial expressions of this ware die out during the LBI period. The clay used in Tell el-Yehudiyeh Ware is normally grey or light-brown in colour, with numerous gritty inclusions.and characterised by the  distinctive mode of decoration, applied after slipping and burnishing, and created by repeatedly "pricking" the surface of the vessel with a small sharp object to create a large variety of geometric designs. These designs appear in the form of lines, stripes, triangles, squares and - very occasionally - circles. Vessels of Tell el-Yeduiyeh Ware frequently have a dark surface (the burnished slip varying from brownish-black, to grey, to yellowish), often quite highly burnished, and thedesign holes often being filled with chalk or lime, the contrasting white material making the surface design even more dramatic. Tell el-Yehudiyeh Ware is primarily seen in the form of juglets, but also includes a large variety of zoomorphic (animal-shaped) vessels and even some shaped like fruit. Well-represented in the Nile Valley up into Nubia (though primarily in the eastern Nile Delta of Egypt), the southern portion of Canaan, the north coast of Canaan, the Phoenician and Syrian coasts and the island of Cyprus (primarily the eastern regions). Not presently found in inland Syria. All in all Tell el-Yehudiyeh Ware forms a very useful diagnostic indicator for the MBIIB-C period especially.

Bibliography

• Amiran, Ruth [1970], Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land, Rutgers University Press, 1970.

• Bietak, Manfred [1986], "Tell el-Jahudiyeh-Keramik", Lexikon der Ägyptologie VI, Wiesbade: Harrossowitz, pp.335-348.
  • [1989], "Archäologischer Befund und historische Interpretation am Beispiel der Tell el-Yahudiyeh-Ware", in S. Schoske (ed.), Akten Des Vierten Internationalen Ägyptologen-Kongresses, Munchen 1985, Band 2, [Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur, Beihefte band 2], Hamburg: Helmut Buske, pp.7-34.

  • [1997], "The Center of Hyksos Rule: Avaris (Tell el-Dab'a) - Tell el-Yahudiya Ware", in Oren, E. (ed.), The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, pp.91-96, fig.4.4-4.7.

• Kaplan, M. F. [1980], The Origin and Distribution of Tell el-Yehudiyeh Ware, [Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 42], Göteborg: Paul Åström, 1980.

• Negbi, Ora [1978], "Cypriote Imitations of Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware from Toumba tou Skourou", AJA 82.2 (1978), pp.137-149.

• Petrie, W.M. Flinders [1906], Hyksos andIsraelite Cities London, 1906.

• Zevulun, U. [1990], "Tell el-Yahudiyeh Juglets from a Potter's Refuse Pit at Afula", Eretz-Israel 21 (1990), pp.174-190, p.*107. (Hebrew with English