Ghassulian

The Ghassulian was an archaeological stage dating to the Middle Chalcolithic Period in southern Israel (c. 3800–c. 3350 BC). Its type-site, Tulaylat al-Ghassul, is located in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea in modern Jordan and was excavated in the nineteen thirties. The Ghassulian stage was characterized by small hamlet settlements of mixed farming peoples, and migrated southwards from Syria into Israel. Houses were trapezoid-shaped and built mud-brick, covered with remarkable polychrome wall paintings. Their pottery was highly elaborate, including footed bowls and horn-shaped drinking goblets, indicating the cultivation of wine. Several samples display the use of sculptural decoration or of a reserved slip (a clay and water coating partially wiped away while still wet). The Ghassulians were a Chalcolithic culture as they also smelted copper.

Funerary customs show evidence that they buried their dead in stone dolmens. [A. Gorzalczany, "Centre and Periphery in Ancient Israel: New Approximations to Chalcolithic Funerary Practices in the Coastal Plain", Antiguo Oriente 5 (2007): 205-230.]

Ghassulian culture has been identified at numerous other places in southern Israel, especially in the region of Beersheba. The Ghassulian culture correlates closely with the Amratian of Egypt and may have had trading affinities (e.g., the distinctive churns, or “bird vases”) with early Minoan culture in Crete.

Origins

Ghassulian culture replaced the Minhata and Yarmoukian culture, and seems to have developed in part from a fusion of Pre-Pottery Neolithic B in the Amuq Valley, with Minhata and nomadic pastoralists of the circum Arabian nomadic pastoral complex. It was associated with the Older Peron, which began in the 5000 BCE to 4900 BCE era, and lasted to about 4100 BCE, a period of generally clement and balmy weather conditions that favored plant growth.

The Ghassulian phase seems to have been formative for the Canaanite civilization - in which a chalcolithic structure pioneered a Mediterranean mixed economy, involving the intensive subsistence production of horticultural fruit and vegetables, extensive farming of grains and cereals, transhumance and nomadic pastoral systems of animal husbandry, and commercial production (as in Crete) of wine and olives.

Notes

See also

* Pre-history of the Southern Levant
* History of pottery in the Southern Levant

External links

* Paul James Cowie, Archaeowiki: [http://www.archaeowiki.org/Teleilat_Ghassul Teleilat Ghassul]
* Andie Byrnes, [http://www.near-east.historians.co.uk/html/chalcolithic.html The Chalcolithic]
* Paul James Cowie, Archaeowiki: [http://www.archaeowiki.org/Chalcolithic_of_the_Southern_Levant Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant]