Y.6 THE GLASS

Margaret O'Hea

No glass attributable with absolute certainty to theRoman period was retrieved from the site, although Romanmaterial occurs as up-casts (see TS 48-49, 65, cat. nos 62-

64). A small number of significantly high-quality but veryincomplete bowls and beakers of the fourth-fifth centuriesAD occur as up-casts in construction fill and much laterwash levels. These provide clear evidence of occupation ofthe site at an elite level before the construction of the extant

church, but the type of vessels surviving in this way cannotmake it clear whether there had been an earlier churchbuilding or simply an earlier ritual use of glass vessels at aholy site. Such bowls and beakers could have been used forlibations, the ritual consumption of wine, and indeed as oillamps. Absent from the limited repertoire of fourth-fifth-

century AD material are, for example, the very commonbowls with folded/tubed rims, those with carinated pinchbelow the rims, and pad-based beakers, all fourth and

fifth-century AD in date and all part of everyday tablewareselsewhere in Syro- Palestine. Their absence suggests thatany preceding occupation of the site was not secular.

The largely sixth and seventh-century AD glass repertoirewas dominated, as one might expect, by hanging lamps-a normal part of Byzantine church architectural fittings-

although the sheer number of lamps retrieved indicateseither that the same lamp types were frequently replacedin the church, or that the same types also appeared in thedomestic quarters of the monastic complex. However,

rwo extraordinary church glass vessels stand out from theByzantine-early Islamic assemblage: a cobalt blue handledbowl with metal applique crosses on it (TS 61, cat. no.1· Colour Plates 42 and 42A), and a painted small bowl,

which might have served as a form of church icon (TSL3, cat. no. 102; Colour Plate 43). Both were found,:ra.,omented and incomplete, in the vestibule of the church,end both should date to the latest phase of the church's lifeas a Christian pilgrimage site. The unusual decoration of

- e cobalt blue bowl suggests a special gift to the churchcomplex, originally displayed, perhaps, within the narthex;:- is not an object normally found in Levantine churches.- e painted bowl, too, is a rare example of what might be

:. ?<IITicularly southern Levantine form of church icon, ofillch only three other examples have yet been published.

A very small amount of datable Abbasid glass was-~. eved, which tentatively suggests that not much

--: cement of the glassware took place in this period.e=erthelcss, the Abbasid material included decorated

- - perhaps imported vessels, including beakers; this is- what might be expected of site-use by people of low

= - mic status. Other than the marvered fragment TS 55

(cat. no. 48), there is no glass attributable to the Mamluk

or Ottoman periods in the assemblage, and it is possiblethat this fragment too is early rather than later Islamic.

Table wares appeared in the adjacent monastic rubbishdump near the presumed refectory: some goblets, morebeakers (the latter being defined here as drinking vesselswithout stems) and some, but not many, bowls. Flasks,

which could be either toiletry or table ware, were alsoalmost exclusively from the 'domestic' areas of the monasticcomplex, with the notable exception of the sprinkler flask

from the cave-sanctuary behind the church (TS 26, cat.no. 85), which, due to its location, must have had a ritualfunction.

It should be added that the small number of goblets(minimum number estimates [MNE] 12, as derived

from surviving bases) is strikingly low compared with the

number of such vessels commonly found in Early Byzantineor Umayyad period earthquake levels in even the mostmodest of domestic quarters within cities throughout theregion. At Pella, for example, at least 422 goblet bases wereretrieved from the same period. The form could also be

used as a standing oil-lamp, and probably was used as sucharound the eastern Mediterranean. In either case, if suchglass vessels were used here by the monastic community,they certainly have not survived in quantities sufficient to

suggest that they were ubiquitous in the refectory diningroom.

As might be expected from a monastic site, absent fromthe repertoire of forms are cosmetic! medicinal containers,

such as double unguentaria. There are a number of flasks/bottles but, with the exception of TS 124 (cat. no. 80),also absent from these are the typically Early Byzantine-Umayyad wavy or ribbon-like trails, which are found onall sorts of vessel forms elsewhere in the Levant. Ornate

decoration seems to be restricted to the occasional glasschurch lamp or very occasional bowl or beaker.

Glass ProductionNo evidence of local manufacture was identified on

site and, in the same building, the variety of differentfabrics used in the same type, such as the hanging glasslamps, clearly indicates, here as elsewhere, that a variety of

coloured fabrics were available to the Byzantine and EarlyIslamic customer in the one area. Nevertheless, most of theglassware can be assumed not to have travelled far, as thereare many other population centres in southern Jordan from

which glass could have been purchased. The only glasswarelikely to have originated beyond the general region is, forthe fourth-fifth century AD, engraved hemispherical bowls

293

Deir 'Ain 'Abata

with geometric or figural designs. No production centrescan, as yet, be suggested for the growing number of theseengraved bowls, although the nearest obvious candidatesare Jerusalem, Alexandria (Caron 1993: 47-55, esp. 48)and Antioch (Baur 1938: 512). The cobalt and metal-handled bowl is probably sixth to seventh century AD oreven later; its provenance has yet to be determined.

For the Abbasid period, two small fragments of scratch-engraved cobalt blue beakers might constitute a Syrianimport (TS 111, cat. no. 55); an equally small fragmentof a pincer-decorated bowl might also be an import (TS110, cat. no. 36), but could also be a local product usingan introduced Abbasid decorative fashion (O'Hea 1993:225).

Use of Glass in the Church Complex'The most surprising find was in fact the scarcity of

glass window panes-far too little for the entire basilica,even when taking into account the difficulty in identifyingso-called 'crown' glass, which, in practical terms, are veryshallow blown bowls used as circular panes. The majorityof these appear in the dump heap of B.I, which may becomposed of more material from the subsidiary buildingsthan from the church itself At the roughly contemporarymonastic complex of Marryrius at Ma'ale Adummirn,even the refectory had glass windows of unspecified types(Magen and Talgam 1990: 103). The presence of smallfragments of thin calcite slabs within the church andits immediate environs suggests that perhaps, like somebuildings in imperial Ravenna, many of the basilica'swindows were closed by thin sheets of stone rather thanglass. This is in stark contrast to the churches of Decapoliscities such as Gerasa (see Meyer 1987: 194-S) or Pella(Smith and Day 1989: PI. 126C-D), or indeed to thecathedral at Petra, of similar date (O'Hea 2001b: 370-6).Samaria-Sebaste may have had gypsum windows, perhapsimported from Cyprus (Crowfoot 1957: 478).

Considerable quantities of Early Byzantine to EarlyAbbasid period glass were retrieved from secondarydeposics around the basilica, but little from within it. Thepreponderance of fragmenred hanging glass lamps dumpedor washed into the ancillary rooms and cisrern ofKII, andon the external rubbish dump in Area M, strongly suggeststhat most of the ceiling glass lights within the church hadalready crashed and been removed from the basilica beforeits architectural collapse. Disappointingly, the spatialanalysis of the lamp distribution through the church is notpossible, as a result.

Thus, it seems that the church structure probablycollapsed gradually after abandonment rather than in asudden earthquake, as its excavator suggested (Politis 1992a:281). However, this does not exclude the likelihood of atleast one fire-destrucdon affecting the church's fittings; thelarge numbers of fragmented and occasionally fire-affected

294

lamps from the cistern in Area K and from the monasticdump (M,II Locus 5) Strongly suggest a clearance of at leastpardy burnt debris, at least once, by people who presumablywanted to re-use the building(s). We cannot determinewhat purposes they had in mind, but a continued use of thebuilding for any organised communal use seems unlikely,even if one were only to look at the means of lighting thestructure. By the Abbasid period, some beams of the roofmay still have been standing, for a few glass lamps werestill hanging when the roof finally caved in; however, bythis time, lighting was primarily provided by portable,ceramic lamps (see Ch. Y.S). Indeed, across the monasticcomplex the spatial distribution of ceramic lamps (mostlyEarly Islamic in date) and of the glass lamps (mostly EarlyByzantine and Early Islamic) seldom overlaps. By the EarlyIslamic period ceramic lamps were not the normal sort oflight fittings for a house of worship, in any faith, whereasglass lamps continued to be, and indeed remain today, bothavailable for, and preferred in, both mosques and churchesin this region.

Methodology of AnalysisAll the glass, including non-diagnostic fragments, was

recorded in a database, both quantitatively by weight (withthe idea that this could be useful for comparing acrossfabrics) and by MNE for diagnostic material, using rim orbase percentages as a basis for these estimates. The methodused depended upon the most diagnostic feature. With wick-tubed beaker-lamps, for example, an estimation of numberusing the base was probably more accurate than using rimsalone, even when estimating MNE by rim percemages.because wick-rubes are so thick and small that it is easierto be certain when twO or more tube fragments conjoinor not than when two or more rim fragments belong rothe one vessel. Moreover, the same rim types appeared 00

beaker-lamps without wick-tubes, and at least one evertedrim type also appeared on stemmed glass lamps.

What follows is a catalogue which aims to provide thereader with an idea of all the vessel forms present on thesite; in some cases it amalgamates forms which were initiallyseparate types in the database. The catalogue followsstandard typological categories, that is, it is based primarilyon shape; however, considering the restricted range foundon an ecclesiastical site, forms have been grouped wherepossible according to putative function. Rims and bases.ofcourse, do not always lend themselves to easy identificarioato a single function-s-and many complete forms, such asshallow hemispherical bowls, could be mulrifuncriored,

but it is hoped that the general reader might gain SOIlX

understanding of the sorts of glassware to be found in ~Early Byzantine church through this format.

Given that the bluish to greenish hues were by-producesof sand impurities in culler, which could be imponmfrom a variety oflocations within the region, and also m..:

glass was regularly recycled, thus mixing the colourantimpurities, it could be argued that any statistics on glassfabrics is of limited value. Nevertheless, where statisticallyviable samples are available, it is perhaps useful, within thesame broad time-frame, to see what proportion of a givenform occurs in a particular fabric on the one site.

For the 15356 g of glass weighed from the site, theoverall statistics for the main fabrics can be seen in Table1. Roughly 17% were unidentifiable due to hydration.Blue-greenish fabrics, whether bubbly, gritty or free ofinclusions, formed 46.6% of the total of visible fabrics.This is by far the largest proportion and is reflected acrossa majority of types found across the site. When takenaltogether, greenish fabrics formed 27.5% of the total massofidentifiable colours, most ofwhich was straight greenish.In addition, true olive greenish, such as is common inEgypt, formed only 2.1% of the known coloured glass,and neither amber nor cobalt glassreached even 1% of theassemblage. Bluish glass formed 23% of the corpus.

Table 1: Relative percentages of fabrics by weight, based on asample of 12760.5g of identified colour, from a weighed total of15356g.

Percentage by weight

Minimum number estimates, which are notoriouslyinflatable, point to a higher proportion of vessels thatmight have been greenish (37.5%) than their weightsuggests; likewise, olive greenish vessels formed 4.6%of the known MNE, with correspondingly fewer bluishvessels (16.7%) and blue-greenish (38.7%) of the totalMNE of 3378 (Table 2). Whether this means that blue-greenish and bluish vesselswere habitually larger than therest-therefore, more fragments of them survived-or thatthey were simply used most for the commonest glasswareon site (hanging-lamps) is a moot point. For comparison,a similarly-derived set of MNEs from the Byzantine phaseof Pellain the North Jordan valleyindicated a shift towardsmore bluish glass: 35.3% greenish hues plus 3% olivegreenish; 33% blue-greenish and 25% bluish glassware.It is, however, not yet possible to generalise about thecommonest fabrics in different regions of the Levant.Comparative frequencies of fabric colours by weight rather

Y.6 The Late Antique Period: The Glass

than MNE would be more useful for understanding therelative proportions of different glass batches available to,and used by, glass-workerssupplying different areas.

Table 2: Relative percentages of fabrics by MNE, based on asample of 2621 with identified colour, from a total MNE of3378.

Percentage by weight

Notes on the CatalogueUnless otherwise stated, all vesselsare assumed to have

been blown and all rims are fire-rounded. All pontil marksare assumed to be solid, unless otherwise stated as beingsemi-circular rings. Unless the condition and hydration isnoted, all glass is to be understood as being unweathered.

As hydration sometimes obscures the original fabriccolours, it should be noted that the proportions of fabriccolours given for large MNEs of types are often based on asmaller sample: for example, out of an MNE 242 beaker-lamps, only an MNE 169 had identifiable fabrics evenwhen swabbed with ethanol.

Fabrics are identified largely by hue, althoughbubbliness and inclusions are mentioned where noticeable.Translucence is indicated by the use of '-ish', e.g., greenindicates opacity, greenish indicates translucency, whichis the norm here. The identification of glass hues is, ofcourse, even more subjective than-that of ceramic fabrics,given diffraction through hydration, differing intensities ofcolour due to wall thickness and the vagariesof individualopinions untempered by even the sobering effects of aMunsell chart. Although medical urine colour charts areuseful for vitreous yellows and greens, they do not covereverything, and are hardly common reference charts forfield archaeologists. Even with the use of a referencecollection for colour identification, glass hues still segueimperceptibly from bluish to blue-greenish to greenish,with only the central green hues (referred to here as 'grassgreenish') and yellow-greens being easily distinguishablefrom each other.

Note that stratigraphic phasing listed below indicatesonly the earliest date for the appearance of the form at thesite-the lifespan of the shape itself could continue muchlater than this.

295

Deir 'fun 'Abata

Glass LampsWith the exception ofTS 61 (cat. no. 1) the glass from

the site fits well into the sequence of Near Eastern churchlamps.

Since the seminal paper by Crowfoot and Harden in1931,ourknowledgeofthediversityanddatingofByzantineand Early Islamic glass lamps has expanded considerably.The earliest glass lamps appear at about the same time as theappearance of Constantinian church basilicas, and perhapswere developed for that congregational purpose, althoughceramic lamps, tapers and candles may have been usedpreviously for internal lighting within a religious building,whether Jewish, Christian or pagan. The origins of the useof glass for hanging lamps is still not known; one of theearliest possible examples is a glass bowl lamp on pedestal-foot with a tube for either wick or taper, from an early thirdcentury AD grave in Koln, but this was not meant to besuspended (Fremersdorf and Pol6nyi-Fremersdorf 1984:115, no. 260). Although an Early Byzantine church can beassumed to have contained many suspended glass lamps,it may also have contained a great many lamps sitting onbenches or niche-ledges, without the tell-tale multiplehandles, which in a church or synagogue context, indicatea lamp function for what otherwise appear to be simpleglass beakers or bowls. Beaker-lamps sit atop menorahbranches on synagogue mosaics from at least the fourthcentury AD onwards at Hammath Tiberias (Ovadiah andOvadiah 1987: 65, Pi. CLXXIX), and identifiably glassbeaker-lamps appear in the sixth century AD at Ma'on(Ovadiah and Ovadiah 1987: 107, Pi. CLXXXV).

Nevertheless, in the fourth century AD the hanging glasslamp became so common that its metaphorical meaningscould be played with by Prudentius (Cathemerinon 1971transl: The Fifth Hymn). Although all three means ofLate Antique lighting (torches, tapers and oil-lamps) arediscussed, it is only the hanging glass lamp, through which'we see as through a glass clearly', that is explicitly placedwithin a church. By the sixth century AD, the hangingglass lamp becomes a standard part of the iconographyof church depiction, as the oft-cited mosaics from theChurch of St John Baptist at Gerasa attest (Crowfoot1931: Pi. VII).

For Syro-Palestine there are, as many have noted, threemain forms for the glass suspension-lamp: hemisphericalbowl-lamps, handled beaker or bowl-lamps, and stemmedbowl-lamps. The first group includes the smallest, certainlythe most expensive and probably the earliest (fourth orearly fifth century AD) forms, comprising wheel-engraved,shallow and handless bowls whose figural or geometricdesigns could be best viewed from below, when wicks werepresumably held in oil-covered water within a glass bowl,which might have been suspended within a ring-holder(cat. no. 3). Examples of this form of bowl-lamp come fromthe Petra Church (O'Hea 2001b: 370-6), the synagogue at

296

Mezad Tamar and Samaria-Sebaste (see catalogue, below).Also fourth century AD in date are simple, thick walledstrongly coloured, large shallow bowls, with vertical andvery thick loop suspension-handles attached low on thebody (cat. no. 2).

The second group of deep and usually three-handledbowl-lamps can broadly be divided, after Barag, intothose with wick-tubes and those without (Barag 1976:205). Within this second division, they can be deeperthan wide (called here beaker-lamps), or wide and shallow(bowl-lamps); they can have rims folded out, or simple,everted rims. Lamps without tubed bases could have heldseveral floating wicks (see the illustration of a lamp-standwith four bowl-lamps, each with three flames, on a NewTestament scene from the sixth-century AD Italian gospelsof Saint Augustine [Weitzmann 1977: Pi. 41J) but thesingle-tubed variety ensured uniform and economicallighting of only one flame per lamp.

Overall, their combined distribution pattern coversall of Syro-Palestine and Cyprus, and versions also existin the West. Those supplied with wick-tubes seem (Q

predominate on sites in the Negev and Moab such asRehovot, Ma'in, Umm al-Rasas, the Petra Church andhere at the Monastery of St Lot, where they form theoverwhelming majority. At Ashdod only a single example.dated to the Islamic period, was found-but no stemmedlamps at all (Barag 1967a: 37). They seem to become lesscommon, but not unknown, as one goes further north.The preference for loose wicks, attached perhaps to mewall with small metal clips rather than in solid tubes :!S

here at Deir 'Ain 'Abata, seems to predominates north 0

Negev/Moab/Edom in Jerusalem, the Madaba region,Gerasa (Baur 1938: 517; Meyer 1987: Fig. 12 p-q).Gadara and Pella (Smith and Day 1989: 70-1, Pi. 60, no.4), for instance, but this apparent distribution pattern isas yet far from cut and dried. At Beth Shean, for example.general debris from early excavations seemed to show moretumbler-shaped lamps without wick-tubes than with mem(cf. Rowe 1930: Pi. 140, nos 1-5, wick-tubed as opposedto nos 6-15, without tubes), but both forms occur in dmefifth-early seventh-century AD synagogue in the same riIf(Zori 1967: Fig. 11, nos 8 and 10).

At the site, wick-tubed beaker-lamps predominateusually with a folded rim and always with three handles.A much smaller subset has simple rims, although whcrba-this group also had a wick-tube, or else had simple kibases and used floating wicks with metal clips, is :omcertain. Such simple bases are, by themselves, also fonnOI.on contemporary flasks and footless beakers, so withofully reconstructed profile, it cannot be demonstratedthey were indeed from lamps, but their appearance insame loci as 334 handles, which cannot not be amito particular rim types, strongly suggests that theyalso beaker-lamps. The very many small metal

clips retrieved from the site could have been used bothin the bowl/beaker lamps or in the third group-namely,stemmed lamps.

It is this last group of glass lamps, stemmed lampsoriginally inserted into a hanging metal polycandelon,which predominates over handled beaker-lamps at any timein central and northern Palestine, and perhaps also Cyprus(Vessberg 1952: 151-2; for the church at Salamina, seeChavane 1975: 62-4). Stemmed lamps are overwhelminglythe commonest type used at any of the Gerasa churches(Baur 1938: 521, no. 370, Fig. 17; Type B) or at Pella(Smith and Day 1989: 71, PI. 60, no. 13), Samaria-Sebaste(Crowfoot 1957: Fig. 96.6) or Gadara (Kiinzl and Weber1991: Fig. 38, nos l Oa-b), They are also numerous at BethShean, along with both wick-tubed and tubeless beaker-lamps (Rowe 1930: PI. 140; Zori 1967: Fig. 11, no. 5)and into the Galilee, where only hollow-stemmed lampslit the church at pre-Umayyad Nahariya (Dauphin andEdelstein 1984: 113). Their main subgroups are a) thosewith hollow stems and b) those with solid, often knobbed,stems. None of the latter was found anywhere on the siteof Deir 'Ain 'Abata (they are also rare at Umayyad Ummal-Rasas) but the hollow-stemmed variety does appear atthe site. They are significantly outnumbered at Deir 'Ain'Abata, however, by handled wick-tubed lamps: an MNEof 150 compared with 243 using easily identifiable basesfor identification of types.

DatingBecause handled and wick-tubed church lamps with

their fixed metal hangers were presumably hooked ontoceiling beams or wall brackets, one could easily expectthem to stay in use long after their date of production.This makes the dating for the start of their forms ratherdifficult to identify. Examples from private dwellings arescarce. The ceramic, numismatic and epigraphic phasingat Deir 'Ain 'Abata strongly suggests that wick-tubedbowl-lamps were available there at least as early as the fifthcentury AD, with many seeming to have been destroyedby the early seventh century AD. Therefore, they shouldoverlap in date with the hollow-stemmed lamp type of theEarly Byzantine-Umayyad period. Solid-stemmed-lamps,which are common in Late Umayyad destruction levelsin Syro-Palestinian cities, do not appear at all in the Deir'Ain 'Abata complex, nor at Umm al-Rasas, Rehovot or ed-Deir, Ma'in, which hints perhaps at a regional differencefrom, say, the northern or coastal Levant rather than achronological gap in the material from these sites.

At Rehovot, the wick-tubed form also falls into the'fifth-seventh centuries AD' (Patrich 1988b: 134-6, PI.XII). The earliest datings are at the sites of Dominus Flevitand Bethany's first church phase (Saller 1957: 330) wherethey are said to be early fifth century AD, but the overalldating of these sites may need revision in the light of the

Y.6'Ihe Late Antique Period: The Glass

increasingly refined and revised ceramic chronologies forthe Byzantine and Umayyad periods during the last fewdecades. One lamp from a tomb at Gezer is fifth or sixthcentury AD (Macalister 1912: 362-3). They are surelynot datable to the earliest part of the period given forthem at Mezad Tamar (Erdmann 1977: 112-3), whichis third-seventh centuries AD. They appear at .hI·Hne,but are unrelated to the period of late fourth century AD

glass production there, and could be considerably later(Weinberg 1988: 85). It is, on the whole, more likelythat they were in production from the sixth and seventhcenturies ADat the very least. Those from the Church of StJohn the Baptist at Samaria-Sebaste are sixth century AD

at the earliest (Crowfoot 1957: 405, 418, Fig. 99.3); onefrom the church at ed-Deir (Ma'in) is probably mid- to

later sixth century AD (Piccirillo and Russan 1976: 68, PI.XXIX, 1, no. 2). At Gerasa, they are rare but present; onefrom the North Theatre is in an Early Byzantine/Umayyadlevel (Meyer 1987: 205, Fig. q captioned as Fig. 11q).

They also turn up in post-seventh century ADdestruction levels at Hesban (Goldstein 1976: 130, PI.XID). Indeed, the same kicked bases and wick-tubespersisted up to the late Fatimid period, as at al Mina(Lane 1938: Fig. iov) and Hama (Riis 1957: 38, nos 60,61). However, the shapes of later mediaeval and modernIslamic tubed lamps are different from the earlier ones (seeCrowfoot and Harden 1931: PI. XXVIII, 9-10, or Lamm1935: PI. 14 F, G andJ).

The hollow-stemmed lamp also probably had its Horearin the seventh century AD, but starting in the sixth centuryADand persisting in use up to and well beyond the mid-eighth century AD.Broadly speaking, this is the dominantUmayyad lamp of Palestine, during which period it wasovertaken in popularity, but not extinguished, by the solid-stemmed variety (see, for example, those from FatimidEmmaus [Bagatti 1947: 149, photo 62, nos 13-15J).

Avery general dating of the fourth-seventh centuries ADof examples found at Bethany is based on comparativematerial from other sites (Saller 1957: 330), as also atNazareth (Bagatti 1969: 312, 313, Fig. 237.33-36). Theyare also dated to the fourth-fifth century AD at Iraq el-Emir (Lapp 1983: 62, Fig. 24.32), but largely on the basisof parallels with Samaria-Sebaste, el Bassa and Gerasa; inthe case of Gerasa, taking Baur's early dating rather thanthe demonstrably later historical datings provided by thechurch foundation-inscriptions in that city. At Gadarain the Hypogeum, they are also dated to the fourth-fifthcentury AD, when that structure was built (Dussart 1990:253-5, Fig. 38.10a-b). However, here the lamps mighthave dated to the latest period of use, which would beseventh not fourth or fifth century AD-certainly pre-Umayyad. Those from the Beth Shean synagogue cannotbe earlier than about AD 400, and probably no later thanabout AD.624 (Zori 1967: 73).

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Deir 'Ain 'Abata

Whether or not those from the wash level around thesynagogue at Khirbet Shema' were used in that building orbelonged to domestic occupations around the structure isunclear, as is their dating (Meyers et aI. 1976: 247, PI. 8-7,nos 29, 32). Those from the New Baptistery at Huarte inSyria are sixth century AD at the latest (Canivet and Canivet1987: 332, Fig. 87 H73-5), while at Apamea they appearin debris associated with a Persian destruction of c. AD 606(Napoleon-Lemaire and Baity 1969: 110, Figs 19.11-13[upside down], 19.20,26.1), giving a similar terminus antequem for those lamps. At the Northern Church at Rehovot,they are contemporary with but outnumbered by the wick-tubed lamps of the fifth-seventh centuries AD at the latest(Patrich 1988b: 136, PI. XIIi 14-16), very much as withDeir 'Ain 'Abata. At Umm al-Rasas, they were in use inan Early Abbasid phase of the main church, but of coursecould have been in use there before its floor was relaid inthe late eighth century AD (Piccirillo 1987: 231, Fig. 7,'nos 44-50). At nearby St Stephens, one near-completeexample is sixth century AD at the earliest, and is morelikely to be Umayyad (Alliata 1991: 396, Fig. 18.26).

The following abbreviations have been used in thecatalogue: TS = Glass Type Series, MNE = Minimumnumber estimated, Rd = Rim diameter, Bd = Base diameter,Intd = Internal body diameter, Ht = Height.

All measurements are in centimetres.

CATALOGUE

Ring Handled Bowl-lamps1. Ring handled applique bowl-lamp (TS 61) Fig. 586; Colour Plates

42 and42ARd 12, Ht >8.5. Uneven rim, bevelled and ground, on cupped

mouth, carinated to deep convex bowl (centre of base missing). At leastone thick ring-handle, pinched out halfway. Medium walled. Engravedradiate dashes around heel interior and exterior; applique thin grey mattemetallic strips, c. 1 em wide, applied to exterior surface: horizontal borderaround mouth and lower body, with seven vertical bands framing eightpanels, in at least seven of which are irregular crosses. All extant metallicstrips are stamped intermittently with tiny double-concentric circles,between c1iagonalpairs oflines above and below. Many fragments (at least70% of vessel), most rejoining. Dark cobalt bluish. Very little hydration.

Most of the very delicate applique metal is missing, with the patterntraceable negatively through the absence of dirt in some places, and itsadherence elsewhere to the outline of the design (see Colour Plate 42A).The metal strips and any residue adhesive have yet to be analysed, butthe metal appears to be extremely thin (less than 0.5 mm thick), and itspresent colour and matte appearance suggests either lead or a lead alloy,such as pewter. There is no hint of a grain to suggest desiccated vellum.

The vessel has not yet been fully conserved, and only partialreconstruction was possible, given the very fragile nature of thedecoration. The drawing must, therefore, be seen as preliminary, and fullreconstruction of the available fragments will make it clear if the base wassimply rounded, or perhaps a hollow stem, or foot, and if it is possiblethat two or three handles once belonged to the bowl. The handle thatwas found in the same area as the rest of the bowl does not yet rejoin anyother fragment, nor does the vessel wall to which it is attached show anysign of the applique strips found on most of the remainder of the bowl;but preliminary reconstruction suggests that one of the eight decorativepanels might not have had a cross within it, and for that reason, thehandle has been drawn as if belonging there.

298

Stratigraphic Dating: This was found collapsed onto a Justinianicmosaic in the narthex, which provides a terminus post quem for thecollapse of the lamp, but provides no clue as to the date of its acquisitionby the church.

Comments: MNE: 1. This unique vessel is of a generic form whichfirst appears as a bowl-lamp in fourth-fifth-century AD churches, such asat Anemurium in Turkey (Stern 1985: 42), but our handle, if it belongs,plus the very uneven rim and sagging body, differs from the generic form.Closer is a handled bowl-lamp.found in the church at Kourion, Cyprus,with a seventh-century AD coin (Young 1993: 43, Fig. 5), but there thehandles join to the rim; a handle similar to ours, but also fairly high onan incomplete bowl fragment, came from the church at Khirbet al-Karak(Delougaz and Haines 1960: no 9, PI. 60). Dated sixth century AD is adeep but less sagging-bodied lamp with mid-body handles and similareverted rim, from the region ofTyre and now in the British Museum(Buckton 1994: 106, no. 115).

Also deep but without handles is an engraved Christian bowl fromGerasa (Baur 1938: PI. CXXXLX) which has been restored as a chalice.There are western third and fourth century AD parallels for the evertedrim and also low ring handles on such vessels (Harden et al. 1987: 206,no. 114). Silver chalices with sagging body were produced into theearly seventh century AD in Syria (Kent and Painter 1977: 91, no. 155).However, if the Deir 'Ain 'Abata bowl had a simple convex or slightlydomed base, it would most closely resemble a tenth or early eleventh-century AD one-handled glass bowl from the Scree Limani shipwreck(Bass 1984: Fig. 28c). If the Deir 'Ain 'Abata bowl had more than onehandle, it probably functioned as a lamp; ifit had only one, it must havehad a different use.

Applied decoration is highly unusual, although a group of Islamicglass jars from the Nishapur region had 'applied cut-outs', perhaps ofleather, including one of cobalt blue (Pindar-Wilson 1998: 13-14,Colour PI. A Fig. 4.7). It can only be assumed that they, like our bowl,must have used some kind of adhesive. Their forms again are closestto examples from Serce Limani, although Pin dar-Wilson believes thedecoration dates them later still.

Applied metal strips, however, are not readily paralleled. Apatt fromthe clear difference in form between the Deir 'Ain 'Abata bowl and anymetal or glass cage-cups of the fourth-fifth century AD, the latter alwaysused relief as a key element in their decoration. With our bowl, theapplied ornament would only have functioned as a silhouette against thecobalt glass if lit by a floating wick, or in daylight as a light grey againstthe dark blue vessel. Any conceptual debt to the use of a metal cage for aglass cup is, therefore, remote (cf. the Roman silver and blue glass jar inthe British Museum; Strong 1966: 13, PI. 50c).

The decoration itself is very simple, using only repeated crosseswithin a frame. The small, lightly-stamped concentric circles on themetal have been interpreted broadly as apotropaic within the Christianworld (Maguire et al. 1989: 5-7), and are common Byzantine motifs oneveryday items from ivory combs to simple bronze crosses or belt bucklesfrom the fourth to tenth centuries AD (Temple 1990: 104, no. 71). Theshort, widely-spaced incised rays around "the missing base interior andexterior are blunt -ended, appearing hand-cut. On some fragments, theedge of the cross or strip appears to be lightly incised, suggesting thatperhaps the metal applique was trimmed away on the surface, leavingan incised line.

A preliminary dating can only suggest a broad dating within the sixthto tenth centuries AD, perhaps earlier rather than later in this time-frame.Absences of direct parallels also make it impossible to talk of a provenancefor the bowl, and it is not even certain that it functioned as a handledhanging-lamp, although that seems likeliest. The one certain feature is itsexplicitly Christian decoration. The survival of Christian communitiesand their decorative crafts in Bilad es-Sham is famously attested by themosaics ofSt Stephen's at Umm al-Rasas, Therefore, it is not unreasonableto expect that the local glassmaking tradition also continued to producereligious artefacts for these communities well into the Islamic period. Iris quite possible that this explicitly Christian bowl forms a significantaddition to the known, small corpus of Christian glassware made underthe early Caliphs in the Levant, such as the glass ecclesiastical chalicesfound at Tell Tuneinir (Fuller and Fuller 1994: 259-77) or the lateUmayyad cross-decorated small flasks found from southern Palestine [0

Persia (Umm Keshm; al-Haditti 1995: 228, Fig. 22).

2. Ring handled bowl-lamp fragment (TS 87) Fig. 587Intd 20. Rim missing; convex large bowl; thick ring handle pulled

up and out, with small collar at base of ring, and indented escutcheon.Probably rhree or four handles. Medium-thick walled. Strongly blue-greenish. Black on iridescent wearhering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth-fifth centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 6. None of rhese large suspension-bowls wasfound in situ; rhe earliest is from fill beneath the basilica, containingorher material from the fourth-fifth century AD.

An almost exact parallel at Rehovot is pre-Umayyad (Patrich 1988b:140, PI. XIV38), as is the earliest example here. One from the factorydump at Jalame is also later fourth century AD (Weinberg 1988: 85, no.377 Figs 4-43), and another from the Qasr at Iraq e1-Emir is, by context,fourth or fifth century AD (Lapp 1983: 61, Fig. 24.30), and may well befrom a lamp there. The same date applies to another from Mezad Tamar(Erdmann 1977: no. 201). Dhiban has yielded a more convex-walledversion (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 86).

No published examples appear from Gerasa, Beth Shean, Samaria-Sebaste, or Gadara. At Pella, a three-handled version with simple ringhandles was found in a terminal Byzantine context adjacent to the CivicComplex Church, but not immediately associated wirh it (Smirh and Day1989: 110, PI. 51, no. 23). One now in the British Museum and probablyoriginating in the Lebanon or Syria, is surely dated too late to the sixthcentury AD (Buckton 1994: no. 115, 106), although related three-handledbowls with similar but not identical escutcheons occur in sourh Russia inthe fifih and sixrh centuries AD (Ivanchenko 1995: Fig. 10).

Engraved Hemispherical BowlsThe list of Byzantine wheel-engraved bowls in Syro-

Palestine is steadily growing. It includes a plate from atomb at Jericho (Sellin and Watzinger 1913: 165, no. 14);both a fourth-century AD bowl (Bowsher 1986: 203-5)and late fifth-century AD deep cup (Baur 1938: 505-12)from Gerasa; fourth or fifth-century AD hemisphericalbowls from the Petra Church (O'Hea 2001b: 370, 373-4,nos 9, 11 and 12, Fig. 6) and one from fourth-century AD

Samaria-Sebaste (Crowfoot 1957: 416, Fig. 97); a bowlfrom a fifth-century AD tomb at el-Bassa (Iliffe 1934: 88,Fig. 17), and a folded-rimmed bowl from a tomb at BethShe'arim (Avigad 1976: 209-13). This list is, nevertheless,only a fraction of the contemporary material above in theWest. All of the recognisable decorative programmes on thisfourth to fifth-century AD group of Near Eastern glasswareare specifically targeted for an audience identifiable byreligion(s).

Both the Gerasa and Beth-She' arim bowls are engravedmore deeply than the examples from the site, and areengraved on the interior of the bowl, whereas all the Deir'Ain 'Abata fragments as well as the bowl fragment fromthe Petra Church are lightly engraved on the exterior. Thestyle of abrasion-engraving of all the fragments from thesite differs markedly from the angular, almost geometriclinear cutting of the Rhineland class of fourth to fifth-century AD bowls and flasks, and in any case the religiousmotifs of the Beth She'arim bowl strongly suggest a NearEastern centre of production.

The site fragments come from loci either outsidethe basilica or, in the case of the best-preserved sherd,preceding the surviving architectural phase of the church.Neither example from Gerasa came from an ecclesiasticalcontext, but were clearly from rubbish levels, either wash

Y.6 The Late Antique Period: The Glass

or spoliation. Only the fragments from the Petra Churchseems to have been within the building complex at the timeof its destruction (O'Hea 2001b: 370-6). That the othertwo turn up in graves (as was the practice in pagan andChristian Koln) does not clarify their primary function.For whom were these bowls made, and why?

It has been suggested that those shallow hemisphericalbowls with engraved interiors, such as the Gerasa example,were intended as drinking vessels, because they were meantto be viewed from above; this can be inferred from. thereadability of an engraved inscription, where present. Thismay well apply to the bowls that turn up in military gravesand villas in the West, but a different function may existfor at least some of those found in Syro- Palestine. All of theDeir 'Ain 'Abata fragments, and that of the Petra Church,were engraved on the exterior. This might, therefore, meanthat they were intended to be seen from below, that is,as suspended shallow lamps, with the light behind thembringing the delicate engraving into clearer visibility (thisis certainly so today). But given the lack of demonstrablelettering, there is no way to tell from which side they werereally intended to be seen.

None of the Deir 'Ain 'Abata rims shows signs of wear-abrasion around the rim exterior which, if present, mightindicate suspension in a ring for use as a hanging lamp.However, even a Hellenistic deep bowl, which was madeas a cup, certainly not as a lamp, could later be re-used asa hanging lamp (Warhurst 1979: 7 AI3), so wear-abrasionaround the rim would have to be consistently found onsuch engraved bowls for it to mean anything other than theindividual use of that bowl, and not of its intended primaryfunction. By the same token, those bowls from tombs onlyindicate that they could be seen as valuable personal itemsof the deceased, not that they were specifically made forthe tomb or for tomb-ritual.

Could the examples from the site have been eitherintended for or actually used in some early liturgicalpractice? At the end of the third century AD, the use ofglassware in communion for an Egyptian community wasstill an indication of poverty (Harden 1936: 40 no. 1),although this may have changed in the fourth centuryAD. Moreover, such hemispherical bowls work as drinkingvessels on the same principle as the conical beaker orrhyton-the contents have to be consumed before thevessel is set down or they would spill-which seemssomewhat inappropriate, albeit not impractical for theEucharist. All in all, then, a lamp function seems likeliestbut undemonstrable on the presently available evidence.3. Engraved bowl rim and fragment (TS 107) Fig. 588

Rd 14. Slightly flaring rim on shallow convex wall, mid-bodymissing; curving shallowly in to hemispherical or flat simple missingbase. Very lightly abraded band of wreath below rim exterior; Arm ofChi-Rho or perhaps anangled serif letter (I, T, F, P, M, N) above archedwreath, above central 'eye' with dot-pupil, to right of double diagonalstrokes. Thin walled. Two fragments, non-joining. Faintly blue-greenish.Slight iridescent pitting.

299

Deir 'Ain 'Abata

i1"

I,

II

I

Stratigraphic Dating: From a foundation trench of a wall, with fourthto fifth-century AD material.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from EI 4.1). Associated contextual findssuggest fourth rather than fifth century AD.

Two hemispherical bowl fragments from Armant in Egypt havedifferent, more bubbly fabrics, but similar, very light engraved decoration(Harden 1940: 118, PI. xxxv, 2-3) on the exterior. Their early dating ispurely comparative, however. A wreath within linear borders runs belowthe rim exterior of an incomplete shallow hemispherical bowl fromKaranis (Harden 1936: no. 210, PI. XIII). A more regular wreath abovemore architectural arcading appears on another shallow hemisphericalbowl from Corinth (Davidson 1952: 95, no. 593), which is dated bycomparison with el-Bassa to the fourth century AD, perhaps too earlyas a consequence. Another runs beneath a more cupped rim from ahemispherical bowl from Mezad Tamar, dated by comparisons yet againto the fourth-fifth centuries AD (Erdmann 1977: 106, no. 436).

For the column motif, see Koln (La Baume and Salomonson, n.d.:74, no. 264 PI. 39, no. 2), fourth-century AD Rhenish production;but note that a lightly engraved Chi-Rho with serif occurs with twoindeterminate, eye-like motifs, on a fourth-century AD bowl fromPortuguese Braga (Alarcao 1970: 32, Fig. 9). Given the adjacent motifs,a Chi-Rho is perhaps more likely on our bowl than a full inscription,similar to 'PIE ZHCHC' on a fourth-century AD bowl-lamp now in theAshmolean Museum, Oxford (Harden 1949: 158). The eye motif recursunder a hatched, not wreathed, arcading, on a tall flask of the fourth-fifth centuries AD (Sotheby's 1979: 146-7, no. 266).

4. Wheel-engraved bowl fragment (cf. cat. no. 3/TS 107) Fig. 589Rim and lower body missing; hemispherical bowl fragment. Two

extant narrow lightly-incised grooves on upper body; narrow lightly-incised wreath on upper body. Wheel-polished exterior. Fire-polishedinterior. Medium-thick walled, thinning towards base. Pale greenish.Black enamelling.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid.Comments: MNE: 1 (from B.I 19.06). This is probably a shallow

hernispherical'bowl, perhaps with flaring rim, but a thicker example thanTS 107 (cat. no. 3). It is likely to be an upcast from the fourth-fifthcenturies AD (cf. Weinberg 1988: 96-8, nos 477-82 for form). Thewreath, beneath a broad band rather than paired narrow bands as here,occurs on the figured bowl from the Petra Church, also probably used asa bowl-lamp (O'Hea 2001b: 373-4, no. 9, Fig. 6).

5. Engraved body fragment (TS 109) Fig. 590Small straight body fragment, thin walled. Extant thick abraded

Chi-Rho with incomplete diagonals. Pale greenish.Comments: MNE: 2. Illustrated is from B.I 19.6; another fragment,

thinner walled and with lightly engraved cross-hatching above solid lowerborder, could belong (B.I 18.01; Fig. 590a) but possibly from same vesselas cat. no. 5. The motif as well as fabric appears on the exterior of a morecomplete base of a thin hemispherical bowl from Corinth (Davidson1952: 95, no. 594, Fig. G6), dated to the fourth century AD, as on theinterior of a figured bowl from Koln (Fremersdorf 1967: PI. 45).

6. Wheel-incised bowl rim (TS 44) Fig. 591Rd 10. Bevelled ground rim on cupped mouth, sloping in to steep-

walled body (missing). Medium walled. Single extant fine wheel-incisedband on upper body. Indeterminate fabric. Black on iridescent flaking.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 5. Two are visibly blue-greenish. This hemisphericalbowl form was common in 'the fourth and fifth-century AD contexts,occurring in domestic as well as religious contexts (Barag 1962: 211-2,nos 9-10, Figs 8-9).

7. Wheel-incised hemispherical bowl base (TS 4) Fig. 592Bd c. 5. Rim missing; hemispherical base fragment. Lightly wheel-

incised thick circle on base centre interior of bowl. Plain exterior extant.Thick walled, thickening to rim. Pale yellowish. Black enamelling.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid collapse.Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.II 13.2). Both fabric and decoration

differs from all of the above. It is possible that this is a Late Hellenisticsagged bowl, although deeper wheel-incisions are more norinal on suchvessels, especially since it seems to thicken towards the rim, a result of theprocess of manufacture. However, the fabric seems to be closest to thefourth to fifth-century AD series. It could be an import.

300

Wheel-incised BeakersBeakers and bowls with bands of light wheel-incisions

are a well-known fourth to fifth-century AD classof domesticglassware (Weinberg 1988: 89 passim., Fig. 4-47). Manyhave the 'cracked-off' rim, sharply cut at a bevelled angle,which is a product of the way the vesselwas separated fromthe rest of the glass on the blow-pipe. Rims similar to thoseof cat. no. 4 were retrieved from the Necropolis Church,Anemurium, and tentatively attributed as lamps (Stern1985: 37-8, Fig. 1 top left); however, as at Deir 'Ain 'Abata,the difference between their early typological dating andstratigraphic attribution makes it impossible to be certain oftheir function within the church complex.8. Wheel-incised prunted beaker (TS 119) Fig. 593

Rd 8. Cupped ground rim on deep, slightly convex bowl, basemissing; medium walled. Two fine wheel-incised bands above smallcobalt bluish prunt (applied blob) on upper body. Olive greenish.

Comments: MNE: 2, the repeat having three mid-bluish prunts, (Fig.593a). This could be a deep or conical beaker form, of a form found fromPetra (Kolb and Keller 2001) to Beirut (jennings 1997-98: Fig. 20.19)and produced locally, as the Jalame material attests (Weinberg 1988:87-93, with ample bibliography). Thicker-walled versions occur all overthe Mediterranean in the fourth and fifth centuries AD (von Saldern eral. 1974: 251, no. 728).

9. Wheel-incised bowl rim (TS 6) Fig. 594Rd 10. Cupped, upright ground rim, curving in to upright wall.

Faint wheel-incised bands around upper body. Medium-thin walled.Blue-greenish. Three fragments, two rejoin. Milky flaking.

Stratigraphic Dating: fourth or fifth century AD.

Comments: MNE: 8, ranging from 7-11 ern diameter. Nonefrom within the basilica, but one in fill under its mosaic floor. Theircomparative dating, to the fourth or, more likely, early fifth century AD,

remains firm. All but one olive greenish example are blue-greenish.

10. Tooled bowl rim (TS 80) Fig. 595Rd 9. Flaring, almost cupped rim, tooled around exterior to a sharp

edge, curving in to steep wall (rest missing). Medium-thick walled.Strongly blue-greenish. White enamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh to mid-eighth centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from K.II 19.03). This might be an upcastof an earlier, almost campanulate-form beaker. The tooling seems ropredate the breakage of the rim into this sherd, and so is unrelated roany secondary use.

Three-handled Bowl-lampsThe widest form of handled lamps (bowl-lamps) are less

common than the smaller, beaker- or tumbler-lamps, evenwhen one includes rims not associated with handles. Thereis no contextual evidence at the site to suggest particularareas that used these rather than the smaller forms.

11. Large handled bowl-lamp with folded rim (TS 14) Fig. 596Rd 16. Upright large rim, folded to exterior; wall slopes in towards

missing body. Handle attached rim exterior. Medium walled. All stronglyblue greenish. Iridescent pitting.

Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth to fifth century AD, but the majoriry ofrype repeats occur in later dump contexts, perhaps related to clearance ofat least some of the buildings.

Comments: MNE: 60 ..Most range 14-16 ern diameter, with a fi:was large as 21 cm. Other published parallels are not associated with anycertainry to a wick-tubed base, e.g., Gerasa (Baur 1938: 517, Type G.nos 29-30), and the Ganymede House at Samaria-Sebaste, (Crowfooe1957: 417, Fig. 98.3), possibly fifth century AD or later; their base isprobably either the large bowl base TS 19 or 89 (cat. nos 21-22). 1h:nboth these might indeed be much later is indicated by the presence of "-large version, c. 20 ern in diameter, from the Church of Bishop Marianas

mGaasa (Gawlikowska and Musa 1986: 153, Fig. 9, no. 4), which was, in me early eighth century AD. This supports the possibility that

~ brge bowl-lamps continued to be produced in me Late Umayyad,a:d pahaps even the Early Abbasid periods.

Roughly half (53%) are blue-greenish, a higher proportion than....0 the smaller and more numerous beaker-lamp, which suggests a~on of production in either time or workshops. Over a quarter~ greenish, ranging to olive in tone; and, unusually, two examples_ oobalr bluish, one from the sixth or early seventh-century ADphase

basilica (EI 3.1). Both would have been striking as coloured lamps.'Gn..h bluish lamps are unusual, and only the decorated TS 61 (cat. no.I'!~ in the same fabric on this site.

II!.. ~ handled bowl-lamp with folded ledge rim (TS 13) Fig. 597Rd 1 . Flat ledge rim, folded to exterior, curving in to sagging body,

~ missing. Trace of handle attached to tim. Medium-thin walled.I!IJlIle I:dne-greenish. Milky patches on iridescence.

Smnigraphic Dating: All from Abbasid loci, but could of course havemanufactured earlier.

G.mmmts: MNE: 5, from two areas; one greenish. A complete butEi::.:nlle-kss version from S Theodore, Gerasa, has the flat base of cat. no.

I b: would have used a floating wick. A smaller but similarly-profiled~ from Sardis is probably from the sixth or early seventh century

tum Saldern 1980: 45, no. 234).

1Fi.ck-tubed Hanging LampsAlthough there are some small kicked beaker-lamp

ses at Deir 'Ain 'Abata that clearly did not have wick-attached, the majority did (at least 242 from the

_). One form seems to belong to a more conical lamp121, cat. no. 14) rather than the cylindrical beaker of

1 (cat. no. 13); it is possible that this base might havebelonged to a wheel-incised and/or prunted lamp, such asTS 119 (cat. no. 8), which was found in the same locus

is of the same fabric, but does not rejoin.n Three-handled beaker-lamp with wick-tube (TS 1) Fig. 598

Hr 5.4, Rd 7-8, Bd 4.5. Upright rim, folded to exrerior, on upright,"""y s!ightly convex wall; rounded heel on kicked base with solid pontil

-+ Cylindrical wick-tube added centre of interior, rim rolled in.lWium-rhiu walled.

Stratigraphic Dating: Most were from the sixth to seventh-century AD&mis cleared into the cisrern, although some were in the open rubbish of

(fuurth-fifth century AD).Comments: MNE: 242, using bases with traces of wick-tubes (189

e:srng me less identifiable rims with handles). Of these, at least 17Iltlllm[ still have been hanging within the church by the Abbasid period,<:D!hpsing only in the abandonment phase; another 19 were placed'l'II'imhin the cave. The burnt and heat-distorted material from the fill of

adjacent cistern in Area K yielded 72 examples (30%), which should&no: come from a major fire and collapse in both the basilica and, one0lIuId assume, the rooms above themselves. Their clearance into the>clxerranean cistern, however, seems to have been less than thorough:<De would expect to find at least three handles per surviving wick-tube,;a;; these are all robust elements of each vessel yet, despite sieving, near-<COmpletevessels were rare, and on average only half the expected numberofhandles survived. A further 68 (28%) are from loci downslope of thednu-ch and the narthex area (H and A.V); but the rubbish dump in therrdinory complex (M.II) yielded only 21 examples (9%). This suggestsdnr they were mostly used in the public areas of the church rather than- me more 'domestic' areas of the monastery and its hostel.

The only rim type associated with certainty with a wick-tubed base'Iii"aS an almost upright folded rim, usually 8-12 cm in diameter, threetimes as common as the larger bowl-lamps. The fold varies from deepeo Darrow, sometimes on the one vessel, and all such variations seem tobe contemporary. A complete lamp with a decorared folded rim comeshom a cistern used as a dump for material from the cave-sanctuary at::\.in Karim (Bagatti 1948: 77, Fig. 34), using Mr Nebo for dating. Aminority of wick-tubes at the site had cut rims, and 8% had a thick solidtrail wound around tube base.

Y.6 The Late Antique Period: The Glass

At Deir 'Ain 'Abata, most are greenish (44%, approaching nearly halfif olive is included) with 27% blue-greenish and a quarter bluish. At leasttwo isolated handles are cobalt bluish, attached to blue-greenish vessel(s),and another was amber; these, however, could also have belonged to thelarger bowl-lamps.

14. Wick-tube base (TS 121) Fig. 599Bd 4. Rounded heel on thickened flat base, with large pontil blob.

Internal coiled small wick tube (mostly missing). Medium walled.Yellow-greenish.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from A.V North 4.1). This odd base mustbelong to a lamp, but its uniqueness could be a result of irregularworkmanship; if related to the prunted beaker rim TS 119 (cat. no. 8),the shape would be a dumpy conical beaker.

Beaker-lampsRims for known wick-tubed lamps at Deir 'Ain 'Abata

are, as elsewhere,folded externally (cat. nos 15-16). Wick-tubes might also have appeared on beaker-lamps witheverted rims, but that is not yet certain at the site.15. Beaker-lamp folded rim (TS 63) Fig. 600

Rd 12. Flaring rim, with large fold to exterior; body missing. Thinwalled. Greenish. Flaking iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest is pre-AD 606.Comments: MNE: 6. One comes from sub-mosaic packing within

the church, the rest from various wash or fill levels around the site. Thefold is larger than that on any recognisable handled beaker-lamp at themonastic complex. It is possible, however, that this is a Byzantine gobletor hollow-stemmed lamp rim.

16. Beaker-lamp with inverted folded rim (TS 69) Fig. 601Rd 5. Inverted rim, folded to exterior, and edge slightly flanged

on convex body, mostly missing. Thin walled. Blue-greenish. Black oniridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.Comments: MNE: 4, one of which is handled. The diameter ranges

up to 7 cm. Most are greenish. Illustrated is one from Lot's Cave, which,given the absence of goblet bases from the same locus, is unlikely to be agoblet rim. At Dhiban, a similar rim to our larger version was assumed tobe either a cup or lamp rim (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 12).

17. Beaker-lamp with everted rim (TS 68) Fig. 602Rd 9. Everted, almost cupped rim, curving down to upright wall.

Single extant handle attached from rim to upper body. Medium-thinwalled. Indeterminate fabric. Black on iridescent weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.Comments: MNE: 8. Spacing along rim suggests three handles. None

was in situ from the basilica, but one from the cave behind, and onefrom the cistern dump. A Gadarene example is fifth or sixth century AD(Dussart 1990: 255, no. 11, PI. 38). Another example, from Catacomb20, Room XVIII, at Beth She'arim had been dated early fourth century AD

although Barag realised that at least some of the other glassware fromhere was likely to be sixth century AD (Barag 1976: 205, Fig. 98.8); theassumption had been that the site ceased to be occupied c. AD352. Thishas since been revised (Vitto 1996: 138-41). Beaker-lamps with flaringrims occur at Gerasa (Baur 1938: 516, type D), probably sixth centuryADor later. A similar rim at Apamea is also early seventh century ADat thelatest (Napoleone-Lemaire and Baity 1969: 111, Fig. 26.5). At Sardis, asimilar rim was stratigraphically dated sixth to early seventh century AD(von Saldern 1980: 47, no. 246, PI. 11). One from Saint Stephen's, Ummal-Rasas (Alliata 1991: Fig. 7, nos 39-41) was found in an Early Abbasidcontext, but could of course be earlier.

Note that at least 81 similar rims, without conjoining handles, wereretrieved from the site, appearing earliest in the fourth to fifth-centuryAD rubbish of B.l. These could have belonged to earlier goblet rims.However, most occur along with me handled versions, in the sixth andseventh centuries ADor the Early Islamic period.

Of known fabrics, greenish fabrics again dominate (59%, plus 5%olive), with just over a third (36%) blue-greenish and 8% bluish; onewas amber.

18. Handled beaker-lamp with simple ledge rim (TS 38) Fig. 603Rd 7. Everted, flat ledge rim, carinated sharply to upright wall, rest

301

Deir 'Ain 'Abata

missing. Single extant small handle attached rim to upper body. Thinwalled. Pale greenish handle, lime greenish body. Milky patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: The earliest is from mostly fourth to fifth-century AD rubbish; the others are Early Byzantine or later.

Comments: MNE: 5, one from in the church. This is a flatter-rimmedversion of the flaring rim ofTS 68 (cat. no. 17) and may be earlier.19. Handled beaker-lamp with trail-decorated simple rim (TS 116)Fig. 604

Rd 9. Simple upright rim, sloping steeply in; lower body missing.Large trail added rim-edge; band of fine trails immediately below, allcobalt. Small cobalt handle extant, rim to upper body. Thin walled.Indeterminate fabric. Flaking iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Type repeat may be fourth-fifth centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 2, one from a room adjacent to the church, therepeat from Area B, but this datable example is perhaps stylisticallyearlier than the type itself, without the contrasting trails, which becomeincreasingly popular into the Umayyad period. The decoration withtrails of a handled lamp is unusual. Drinking goblets can be trailed, andoccasionally are handled, but it is unusual to find both together.

20. Thickened base (TS 21) Fig. 605Bd 5-6. Rounded heel on very highly domed but thickened base,

with large pontil scar. Very bubbly fabric, but with no grits. Blue-greenish.

Stratigraphic Dating: Two from fourth to fifth-century AD openrubbish deposits, the majority from sixth to seventh-century AD deposits.

Comments: MNE: 15. Mostly either blue-greenish or bluish, withtwo greenish and one olive-greenish example, these may be handledbeaker-lamp bases, without wick-tubes, as at Beth She'arim Catacomb20 (Barag 1976: 205, no. 41, Fig. 98.8a), with very similar fabric andpronounced pontil scars.

Beaker- and Bowl-lamp BasesSince none of these reconstructs to a handled rim,

it cannot be certain that they are lamp bases, but theirsheer numbers within the complex strongly suggests thatthey were indeed lamp bases. The bowl-lamps might haveincluded handle-less bowls, which, rather than beingsuspended, would have sat on benches or in niches andhad floating wicks.21. Semi-hemispherical bowl base (TS 19) Fig. 606

Bd 4-5. Rim and upper body missing; large, almost hemisphericalbowl, thickening towards rounded base, slightly flattened. Pontil mark.Thick walled. Strongly blue-greenish. Four fragments, non-joining.Iridescent patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Some in the fourth to fifth-century AD debris inArea B; most in sixth to early seventh-century AD loci.

Comments: MNE: 39. Ail share a solid, sheared-off pontil mark,rather than a ring-scar. That these belong to bowl-lamps is suggestedby more than twenty examples from Gerasa in contexts associated withhandled rims (Baur 1938: 527, no. 32, Fig. 23 [318A]) and in earlyeighth-century AD wash levels in the North Decumanus area (Kehrberg1986b: Fig. 9, no. 51). They cannot be earlier than sixth century AD

at Samaria-Sebaste (Crowfoot 1957: 172), and may be late sixth/earlyseventh century AD, as are many of our examples. They would have usedfloating wicks, and perhaps had a folded rim such as the large TS 13-14(cat. nos 11-12). Their thickness tends to give them a strong hue: justover a third are blue-greenish, just under a third are bluish, with the restin various greenish ti,)ts.

22. Simple carinated bowl base (TS 89) Fig. 607Bd 4. Steep wall, carinated genrly to tapering heel on simple base,

thickened at centre and very slightly domed. Negative pontil scar.Medium-thin walled. Strongly blue-greenish. Iridescent patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest are from fourth to fifth-century AD

debris in Area B but most are from sixth to early seventh-century AD loci.Comments: MNE: 24. Most have a very slight pontil scar rather

than a solid if flatly sheared one. This difference might indicate theidiosyncrasies of contemporary production/workshops rather than achronological technical change.

302

Although most come from the monastic rubbish dump, at least threewere within the basilica, including one from a 'well' in the chancel. Theyare associated at Gerasa with folded rims (Baur 1938: 527, no. 40, Fig.24), handle-less but associated with several churches, all sixth-centuryAD phases on structural grounds at the earliest (despite Baur's generaltypological ascription to the fourth-fifth century AD). A larger versionwas found in the excavation of a third century AD public building atPalmyra, although this provides only a terminus post quem for the vessel(Bylinski 1995: 243-4, Fig. 17, no. 4). In the absence of any betterexplanation for their repeated and numerous occurrences in ecclesiasticalcontexts, it is likely that these were used as lamps, even if not suspendedones. A base from Gerasa is in a variant fabric (Baur 1938: 527: nos 33and 35, Fig. 23).

At the site, just under half were intensely blue-greenish, with a thirdbeing almost emerald greenish; of the rest, two were lime greenish, oneeach olive and bluish; the scarcity of the latter hue stands out from therest of the glass assemblage.

23. Beaker-lamp kicked base (TS 60) Fig. 608Bd 4. Rounded heel, thickened simple base, kicked with reamer.

Pontil scar. Thick walled. Greenish. Iridescent patches.Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth-fifth century AD at the earliest; probably

lasting well into the sixth or early seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 39. Whilst these clearly did not have wick-tubes,the simple kicked small base was used on tube-less beaker or 'tumbler'lamps as well as on flasks (see Gerasa [Baur 1938: 329, Fig.G. 22, type29]). The pontil scar is a characteristic of the Roman and Byzantineperiods, the mark tending to become more ring-like in the Abbasidperiod. Some of this sample might well include flask bases. Greenishfabrics predominate (47% inclucling lime greenish), with 28% blue-greenish and 17% bluish fabrics.

Hollow-stemmed LampsAll variants forms here appear to be contemporaneous

and may simply indicate different workshops; tubular andtapering stems also occur together in the collected glassdump at Caesarea Maritima (Peleg and Reich 1992: 159,Fig. 20). Such lamps occur in Asia Minor and Greece aswell as the Levant, Egypt and Cyprus, but less commonlyin the west. Their occurrence in Early Byzantine imperialcontexts is inferred by the oft-quoted reference to thedescription of glass lamps in polycandela in Hagia Sophia,24. Hollow-stemmed lamp With everted rim (TS 117) Fig. 609

Hr 10.5, Rd 7-8. Everted, simple rim, carinated above sagging bowl,pinched slightly above short, hollow stem, pared at base. Medium walled.Indeterminate fabric.

Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth to fifth-century AD open rubbishdeposits in Area B; most in sixth to early seventh-century AD deposits.

Comments: MNE: 21, with one complete example from EIII 10.l.Only one rim was still within the basilica when it collapsed, with anomerthree from the adjacent rooms (K.II). The bubbly or mottled fabric W3S

moscly greenish with two blue-greenish examples.This is a shorter-stemmed version ofTS 8 (cat. no. 26). The form

occurs in small numbers in Italy, mostly around Rome, and may be noearlier than the fifth century AD (Sternini 1995: 260, Fig. 17.24). Similareverted rims at Dhiban may belong to hollow stems in the same contexrs(Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 7), and complete lamps from Gerasa(Baur 1938: PI.CXLa no. 4) as well as at Umm al-Rasas (Piccirillo andAIliata 1994: PI.XXXlI.2) confirms their continued manufacture inthe Early Byzantine-Umayyad period. The base form occurs in rubbishcleared up in the early eighth century AD at Pella from the Civic ComplexChurch; it can be no earlier than the church's construction in the earlyfifth century AD, and no later than the seventh century AD (Smith andDay 1989: 71, PI. 60, no. 10).

2S. Hollow-stemmed lamp with ledge-rim (TS 3) Fig. 610Rd 8. Flat everted rim, curving in to swelling, convex wall; body

missing. Medium-thin walled. Pale blue-greenish.Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest examples are early seventh century AD,

with quite a few in the Umayyad period.Comments: MNE: 36. Probably a lamp rim, as perhaps at Dhiban

(Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 8), associated with hollow-stemmedlamp bases. Half are blue-greenish; only 14% each greenish and limegreenish, and one example (3%) bluish.

26. Hollow-stemmed lamp tapering base (TS 8) Fig. 611Extant hr 8. Pared base; tall hollow stem, slightly tapering to Raring

body, mostly missing. Medium walled. Strongly blue-greenish. Milky oniridescent pitting.

Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest examples are from the fourth to fifth-century AD rubbish deposits of Area B.I; most examples are from locideposited in the late sixth-early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 128, but none survives with full profile. Somecould have the rim forms of cat. nos 24-25, the latter of which was foundwith one of these stems within Lot's Cave.

Only three were found in situ within the basilica, where they clearlywere suspended along with the handled variety by the time of the church'sarchitectural collapse. In some sixth to seventh-century AD debris-dumplayers in the cistern off the north side of the church, they outnumberbowl-lamp bases by 2: 1.

At Sardis, only this form of hollow stem was recorded, noneparticularly well-dated beyond a likely date of fifth or sixth century AD,

but the least 'tapering' example is possibly as early as the fourth centuryAD (von Saldern 1980: 51, nos 274-5, 280). Overall, it might be likelythat this sub-type flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries AD at Deir 'Ain'Abata. Nevertheless, at least one from a rubbish deposit near the CivicComplex Church at Pella was placed there in the early eighth century AD

(Smith and Day 1989: 71, PI. 60, no. 14, without drawn putative foot)it could, of course, date from a much earlier phase of church use, but noearlier than the early fifth century AD.

Blue-greenish examples predominate (38%), with 30% straightgreenish 11% lime greenish 5% olive 14% bluish and a single amberexample.

27. Hollow-stemmed lamp base (TS 78) Fig. 612Extant hr 8. Hollow tubular lamp stem, attached at base to inverted

tube, mostly missing; upper stem splayed to almost flat shallow base;body missing. Medium-thin walled. Bluish, almost blue-greenish. Fourfragments, three rejoining. Flalry iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest is fourth or fifth century AD.

Comments: MNE: 5. This attached base, which, whilst not preciselya pontil blob, is likely to be a result of manufacturing technique. Thatthis is not a technical irregularity confined to the suppliers of Deir'Ain 'Abata's glassware 'can be seen in its appearance at Gerasa (Meyer1987: Fig. 101, misprinted as Fig. lli) and Pella, where it is probablyan Umayyad feature. A heat-distorted example from Area M.V had ahemispherical bowl, possibly with folded rim. With the exception of thetype, the form appears in greenish to olive hues.

28. Hollow-stemmed lamp base (TS 88) Fig. 613Body missing; pinched above short, wide stem, tapering to simple

base, with pontil mark. Medium walled. Blue-greenish. Milky patches.Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth or fifth century AD through to Abbasid.Comments: MNE: 4. The shorter, wider stems seem to be more rypical

of the Islamic period than the earlier forms; however, the small samplemight equally simply indicate variants in Byzantine production. As withcat. no. 27, the form appears mostly in greenish hues through to olive.

29. Hollow-stemmed lamp base (TS 67) Fig. 614Extant hr 5.6, Bd 0.8. Shallow bowl, curving in to narrow, straight-

sided stem, tapering to cut base. No pontil mark. Medium-thin walled.Strongly blue-greenish, almost bluish. Iridescent flaking on somesurfaces.

Stratigraphic Dating: Probably purely Byzantine.Comments: MNE: 9. The dating here seems earlier than further

north, where a Late Umayyad form from the Church of BishopMarianos at Gerasa has an everted rim (Gawlikowska and Musa 1986:Fig. 9, no. 2). At Pella, this author has catalogued small numbers of thisrype (unpublished type 151c) within Umayyad earthquake levels, albeitoutnumbered by regular, tubular stems.

30. Hollow-stemmed lamp indented base (TS 50) Fig. 615Intd l. Straight-sided body, thickening and slightly sloping out

towards base. Single extant vertical and narrow indent. Strongly limegreenish.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth or seventh century AD at the earliest.Comments: MNE: 2. Fluted hollow lamp stems also occur in the

Islamic period at Pella (unpublished type 288b), but they were nevercommon.

Bowl RimsSome of these may well belong to lamps (TS 46, cat.

no. 32) but in the absence of any direct associations withhandles or bases, they have been ryped purely according toform rather than function.31. Flaring bowl rim (TS 43) Fig. 616

Rd 13-14. Flaring simple rim curving in to deep, slightly convexbowl, base missing. Thin walled. Lime greenish.

Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth-seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 96. These overwhelmingly occur in loci whichhave simple, large bases, not folded, slab or ring forms. Three examplescome from the pre-basilica fill, indicating that they are no earlier thanthe fifth century AD, with two more in sub-floor deposits under the nave.However, the rim form is a long-lived one, and there is no reason todoubt that the majority are much later in date-over half were from therefectory dump, which includes material up to and including the earlyseventh century AD. Isolated examples come from all areas of the siteexcept from inside the basilica itself. The rims from the dump were veryuniform, closely limited to 13-14 cm in diameter. It could be argued thatthese simple bowls were used by the monastic community itself. Similarrims come from Gerasa (Meyer 1992: 130, PI. 37i).

Nearly half were greenish (47%), the rest, blue-greenish (43%) and10% bluish.

32. Everted bowl rim (TS 46) Fig. 617Rd 9-10. Everted rim on steep bowl. Medium walled. Lime greenish.

White enamel-like hydration.Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 7. This generic bowl rim varies between slightlycupped and almost flaring; diameters range from 8-12 cm. Only oneprovides a terminus ante quem, from beneath the church mosaic; therest are fill or wash deposits. Such a rim could in theory belong to alamp, large bealrer or goblet, and date anywhere from the Byzantine toUmayyad periods.

33. Bowl rim with embedded trails (TS 53) Fig. 618Rd 13. Slightly flaring rim on shallow bowl, body missing. Fine

cobalt trail embedded on rim and thicker cobalt trail embedded belowrim exterior. 1hin walled. Blue greenish. Milky patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: The earliest are repeatedly fourth to fifthcentury AD, preceding the church construction.

Comments: MNE: 28, with four having mid-blue and one, yellowishamber trails; the rest have cobalt trails and cluster in late sixth to earlyseventh-century AD loci. They ate all likely to have belonged to smallbowls rather than lamps, as at Dhiban (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no.83). Wall-thinness malres identification of hue very difficult, but of thoseidentified, just over a third are blue-greenish: just under are greenish, andonly two rims are bluish.

34. Bowl rim with embedded trails (TS 105) Fig. 619Rd 12. Upright rim on steep wall, mostly missing. Fine mid-blue

trails embedded c. 1 cm on and below rim.Thin walled. Four fragments, two rejoin. Faintly blue-greenish.Stratigraphic Dating: Mixed fourth to fifth and sixth to seventh

century AD.

Comments: MNE: 2 (from M.m 4.1 and the narthex). This, too, islikely to be sixth to seventh century AD or Umayyad.

35. Shallow bowl rim (TS 77) Fig. 620Rd 14. Simple thick rim on straight, very shallow wall. Uniformly

thick walled. Amber. White enamel-like weathering.Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh to mid-eighth centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 2, both amber; one a surface find, the other fromthe Umayyad fill of the K.II cistern. The wall thickness and colouringrecalls that used for Abbasid pincer-decorated bowls (O'Hea 1993: 227,Fig. 25, no. 13); it certainly does not belong to the earlier Hellenisticclass of cast bowls. As no pincer-decoration is extant on either rims,the stratigraphic dating cannot be taken to suggest that this previously

303

Deir 'Ain 'Abata

Abbasid class of vessels was in fact made in the earlier period; nevertheless,this type remains somewhat enigmatic. It is possible that it was usedas a circular window pane, but there is no direct evidence for such afunction.

36. Pincer-decorated bowl fragment (TS 110) Fig. 621Upright body fragment. Extant combed oval attached to top of

vertical combed line. Medium-thick walled. Faintly blue-greenish. Milkypatches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid abandonment of church.Comments: MNE: 1 (from EI 1.9). This could be from either a bowl

or beaker wall and, like the ceramic lamps, indicates some ninth-centuryADAbbasid use of the church building. The motif is a common one; seeone from Alexandria (Rodziewicz 1984: 346, Fig. 348, no. 5). Anothersurface fragment from Deir 'Ain 'Abata was published by Meyer (1992:130, PI. 37j) and a bowl with the same motif in reverse comes from anAbbasid pit at Pella (O'Hea 1993: Fig. 25, no. 11).

37. Folded shallow bowl rim (TS 99) Fig. 622Rd 24. Shallow rim, folded to exterior, on straight shallow wall;

rest missing. Thin walled. Three fragments, non-joining. Olive greenish.Iridescent patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: One is from Area B.I, but it might be sixth orseventh century ADrather than earlier; all the others are sixth to seventhcentury AD.

Comments: MNE: 8. This rim approaches the crown glass windowpanes, but seems to be deep enough to warrant tentative inclusion here,as a bowl. The type is found in the cistern in the rooms adjacent thebasilica, the refectory dump and scattered across the site, including thereservoir. It occurs also in blue-greenish and greenish fabrics.

38. Folded shallow bowl rim (TS 64) Fig. 623Rd 20. Shallow rim, rolled to exterior, on straight and very shallow

wall. Very thin walled. Pale bluish. Flaking iridescence.Stratigraphic Dating: All from Abbasid abandonment and wash

deposits.Comments: MNE: 3. Without more of the form, little can be said

about the date or shape of this bowl.

39. Folded bowl rim (TS 31) Fig. 624Rd 18. Upright rim, folded to exterior, on deep wall sloping in; rest

missing. Thin walled. Strongly grass greenish, bubbly.Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest is pre-AD 606, with most examples in

Umayyad fill or rubbish deposits.Comments: MNE: 27. At least two fragments were found beneath

the AD605/7 mosaic in the basilica; none from the collapse of the basilicaitself, but one from the well in the chancel. It is possible that some ofthese rim fragments belong to the large lamp TS 14 (cat. no. 11). Mostcame from the fill of the adjacent cistern, which means that originallythey were located in either the basilica or its auxiliary rooms. The largestproportion are greenish (half, if lime and olive green hues are included),a third blue-greenish and three bluish.

40. Folded bowl rim (TS 57) Fig. 625Rd 22. Nearly upright rim, with large fold to exterior; slightly

convex wall curving in to body (missing). Medium walled. Pale greenish.Milky patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to seventh centuries AD.Comments: MNE: 2. Unlike the hanrlled bowl-lamps listed above,

this form is strongly convex, resembling the bowls commonly found inByzantine and Umayyad domestic contexts elsewhere.

41. Bowl rim half-rolled (TS 30) Fig. 626Rd 21. Thickened rim, half-rolled to exterior, on steep, almost

straight wall, rest missing. Medium-thin walled. Pale greenish. Whiteenamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 2, both from auxiliary areas of the complex.

42. Rolled bowl rim (TS 22) Fig. 627Rd 16. Upright rim, rolled large and to exterior; wall slopes

shallowly in to missing bowl. Medium walled. Strongly olive greenish.No bubbles.

Stratigraphic Dating: Purely sixth-early seventh centuries AD.Comments: MNE: 6, all greenish to olive greenish. This is a common

Early Byzantine rim form: cf. Dhiban (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no.13).

304

Footed Bowl BasesSuch footed bowls are likely to have functioned here

as tableware, not lamps. All come from subsidiary areasofthe monastic complex, mostly from the refectory dump,There are, however, surprisingly few, given the span ofoccupation of this monastery, and perhaps they were lesscommon here than on domestic Byzantine and Umayyadsites in this region.43. Footed bowl base (TS 25) Fig. 628

Bd 12. High folded foot, rest missing. Medium walled. Pale greenish.Milky patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth-fifth centuries AD at the earliest, burmore commonly in sixth to seventh-century ADloci.

Comments: MNE: 9. It occurs in bluish to lime greenish hues, and isa common Byzantine form.

44. Large slab-footed bowl base (TS 75) Fig. 629Bd 26-28. Upright and high, solid added slab-foot, on flat base,

mostly missing. Very thick walled. Decolourised, faintly yellowish. Fourfragments, two rejoin. Black enamel-like on dark iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid.Comments: MNE: 1 (from K.II 11.1). Slab feet became very

common in the Umayyad period, although they begin much earlier inEgypt, and appear in Syro-Palestine from the fourth to fifth century AD

(Weinberg 1988: 58). This unusually large form and decolourised fabricmight belong to a bowl with trail-decorated upper body.

45. Slab-footed bowl base (TS 112) Fig. 630Bd 9.5. Upper body missing; wide, flat bowl-base thickening towards

missing centre; slightly inturned slab foot. Thin walled body. Stronglygrass greenish. Some iridescent pitting.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid (topsoil).Comments: MNE: 1 (from EIV 1.1). This may be a Byzantine or

Umayyad upcast in topsoil. The angle of the foot, and thickness of thebase at centre, is unusual. A similar bowl from Jalame is dated to the laterfourth century AD(Weinberg 1988: 58, no. 148), but the use of slab feetmay last.well into the seventh century AD.They are not typical of Abbasidbowls, which are more commonly footless.

46. Stacked coil bowl base (TS 70) Fig. 631Bd 7-8. Body missing; shallow stacked coil foot; five coils extant.

Strongly blue-greenish. Iridescent patches.Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh century AD; another as rubbish

survival in an Abbasid locus.Comments: MNE: 2. Both have five stacked coils; the repeat is

slightly smaller (6 em diameter) and is greenish. These occur frequently inByzantine contexts in Syro-Palesrine (Weinberg 1988: 59, Fig. 4-21, nos152-153 with full references), Egypt, (Karanis) North Africa (Carthage),Asia Minor, Greece (Davidson 1952: no. 633,Fig. 8, dated Roman only byparallel to Karanis, whose dating is too early) and indeed in fifth-centuryADRome. The Jalame bases are probably later fourth century AD, as are theCarthage examples (Tatton-Brown: 1984: 208, Fig. 68, nos 103-105) butthey also occur in fifth to sixth-century ADcontexts at Pella.

Harden's assumption that they were primarily a base for flasks is notsupported by the cumulative evidence, especially near complete profilesat Jalame, or indeed by all the Karanis drawings (see Harden 1936: 194,no. 658). The Deir 'Ain 'Abata examples also suggest that they were bowlbases, like the three-coil base from Iraq el-Ernir (Lapp 1983: 51, Fig.24.15), although flasks could also be this large.

47. Mould-blown simple bowl base (TS 40) Fig. 632Maximum diameter 10-11. Rim and most of body missing; upright

wall curving in to rounded heel onto thickened and rounded base,slightly kicked to centre. Thick walled.

Extant relief-moulded decoration of closely-spaced vertical ribbingdown body, becoming sharper on heel; on base, deep honeycomb pattern.Pale lime greenish. Black pitting.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid or later.Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.II 10.2). This may be a large beaker-

bowl. Honeycombed patterns are not uncommon in the Late Roman,Umayyad (Meyer 1987: 213, Fig. 13S), Abbasid (Goldstein 1976:131, PI. XIIB) or later periods (Lamm 1935: 10-11, PI. 22 A-B). An

unpublished body fragment of similar pattern from the Petra Church isalso fifth to sixth centuries AD. Late Roman bowls with a more extensivehoneycomb pattern may also have been used as hanging bowl-lamps,although the evidence is far from certain (Stern 1985: 39).

48. Marvered bowl fragment (TS 55)Thick body fragment from large vessel (indeterminate diameter),

with irregular white blobs or dashes extant very lightly marvered ontowall. Dark cobalt. Milky patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Early Abbasid.Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.II 6.02). Too small to illustrate, this

fragment from the western end of the basilica should date from the finalcollapse of the Abbasid period, but could be intrusive, part of a laterAyyubld-Mamluk marvered bowl, which could also have occasionalmarvered white spots as well as a fine trail wound around them, infabrics ranging from aubergine to dark blue or green. However, marveredglass has definitely and repeatedly been excavated in Abbasid contexts(including Qasr Ibrim, in Allen 1995: 15), and it is remotely possible thatthis fragment belongs to an earlier series, although earlier monochromeexamples use a light, not dark, cobalt fabric (Carboni 2001: 300, andalso at Pella, unpublished type 230c, associated with Abbasid material).Without a clear profile and more of the design, nothing more can be said.

Beaker RimsThe following are classified as beaker rims, a generic

term which does not preclude the possibility that the fullprofile could have been either a footless tumbler, a footedbeaker, or a stemmed goblet.49. Small bowUbeaker fragments (TS 27) Fig. 633

Extant ht >4, Rd 10, Bd 5.6. Simple, upright rounded rim, onconvex wall curving in to small bowl; mid-body missing, taperingconcavely just above sharp, upright heel on simple base, highly domedand slightly thickened. Light, irregular pontil scar. Medium walled. Limegreenish. At least 35 fragments, some rejoining. Iridescent pitting

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.II 14.02).

50. Beaker simple rim (TS 15) Fig. 634Rd 7. Simple upright rim, curving in slightly to missing lower body.

Medium-thin walled. Greenish. Milky on iridescence.Stratigraphic Dating: Two are from certain fourth to fifth-century

AD loci beneath the basilica, but the majority are sixth or seventhcentury AD.

Comments: MNE: 67. Diameters range from 6-9 cm. More thanhalf came from the cistern and associated fill in Area K.I]' but rimswere scattered across the site, even into the reservoir. The best-preservedexample could come from a footed beaker, or goblet, or even a very largetall-mouthed flask. Just over half were blue-greenish (55%), just under athird were greenish to lime greenish, and 15% were bluish.

It should be noted that, even if these rims belonged to handle-less beakers, their function could still have been as oil-filled lamps. Anearly fourth-century AD glass tumbler was set in mortar, perhaps in theRoman catacombs, and probably as an embedded wall-lamp (Buckron1994: 30-1, Fig. 8); even at Deir 'Ain 'Abata, one of the three-handledtumbler-lamps was set in plaster within the cave, rather than hung fromthe ceiling.

Nipped BeakersLarge, U-shaped beakers with and without nipped

decoration have been found in Early Abbasid contexts(O'Hea 1993: 223-4, Fig. 25, nos 2-4). The origin ofthese beakers has not yet been satisfactorily provenancedor dated; they are certainly absent from the Umayyadperiod at Pella, and are rare for any period in publicationsof either Umayyad or Abbasid glass. Flasks with nippeddecoration, however, go back to the fourth or fifth centuryAD, here as elsewhere in the Levant (TS 122, cat. no. 84).

V.6 The Late Antique Period: The Glass

51. Beaker inverted rim (TS 28) Fig. 635Rd 7-9. Slightly inverted rim, thickened to interior. Upright wall;

lower body missing. Medium walled. Strongly bluish. Some iridescentflaking.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 21. All are Early Byzantine AD, and occur in fairlyequal numbers in blue-greenish, bluish, olive and lime greenish, withone amber example. This rim is probably from a simple, slightly saggingbeaker. A rim at Gerasa is from an Umayyad context, but could of coursebe earlier (Meyer 1987: 213, Fig. 13:G).

52. Sagging beaker rim (TS 42) Fig. 636Rd 6. Simple rim, slightly inverted on straight wall, sagging to lower

body, mostly missing, Medium-thin walled. Bluish. Iridescent flaking.Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid.Comments: MNE: 4. Identical rims occur at Pella (O'Hea 1993:

223, Fig. 25, ne. 1) in the Early Abbasid period. These can be plain ordecorated with nips; see also the plain beaker, from Abbasid Beth Shean(Fitzgerald 1931: 42-3, PI. XXXIX no. 32).

53. Nipped body fragment (TS 37) Fig. 637Lower beaker wall fragment, slightly convex, with single extant

vertical nip. Thin walled. Bluish. Flaky iridescence.Stratigtaphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 2 (from H.II 14.2 and AV North 4.1). At Gerasa,such fragments were attributed to the fourth to fifth-century AD seriesof flasks (Meyer 1987: 206, 209, Fig. l l a-b, misprinted as Fig. 10), acomplete example of which was found at Khirbet al-Karak (Delougazand Haines 1960: PI. 50, no. 9). Both Gerasene examples may belong toeither beakers or flasks, but at the latest, Fig. IIa should be Umayyad,whilst 11b could well be Abbasid.

54. Trailed beaker rim (TS 36) Fig. 638Rd 8. Inverted simple rim, on convex wall, rest mlssmg. Single

extant mid-blue trail embedded on rim. Medium-thin walled. Limegreenish, very bubbly.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 4; one type repeat has amber rather than mid-blue trails, and fabrics vary from lime greenish to bluish. These are alleither Early Byzantine beaker or goblet rims.

55. Engraved body fragment (TS Ill) Fig. 639Tiny body fragment, medium-thin walled. Indeterminate lightly

scratched linear design. Three fragments. Non-joining. Dark cobalt.Comments: MNE: 2 (from topsoil in Area H and the narthex, AV

North 4.1). Both are dark cobalt. The type repeat, from the churchentrance, is from a beaker or large flask, c. 10 cm diameter, and has beenillustrated here as well as the type.

These "freehand" engraved plates and beakers are Abbasid in date(cf example from Pella, in O'Hea 1993: 225). Examples abound incollections, such as the Benaki Museum in Athens (Clairmont 1977: 77,PI. XV nos 255-6), or Mariemont (Faider-Feytmans 1954: no. 303) andthey occur at the Syrian site of Raqqa, where it was once thought theywere exclusively produced. Their rarity in Syro-Palestinian publicationsmight reflect the dearth still of stratified Abbasid material as well as therelative expense of this decorated glassware. It is quite possible that suchvessels were imported from Syria into the southern Levant.

56. Wheel-incised large jar rim (TS 92) Fig. 640Rd 9.5. Upright bevelled thin rim on mouth cupped in to narrowed

carination above wide, almost flat shoulders sloping concavely to missingbody. Wheel-polished rim. Thin walled. Blue-greenish. Three fragments,two rejoining. Black enamel-like on iridescent weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid.Comments: MNE: 1 (K.II 45.2). This large jar could be related to

more sloping-shouldered jar rims, which frequently appear on monasticor church sites, such as at late seventh-century AD Kourion (Young 1993:47, no. 12, Fig. 11).

GobletsThe term 'goblet' covers all stemmed-and-footed cups,

with or without handles. These all come from ancillarybuildings, but none from the cistern fill and only one fromthe refectory dump, strongly suggesting that they were

305

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complex itself, and for personal uses or table use in the

monastic complex.

62. Balsamarium rim (TS 65) Fig. 646Rd 2.5. Wide rim folded out and flattened on top; narrow upright

neck, rest missing. Medium walled. Probably greenish. Surfaces burnt toan opaque bluish white.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid fill.Comments: MNE: 1 (from EIII 5.1). This is clearly burnt, but not

fire-distorted, and is likely to be an upcast from Roman or Late Romanlevels beneath the church. Balsamaria disappear by the end of the thirdcentury AD.

63. Balsamarium base (TS 48) Fig. 647Bd 3. Upright wall, rounded heel. Very highly kicked base; no pontil

mark extant, but incomplete. Medium walled. Pale greenish, almostcolourless. Enamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.II 14.1). Possibly an upcast from anearlier phase, but too fragmented to be certain of anything.

64. Unguentarium base (TS 49) Fig. 648Bd 3. Very low, upright barrel-shaped body; rim and neck missing,

with rounded heel; centre of base missing. Thick walled. Almostcolourless, pale yellowish. Enamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.Il 14.1). The fabric might indicate aRoman date for this, but again, not enough has survived to be certain.

Funnel-mouthed FlasksThese begin as a broad series in the fourth and fifth

centuries AD and last beyond the end of the seventhcentury AD.

65. Funnel-mouthed flask rim-shoulder (TS 118) Fig. 649Rd 5. Short, simple funnel-mouth, on tall wide neck, pinched above

sloping shoulders (rest missing). Medium-thick walled. Blue-greenish.Two fragments. Iridescence.

Comments: MNE: 2, neither well-stratified. The form recalls fourthto fifth-century AD oil-flasks with piriform bodies, regularly deposited inLevantine tombs (Samaria-Sebaste; Crowfoot 1957: Fig. 94.4, PI. xxv.6,or Tyre; Harden 1949: 153, Fig. 2), but the long-life of this simple rim/neck can be seen on a fifth or sixth-century AD complete flask from Kisr(Stern 1997: 17, 110, no. 16, Fig. 4).

66. Collared funnel-mouthed rim (TS 115) Fig. 650Rd 6. Upright rim, folded out to form collar above wide, funnel-

mouth, rest missing, Medium walled. Possibly decolourised, faintlypinkish. Black on iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh to mid-eighth centuries AD

(Urnayyad).Comments: MNE: 1 (from K.I 13.1). Typological parallels suggest

that this is a Byzantine upcast. Similar rims in small amounts fromJalame's factory dump again suggests that these were in production withinthe second half of the fourth century AD, but whether trailing off by the350s or only starting by the 380s is not determinable (Weinberg 1988:73, no. 292, Fig. 4-34, but thicker-walled). Flasks with similar rims fromPellaTomb 39A confirm a later fourth-century AD dating (McNicoll et al.1982: 94 [P.O. 63], 98, and PI. 136.10).

67. Funnel-mouthed flask swirl-ribbed rim (TS 79) Fig. 651Rd 7. Slightly flaring, very shallow mouth sloping gently in, rest

missing. Light optically-blown swirl-ribbing from rim down. Thinwalled. Bluish, almost blue-greenish. Ten fragments, some rejoining.Flaky iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh to mid-eighth centuries AD

(Umayyad) fill.Comments: MNE: 1. This unique example is from fill above burials

in the cistern (KII 19.2), containing both seventh century AD andUmayyad material; by comparison, it is more likely to date to the formerthan the latter period.

68. Funnel-mouthed flask rim with trail (TS 120) Fig. 652Rd 6. Simple rounded rim, sloping in to missing neck/shoulder;

Single thick trail around lower mouth. Thick walled. All bluish.

Y.6 The Late Antique Period: The Glass

Comments: MNE: 1 (from the narthex of the basilica). This flask rimcontinued from the Byzantine period well into the Umayyad periods.Compare the rim on the complete fifth to sixth-century AD flask fromcave 3 at Kisr (Stern 1997: 17, 110, no. 17, Fig. 4).

69. Funnel-mouthed flask rolled rim (TS 45) Fig. 653Rd 4. Everted rim, folded in, on short funnel-mouth, curving in to

wide neck. Medium-thick walled. Greenish.Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth-fifth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 14. This common Byzantine rim was used on avariety of body forms (e.g., Weinberg 1988: 72, no. 287). Roughly equalproportions of known fabrics are blue-greenish, bluish and greenish.

Tall-mouthed FlasksThese are typical of both the Early Byzantine and

especially the Umayyad period, often trail-wound. Cat. nos74-76 illustrate decorative variations on the same generic

form. They would have contained oils, perhaps perfumed(as many occur in graves, where they would have been leftbehind after anointment of the dead body). None comes

from the ecclesiastical area, but rather they seem to havebeen used by the monastic community or their guests. Anassemblage of such flasks was found in a sixth to seventh-

century AD tomb in the monastic complex of Jerusalem,the Third Wall (Amit, et al. 1993: 80, upper plate xi).70. Large tall-mouthed flask or beaker rim (TS 16) Fig. 654

Rd 5. Simple upright rim. Medium-thick walled. Strongly yellow-greenish, mottled. with yellow streaks and small bubbles. Iridescentpatches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Earliest are fourth to fifth century AD.

Comments: MNE: 26. Rims vary between 5-8 em, and may includesome thicker-walled goblet rims. A third are blue-greenish, with slightlyfewer lime greenish; greenish, bluish and dark amber examples exist. Abouthalf are from the dump in B.I, the rest mostly from monastic rubbish orthe cistern in KII. A similar flask rim from the church at Shavei Zion isprobably fifth-sixth centuries AD (Barag 1967b: Fig. 16, no. 2).

71. Tall-mouthed flask rim (TS 84) Fig. 655Rd 3. Simple rim, sloping very slightly in to shoulder, no neck.

Medium walled. Lime greenish. Burnt bluish.Stratigraphic Dating: One from the fourth to fifth century AD, the rest

from sixth or seventh century AD to Abbasid loci; all secondary deposits.Comments: MNE: 11, none from within the church itself. Such

flasks first appear in the second to third or fourth to fifth centuries AD,

for example at Karm al-Shaikh (Baramki 1932: PI. XII. 4).

72. Tall-mouthed flask neck (TS 91) Fig. 656Inrd 2. Rim missing; probably tall mouth cupped in to long narrow

neck; rest missing. Thin walled. Pale bluish. Iridescent patches.Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid fill.Comments: MNE: 5. The cistern fill in KII yielded four examples.

These may be Byzantine upcasts, and perhaps are similar to examplesfrom Jalame (Weinberg 1988: 72, no. 285), but the rim form lasts wellbeyond the later fourth century AD into the Umayyad period, as at Bostra(Wilson and Sa'd 1984: 75, Fig. 568). Two are blue-greenish, two limegreenish, with one bluish example.

73. Tall-mouthed flask collared rim (TS 94) Fig. 657Rd 5. Cupped upright rim, carinated above convex neck, rest

missing. Thin walled. Lime greenish. Enamel-like weathering.Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 1. This unique example from the refectory dump(M.Il 5.2-6) is perhaps similar to collared flasks from Beth She'arimCatacomb 20 (Barag 1976: 200, Fig. 97.4-5, II, 14), themselves datableby comparisons to the fourth or fifth century AD.

74. Large rim with trail (TS 17) Fig. 658Rd 9. Simple. rim on straight steep wall. Widely-spaced large trail

wound below rim exterior. Medium-thick walled. All strongly blue-greenish. Iridescent patches

307

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version from Ma'in (Barag 1985: 370, no. 5, photo 25 but not drawn),of .similar fabric and shoulder: this and a related funnel-mouthedhandled flask with the same shoulder but variant amber fabric are bothfrom a tomb of the sixth or seventh century AD, which accords with thestratigraphie context here. Neither Ma'in flasks were footed. The neck ofa swirl-ribbed sprinkler flask from Dhiban is similarly sixth to seventhcentury AD (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 34), and another swirl-ribbed footless example from Karanis is no earlier than fourth centuryAD, even by Harden's dating, which might be too low (Harden 1936:205, no. 579). Another, handled version from Gezer Tomb 155 grave bmight, by associated glass, be at the earliest, fourth and more likely, fifthcentury AD in date (Macalister 1912: 360, PI. CXXIII, no. 5). Plainer andagain footless versions in blue-greenish fabric come from the cemetery atWadi Faynan (O'Hea 1998: 78, Fig. 8). They are, as Barag noted, rarefor this region of the southern Levant. Other Egyptian examples existin collections (see Harden 1936: 219-220 with three toes). Collection-pieces of this sub-group have perhaps been dated too early (e.g., Matheson1980: nos 225-226, dated third to fourth centuries AD), and again Bristol(Bomford Collection: no. 103, after La Baume and Salomonson).

An Egyptian base from Armant has the same feet and verticalribbing (Harden 1940: 118, Class VIII, PI. LXXXV; no. 6), which isdated only very generally by multi-footed flask bases from Karanis(Harden 1936: 217, 219, nos 678 and 681). Harden based his dating onthe then-accepted terminus ante quem for the rown of c. AD 450. Recentrevisions of the pottery dating show that Karanis lasted at least into thesixth century AD (Hayes 1975: 2).

86. Handled sprinkler flask (TS 101) Fig. 670Rd 1.5. Small, flat coiled added ledge-rim, mostly missing: long,

straight handle added down to small sloping shoulder. Blue-greenish.Iridescent patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (M.II 5.14). The coiled solid added ledge rim isunusual, and the mouth aperture was probably only a few millimetres.

FlagonsThese are rare at the monastery. From the fourth to

fifth century AD onwards, carafes were used for servingwine, so the scarcity of one-handled vessels like these is notan indicator of abstinence. It is possible that all survivingexamples from the site are early Islamic in date.8? Large handled flagon rim (TS 74) Fig. 671

Rd 9-10. Flaring simple rim, curving in to wide missing body.Ridged strap handle attached on inner rim, folded up on itself as flatband, mostly missing. Thick walled. All pale blue-greenish, almostdecolourised. Black enamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Abbasid fill.Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.II 13.2). The attachment to the interior

of the rim is unusual, as is the large diameter of the vessel, which is morelike a saucepan (olla) than a flagon, but too little of the profile survivesto identify the original form. However, Romano-Cypriot saucepans alsohave the handle attached to the exterior, not interior, of the rim (Vessberg1952: PI. 11.21).

88. Flagon strap handle (TS 83) Fig. 672Maximum width 3.7, depth 0.4, extant L. 6.7. Wide strap handle,

attached horizontally on upper body or mouth, ridged on upper surfaceby four deep striations; lower half missing. Two fragments, non-joining.Blue-greenish. Flalting iridescence.

Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh to mid-eighth centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 3 (from the cistern fill and refectory dump).Without the body, all are undiagnostic. See an example from Shavei Zion(Barag 1967b: 70, Fig. 16, no. 19), whose material is generally datedbetween the fifth and sixth centuries AD.

89. Flagon or beaker body (TS 66) Fig. 673Extant hr 5.7, Bd 3.5. Rim and upper body missing: lower body

tapering above everted, rounded heel and simple, domed base (no pontilmark). Medium walled. Olive greenish. Black flaking. Six fragments; atleast two rejoin.

Stratigraphic Dating: Umayyad at the earliest.

y'6The Late Antique Period: The Glass

Comments: MNE: 6. The drawn example may have been exposed tofire. This could be the base of a flagon, or two-handled amphoriskos. Allare lime to olive greenish.

90. Wheel-incised flagon or beaker body fragment (TS 32) Fig. 674Intd 7. Slightly concave wall sloping in, with light wheel-incised

bands around exterior. Medium walled. Faintly lime greenish. Black oniridescence. Two fragments, not rejoining.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth-seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (H.n 14.02).

Handled FlasksAt least nine flasks are attested by handles that clearly

did not belong to lamps. None is from the basilica, but atleast one came from Abbasid fill. All but one are greenish,one mottled olive/amber.91. Ring handled flask fragment (TS 97) Fig. 675

Maximum diameter 3, maximum ht 5. Narrow cylindrical body,with regular and large ring handle attached vertically down medium-thick wall. All strongly blue-greenish. Two fragments, rejoining. Milkyand white enamel-like patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Fifth-sixth century AD.

Comments: MNE: 3, including one from the refectory dump, theother from sub-mosaic fill within the church precinct. Given the narrowvessel, this could be a handle from an amphoriskos (for a more funnel-mouthed version, see Barag 1970: PI. 38, no. 10).

Footed BasesThese can include both footed flasks and beakers.

92. High footed base (TS 96) Fig. 676Bd 4.5. Body missing: wall tapering to very narrow pinch above

high foot, folded against self to plug base. Medium-thin walled. Faintlyyellowish. Black enamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 2, both from the refectory dump. The otherexample is slightly more greenish.

93. Footed beaker/flask base (TS 56) Fig. 677Bd 5. Narrow tapering body, mostly missing, on flat folded foot:

centre domed and with ponril scar. Medium walled. Strongly blue-greenish.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 4: they occur in blue-greenish and greenish hues.Possibly from a footed beaker (that is, without a stem between foot andbody), a complete version at Samaria-Sebaste (Crowfoot 1957: 416, Fig.96.10), from the area of the glass furnace, was dated fourth-fifth centuryAD. Another foot, from Dhiban might be fifth to seventh centuries AD

(Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 28). Without the rest of our vessels, it isdifficult to be more precise about dating, and the foot itself could just aseasily come from a Early Byzantine beaker as from a flask.

94. Footed base (TS 71) Fig. 678Bd 4.5, Inrd 2. Upper body missing: upright, narrow tubular body,

carinated. in to tooled base above flat, folded foot; light pontil scar.Medium thin walled. Blue-greenish. Milky and iridescent patches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 2. Equally narrow is a base from Jalame (Weinberg1988: 62, no. 187, 189), which is probably no earlier than late fourthcentury AD and no later than Islamic.

95. Footed base (TS 100) Fig. 679Bd 5.5. Body missing, wall curving in to tapered base on flat, folded

foot with hollow edge. Pontil ring. Strongly blue-greenish. Iridescentpatches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 3, with none from the basilica. Very similar is onefrom Dhiban (Tushingham 1972: Fig. 13, no. 40): the basic base-typecan be dated generally between the fourth and sixth centuries AD, as theexamples from flasks at Sardis attest (von Saldern et al. 1974: 232, nos682-683).

309

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Iarer in date, anyway. Byzantine parallels are scarce, butone possible lid from the church at Rehovot is smaller thanours; its chipped rim suggested that it was cut down froma larger vessel (Patrich 1988b: 140, no. 37).103. Possible lid (TS 59)

Rd 7. Thickened, slightly upturned rim on flat disc, mostly missing.Thin walled. Decolourised with faint pinkish tinge. Black on iridescentpatches.

Stratigraphic Dating: Early seventh century AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from EI 03.01). Too small to draw, thisresembles in scale TS 123 (cat. no. 102), but has a much shorter rim andno visible decoration. It could be either a small and well-made window-pane, a lid, or a variation ofTS 123.

104. Bowl or lid rim (TS 7) Fig. 687Rd 12. Upright, thick rim, curving concavely to shallow convex

bowl; centre missing. Very thick walled. Faintly blue-greenish. Milky andblack pitting.

Stratigraphic Dating: All sixth-early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 3., one of which might have been wheel-polishedon the exterior. Two are faintly greenish; all are partially decolourised.

Window PanesOnly a small amount of window pane was retrieved

from the debris of the church and its outbuildings. Boththe Bat and crown-glass types appear here in equally smallamounts.

The idea that crown-glass panes, formed as almostflat bowls with folded rims, were the most common NearEastern window-glass, in contrast to the Bat and rectilinearpanes used in the West (Harden 1939: 91), can now besafely laid to rest. As long ago as 1939, Fitzgerald notedonly rectilinear panes in the sixth-century AD monasteryat Beth Shean (Fitzgerald 1939: 10); only rectilinear paneswere used at Shavei Zion, a church in use in the fifth andsixth centuries AD (Barag 1967b: 69-70), and apparentlyat the fifth to seventh-century AD church at Rehovot(Patrich 1988b: 140, no. 45). At Pella, the early fifth-century AD Civic Complex Church (Smith and Day 1989:PI. 26) and late fifth-century AD East Church (McNicoll etal. 1992: 160) are exclusively enclosed with Bat rectilinearpanes. Most of the synagogue/bath-house window panesfrom Sardis were of the Bat kind (von Saldern 1980:91-2), and all of those identified as ecclesiastical windowpanes at Anemurium were also flat (Stern 1985: 49-50).The different methods posited for the production of Batpanes-roller-moulded or blown as a cylinder and thencut open to form a Bat pane CmufF)-have been discussedby Meyer (1987: 195).

It is possible that the flat panes, of which at least 65gwere identified, may belong to an earlier architecturalphase of the church. More was found in the churchvestibule than within the church or the dumped debrisin the cisterns taken together. The date-range for theproduction of crown glass with folded rims from churchesis, as might be expected from such a utilitarian object, verylong, ranging from the fourth-century AD well into theUmayyad and probably Abbasid periods.

Y.6 The Late Antique Period: The Glass

105. Flat rectilinear window pane (TS 62) Fig. 688Maximum thickness 0.2. Flat fragment, with rounded edge. Faintly

blue-greenish. Iridescent patches.Stratigraphic Dating: Some from Area B.I may perhaps date to the

fifth century AD; those from within the church were beneath the AD 606mosaic, so early seventh century AD at the latest.

Comments: 60.5g. This is the flat rype of window pane, formed byblowing a cylinder and then cutting lengthways and opening out to forma flat rectangle. The fragments from within the church « 30%) includedat least two fragments of calcite slabs; they and the bulk of the panes fromthe refectory dump may perhaps be earlier than the crown glass.

106. Bevelled bowl or window pane rim (TS 29) Fig. 689Rd 27. Very shallow, thickened rim, bevelled to lower edge. Shallow,

slightly convex wall sloping in to missing body. Thick walled. Decolourisedwith faint yellowish tinge. Black pitted enamel-like weathering.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 6 (44g). Most are larger than 26 ern in diameter,one perhaps reaching 35 cm. All but one smaller and blue-greenish rimwere the same decolourised fabric, but scattered across the site, includingwithin the church. The sixth century AD monastery at Beth Shean hassimilar panes, and coloured, smaller versions from the monastery andchurch at Samaria-Sebaste and from San Vitale (Ravenna) are sixthcentury AD at the earliest (Crowfoot 1957: 421). No complete exampleswere retrieved.

107. Shallow folded bowl or window pane rim (TS 93) Fig. 690Rd 24. Ledge rim, folded in on top; very shallow almost flat wall,

mostly missing. Thin walled. Blue-greenish.Stratigraphic Dating: Fourth or more likely fifth centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 41 (196g): 14 panes by rims 27 by bases fromdifferent loci, but some of these could hypothetically be also bowl bases.They are, however, more likely in the circumstances to be crown-glasswindow pane. The largest example is 30 cm in diameter. A tiny fragmentmay come from beneath the AD 606 mosaic, along with flat window pane,but the rest came from adjacent rooms in K.1l, the refectory dump andallover the site. Whether the latter indicates a limited use of windowsin monastic buildings or whether this too came from the church is opento question. Base centres are overwhelmingly strongly blue-greenish orbluish, with three olive greenish bases that might belong to more mottledlime greenish folded rims.

Parallels can be found at Samaria-Sebaste, in both private andecclesiastical contexts, from the fourth-fifth centuries AD (Crowfoot1957: 420-1). At Gerasa (Baur 1938: 546; Meyer 1986: 263, Fig. 230),the dating overall should be no earlier than later fifth century AD, on thebasis of the construction of the Gerasa Cathedral, but lasting well intothe Umayyad periods. Similarly, the many, often coloured, panes fromthe church at Mt Nebo are probably no earlier than the reconstruction ofthe late sixth century AD (Saller 1941: 66, 45, 351).

Miscellaneous108. Folded body fragment (TS 35) Fig. 691

Rd 20. Uneven, flat ledge rim, pinched and folded up to form uprightcollar, rest missing. Medium walled. Strongly lime greenish. Bubbly.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth-early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: MNE: 1 (from H.n 14.2). This is not a collared rim,as the ledge rim seems to be on the interior, not exterior, of this largevessel; however, the rim's unevenness makes the correct profile difficultto determine.

109. Twisted bracelet fragment (TS 51) Fig. 692Inrd 6. Round section. Unevenly twisted to one large and two finer

ridges. Darker green, almost an opaque blue-green, in centre of largeridge, rest indeterminate. Iridescent pitting all surfaces.

Stratigraphic Dating: Sixth to early seventh centuries AD.

Comments: This single example of glass jewellery comes from thefloor surface of the crypt under the church (H.n 14.1). It is an adultbracelet, and does not appear to be intrusive, judging by datablecomparisons; finely twisted bracelets can be Early Byzantine or Islamic.For the most comprehensive survey of these to date, see Spaer (1988:59, Type Cia) dated sixth-seventh centuries AD. If it is safe to assumethat only females wore bracelets, then this is our single piece of evidencefrom the glass ware indicating female presence on site, indeed, within thechurch building.

311

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Figures 586-597: Glass bowl-lamps, bowls and fragments (MH and JMP)

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Figures 598-621: Glass wick-tubed hanging lamps, beaker lamps, beaker and bowl-lamp bases, hollow-stemmedlamps and bases, bowl rims (MH)

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Figures 622-651: Glass bowl rim and base fragments, nipped beaker ftagments, goblet bases, balsamaria ftagments,funnel-mouthed flask ftagments (MH)

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Figures 652-686: Glass funnel-mouthed flask and tall-mouthed flask ftagments, sprinkler flask, flagons, handledflasks and footed bases (MH and JMF)

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Figures 687-692: Glass bowl and window pane ftagments, miscellanea (MH)

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Colour Plate 37: Photomicrograph of the Group 9 Igneous Rock Fabricin crossed polars. Field of view = 4 mm (If)

Colour Plate 38: Photomicrograph of the Group 10 Mf!ta111£r7 _Igneous Fabric in plane polarised light. Field of view = 4 m»: =_

Colour Plate 42: Cobalt blue glass bowl-lamp fragmen: with metal applique ornament(MH)

Colour Plate 43: Yellow glass bou. _. ~painted Greek letters (MH)

Colour Plate 39: Photomicrograph of thin section of wheel-made jugfrom Area FIll 1.2 (ZH)

Colour Plate 40: Photomicrograph of thin section of rim _-made bowl from Area M.III (ZH)

Colour Plate 41: Photomicrograph of thin section of rim and handlefrom a jugfoom Area A.I (ZH)

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560