Chalk vessels found at Magdala: the finds and their ritual context

The assemblage of vessels presented in this chapter belongs to a group of vessels fashioned from chalk that first appeared around the end of the 2nd century BCE and seem to have all but disappeared around the middle of the 2nd century CE. Although vessels belonging to this group have been found at hundreds of sites throughout the country, only a few significant assemblages have been published to date. The present corpus is derived from all areas excavated by the Magdala Archaeological Project between 2010 and 2017. It comprises 113 fragments of chalk vessels of various types: mugs, pitchers, bowls, holemouth jars, and an inkwell. An additional 35 chalk vessel fragments could not be identified typologically and were not included in our corpus. The finds are classified here according to the two main production techniques employed in the manufacture of chalk vessels: (1) hand carving and (2) turning on a small lathe. (In some cases, certain hand-carved vessels were hollowed out with a lathe, but these are classified here together with ‘hand- carved’ types.) These finds are then further classified according to form (e.g., bowl) and, when appropriate, type.