AEGEAN POTTERY IN IRON IIA MEGIDDO: TYPOLOGICAL, ARCHAEOMETRIC AND CHRONOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Abstract

The revival of economic and cultural contacts between Greece and the Levant during the early first millennium BCE has received much attention in scholarship, as Aegean imports found in the Eastern Mediterranean provide a reliable framework for inter-regional synchronization. In this article, we discuss Aegean sherds that were found in stratified Iron IIA contexts during recent excavations at Megiddo, one of the crucial sites for the establishment of Greek Protogeometric and Geometric chronology. An archaeometric analysis of these sherds suggests that some of them originated in Euboea. The specific Aegean provenance of the other fragments remains uncertain, but based on typological observations, two items, probably from the same vessel, appear to have originated from an Aegean milieu. The exposure of such imports at Megiddo, with its well-established stratigraphy, ceramic typology and radiocarbon dating system, is another contribution to the chronological synchronization of Greece and the Levant in the early first millennium BCE.