Canaanite jars and the maritime trade network in the northern Levant during the transition from the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age

Article in "Maritime Transport Containers in the Bronze-Iron Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean" (edited by Stella Demesticha and Bernard Knapp), PB 183. Uppsala: Åströms förlag, 2016 (ISBN 9789170812118). The so-called Canaanite jar is widely viewed as the first known example of an amphora with morphological features suggesting its use in maritime trade. The term 'Canaanite jar', however, represents quite a broad category, and is thus at risk of being overused. It is more useful to distinguish between different morphological types of amphora pertaining to the extended family of 'Canaanite' storage and transport jars. For example, the Late Bronze Age (LBA) angular-shouldered type was widely adopted along the entire length of the Levantine coast and even as far away as Mycenaean Greece. Yet this kind of container is not attested in inland Levantine regions (e.g. inner Syria, central Anatolia), where other types of storage and transport containers were in use during the LBA. Importantly, this specific type of jar went out of production at the end of the LBA. In contrast, another LBA 'Canaanite' jar type, widespread in coastal Syria and at some Cypriot sites, especially during the thirteenth century BC (a 'northern' Levantine type characterised by a slight carination on the shoulder and a more rounded belly) continued to be produced and used in the early Iron Age. The precise reasons why the angular-shouldered type went out of use whilst the 'bellied' northern type remained in use during the Iron Age have yet to be fully investigated. One possible interpretation is that the former type corresponds to trade mechanisms that were only typical of the LBA, while the latter type may be representative of a different kind of maritime network that persisted over the transition between the LBA and the Early Iron Age.