A Typological Assessment of Phoenician Fine Ware Bowls and their socio-cultural Implicatations in the Iron Age Mediterranean

Phoenician Fine Ware bowls provide important insights for reconstructing connections during late Iron Age I and Iron Age II (10th-8th centuries BC), throughout the southern Levant and between the Near East and the western Mediterranean. However, the debate on the origin of this ceramic class is open and many questions on its production are still unsolved. The aim of this paper is that of analysing the Fine Ware discovered at select Mediterranean sites, in order to better understand aspects of the Phoenician trade and colonization during the Iron Age. In the first place, a morphological analysis of Fine Ware features is proposed: analysis of fabric and surface treatment is combined with a typological classification of both Levantine and Mediterranean assemblages. On the basis of these analyses, some hypotheses about the role of Phoenician Fine Ware, its social meaning and connections during the Iron Age are proposed.