The Good and Evil Serpent (23 page)

The second ceramic vessel (
Fig. 30
) is 7.2 centimeters high and 6.3 centimeters wide at the middle (not counting the single handle). It seems to be dated a little later than the larger vessel. Although cracked, it is in one piece and has not been restored. The bottom has a pedestal that is 3 centimeters in diameter; the fast wheel is evident.

Figure 31
.
Left
. Clay Vase with Snake Images on Body. Allegedly from a cave northwest of Jericho. Bronze Age. Courtesy of Tom Cousins.

Figure 32
.
Right
. Clay Vase with Two Serpent Images on Handle. Allegedly from a cave northwest of Jericho. Bronze Age. Courtesy of Tom Cousins.

It is an elegantly made pitcher with an attractive lip. Perhaps it was used on a table in a prosperous house for the pouring of some liquid, perhaps oil, milk, wine, or honey. What is of keen interest for us is the snake depicted on the handle. It has no tail and no curves. The nose becomes one with the body of the vessel. It does have two pieces of appliqued clay, above the body that is also made of appliqued clay; they indicate the eyes of the serpent. As we shall clarify, the eyes are usually the aspect of the snake that receives most of an artist’s attention. Are the eyes detailed because the serpent symbolized keen awareness (it does not blink) and wisdom? Perhaps the serpent was placed with its head on the lip of the vessel to guard the contents, and perhaps also within a Canaanite serpent cult to offer the deity something to drink.

Two vases appeared within the storeroom of an antiquities dealer in Jerusalem. Both allegedly come from a cave northwest of Jericho. They each date from the Middle Bronze Age.
²²⁸

The more crude clay vessel is in good shape, although the handle was repaired in modern times (
Fig. 31
). It is an example of bichrome ware, with light brown on beige-white. On the body, one finds the crude drawing of an animal with four legs, two horns, a beard, and a tail; perhaps a goat is depicted. On the other side of the vessel is a drawing of a bird or rooster. The images were applied after the clay had dried in the sun. The images seem to have been made with a small, crude brush, as was often the practice in antiquity when applying paint to pottery.
²²⁹

Is the vessel ancient and authentic? I took both vessels to Dr. B. J. Bor-tolot, head of Daybreak/Archaeometric Laboratory Services in Guilford, CT. He drilled a minuscule hole at the base of the first vessel, applied thermoluminescence authenticity dating to it, and concluded that “the material of this sample was last fired 3060 ±650 years before the present time.”
²³⁰
Thus, the object is ancient. It probably dates before 1060
BCE
since thermoluminescence only ascertains the authenticity of an object.

Around the body are two bands with a wavy line inside. There are decorations on the neck and five wavy lines on the body. The handle has a crisscross pattern, with wavy lines going up to the top. The neck has three wavy lines that depict water or serpents. These two images are often indistinguishable in ancient artwork; perhaps stylized serpents seem more probable if this vessel is associated with the one that follows.

The second ceramic vessel is more elegantly crafted. The preparation of the pot is more refined and the art more careful or advanced (but not necessarily dated differently) than the previous example. The light clay was probably burnished before painting. This bichrome ware has brown on white (or light beige).

Is the object ancient? Dr. Bortolot drilled a small hole in the base. He then applied thermoluminescence authenticity dating to the vessel. He reported that “the material of this sample was last fired 1760 ±400 years before the present date.”
²³¹
Thus, this vessel is also ancient. Since, as just mentioned, thermoluminescence can only suggest that the vessel is ancient, the date of manufacture is open for debate. The object is not similar to the vessels made about 240
CE
. One should heed Dr. Bortolot’s words, added as “special comment” to this vessel (an identically worded caution accompanies the other vessel): “This area has clays prone to anomalous fading where part of the TL signal is not stable, leading to underestimates of age by TL. This appears to be the case here.” At this stage, all that can be assured is that each vessel is ancient. We can also assume that the date of each vessel has been underestimated; that will prove to be the case.

The iconography is interesting. Probably more than one utensil was used to apply the paint to the clay; one was probably a small brush, and another might have been a reed or stick.

On the body are horizontal and vertical lines. On the bottom are two horizontal and two vertical ones that form a cross as in tic-tac-toe. There is a circle in each quadrant. On the neck are three sets of four concentric lines, then a wavy line at the tip of the jug. On the handle are four wavy lines with pronounced flat “heads.” In the center of the handle (see
Fig. 32
) are two wavy lines. They probably depict serpents, since each wavy line ends in a flat end that looks like the head of a serpent. A circle in each “head” probably designates an eye. The serpent depicted on the left seems to have a straight line coming out of its mouth. In the Late Bronze Age, serpents are often depicted with elongated heads, prominent eyes, and sometimes with straight lines protruding from the mouth.
²³²
The snake images, even though more stylistic than real, appear to be Canaanite and are paralleled by the evidence of serpent worship at Hazor, which is well known through the silver-plated bronze cult stand. Both this serpent cult stand, which was probably held high by a priest, and the two clay vessels introduced here date from about the fourteenth or thirteenth century
BCE
.
²³³

It is not clear what was contained in such vessels. Perhaps it is wise to avoid specifics. Various foodstuffs (even opium) could have been stored inside; the vessels could have held water, wine, milk, and conceivably honey. Without refrigeration, milk sours quickly and can cause illness. I am convinced that the images of serpents were often placed on vessels to protect the contents, especially milk, from souring and causing sickness. In the world of symbology, as is abundantly clear from texts and objects, the serpent is the quintessential guardian. As Edward Topsell stated in 1658, in his
The History of the Serpent
, the serpents are “the watchful keepers of Treasures.”

What is the probable date of these two vessels? While pottery first appears around 7000
BCE
,
²³⁴
these examples are clearly much later. But how much later should we date them? The shape and decoration of these objects implies some date in the Middle Bronze Age or Late Bronze Age. We will need to study these vessels in terms of what can be known from ceramic ethno-archaeology.
²³⁵

We may now explore how and in what ways, if at all, these vessels are similar to ones already dated. The ceramic jars are dissimilar to the imported ware from Egypt, Mycenae,
²³⁶
Minoa, and Cyprus found in ancient Palestine.
²³⁷
They are also unlike the decorated Philistine pottery. The latter, in contrast, are sophisticated.
²³⁸
The objects remind me of a jar in the Moshe Dayan Collection.
²³⁹
This “chocolate-on-white” jar, with creamy white burnished slip, was “found in Jericho;” it is dated between 1700 and 1400
BCE
. The Moshe Dayan jar may be significant for comparison with the two newly found vessels, since it is claimed that each was discovered in a cave northwest of Jericho.

The excellent state of preservation of each vessel reveals that they were found in tombs or perhaps sealed caves. Among the ceramic juglets found by K. Kenyon in tombs at Jericho, the closest parallel to either of these two vessels seems to be a piriform juglet with one shoulder handle and a long neck.
²⁴⁰
Neither vessel is to be confused with the Middle Bronze Age single-handled cylindrical juglets,
²⁴¹
the shoulder-handled juglets, or the piriform juglets found in the Jericho tombs. The data for comparison from Jericho need to be evaluated in light of the fact that while many examples of ceramic ware from the Middle Bronze Age were recovered, no examples exist from the Late Bronze Age. The city had ceased to exist by that time. By the Early Bronze and Middle Bronze Ages, Jericho was no longer an urban center. Thus, the jars buried to the north and northwest of Tel es-Sultan, where Kenyon found them, represent the life of nomads.
²⁴²

Both jars now introduced were produced on a wheel. Both vessels are noticeably different; yet, within pottery typology, they represent a similar type. Both, especially the second vessel with the typical tilted look, seem to be examples of the wheel-made Base Ring Jug called a
bilbil
. The origin and meaning of the name
bilbil
are not clear. It may be onomatopoeic to denote the sound made when liquid was poured from it:
bl, bl
(Yadin’s suggestion).
²⁴³
The name could also derive from the Hebrew and Arabic word
bulbul
that denotes a type of thrush-like songbird (J. Seger’s speculation).
²⁴⁴
The latter explanation may be denoted by the long neck of the second vessel, and such a bird might be depicted on the first one.

Rather than Cypriot imports,
²⁴⁵
the two vessels introduced here seem to be examples of the well-known painted ware of Canaan that is a local imitation of the Cypriot imports of Base Ring Ware Bilbils. Compare, for example, how they seem to be modeled after the imported Cypriot jug found at Dan that dates from the Late Bronze Age II.
²⁴⁶
The period for the two vessels thus appears to be the Late Bronze Age or 1550–1200
BCE
. The ascertained time of composition also coincides with the final revival in the declining urban culture in Canaan.

Perhaps more can be speculated at this initial stage of research on the two vessels. The first jar appears to be an example of the local Canaanite ware. It is cruder and heavier like the local ware from the end of Late Bronze Age Palestine. The second jar is a classic example of refined Bilbil Ware made locally in Canaan. As W. G. Dever states, “The local wares, while rather poorly made, now feature relatively common painted decoration, with both geometric and naturalistic and animal motifs (e.g., a pair of ibexes and the sacred tree; a palm tree and panel).”
²⁴⁷
To Dever’s list of images we seem now able to add ophidian iconography. These comments are only provisional and prolegomenous to an intensive examination by experts in ceramic ethno-archaeology.

Can we find links between the artwork and datable objects from Palestine? The crude drawing on the first vessel shows an animal with four legs, two horns, a beard, and a tail. The artwork is reminiscent of the bronze bull statuette found in or near Samaria (ASOJS 3 941).
²⁴⁸
It dates from the early twelfth century
BCE
. Both the clay drawing and the bronze statuette show an animal with horns and legs similarly fashioned. The depiction of each animal has the legs excessively long and the horns curving gently inward.
²⁴⁹
The ceramic vessel, however, appears to be older. Perhaps one can surmise that both reflect, in differing ways and on different substances, the late Canaanite stylistic tradition. The combination of reality and stylized features appears to link these two works of art.