Description:
Rarely seen on the market: a vessel intended not only to contain a liquid, but also to filter it. The object dates to the Iron Age, ca. 800 B.C. and was allegedly found in the area of Hebron.
The jug was wheel turned, while the handle and the spout were made by hand. The object has a globular body and a tall, narrow, concave neck, with the trough-like spout extending upwards; there are strainer holes in the body where the spout joins.
The handle is positioned at right angles to the spout, as is usually the case with these strainer jugs. Such a structure is very unlike jugs which are simply intended for pouring, where the handle would logically be on the opposite side of the vessel from the spout. Archaeologists have earmarked them as vessels from which beer could actually be drunk without ingesting any extraneous floating matter, which often accompanied ancient brews. (Hornsey 2003, p. 124). See also Negev-Gibson, 2001, p. 71: The byproducts of beer, including the grain's chaff and stocks, were filtered by strainer vessels, most notably the side-spouted strainer jugs commonly known as the "Philistine beer jug".
However, the jug was most likely intended to contain wine, although in literature such objects are "invariably, but unjustifiably, designated "beer-jugs". The ecology of Philistia favors the production of grapes over barley. And, in fact, the repertoire of Philistine decorated pottery (…) suggests that wine, not beer, was the beverage of choice" (in the words of Stager 1995, p. 345; similarly Stager 2001, p. 164 and caption of illustration on p. 153). The jug with strainer spout therefore was most likely one of the parts of a wine service, serving as a carafe with a built-in sieve for straining out the lees and other impurities.
See however Stronach 1995, p. 185-187 (about side-spouted strainer jugs admittedly from another culture and made from a different material), who on the basis of depictions points out that the vessels, rather than to pour liquid directly from the spout into the mouth, may also have been used to transfer the liquid from large, deep blending bowls to drinking bowls with the aim of extracting alien matter in the filter as this was done.
Parallels:
For similar objects see McGovern 2003, p. 219-220; Hornsey 2003, p. 123, fig. 4.1; Stager 1995, plate 2, left (bichrome pottery).
Literature:
Ian Spencer Hornsey, A History of Beer and Brewing (Cambridge, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003);
Mikhal Dayagi-Mendels, Drink and Be Merry: Wine and Beer in Ancient Times (Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, 1999-2000);
Avraham Negev - Shimon Gibson (eds.), Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (New York and London, Continuum; Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Publishing House Ltd., 2001);
Lawrence E. Stager, "Forging an Identity. The Emergence of Ancient Israel" in Michael David Coogan (ed.), The Oxford History of the Biblical World (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 123-175;
Lawrence E. Stager, "The Impact of the Sea Peoples in Canaan (1185-1060 BCE)" in Thomas E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (London, Leicester University Press, 1995), p. 332-348;
Patrick E. McGovern, Ancient Wine. The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton University Press, 2003);
David Stronach, "The Imagery of the Wine Bowl: Wine in Assyria in the Early First Millennium BC", in Patrick E. McGovern - Stuart J. Fleming - Solomon H. Katz (eds.), The Origins and Ancient History of Wine (Food and Nutrition in History and Anthropology, Volume 11) (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; Amsterdam, Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1995), p. 175-195.
Dating:
Ca. 800 B.C.
Size:
Height 22 cm, width 19 cm.
Provenance:
Dutch private collection, previously U.S. private collection, 1950-1965.
Condition:
Some surface wear and encrustation as shown; repair to the rim, a minor hairline at the body, otherwise intact.
SOLD
Stock number:
A0799