A Decorated Jewellery Box from Hazor

Abstract

An almost complete box decorated with engraved bone plaques was found in the destruction debris of the Canaanite ceremonial palace at Hazor. Twenty-two additional, similarly engraved bone plaques were found scattered in the building and its immediate surroundings. Among the box plaques and scattered plaques alike, the head of the Egyptian goddess Hathor is the most common motif. A study of the iconography shows that similar artistic portrayals are present on comparable boxes found in Palestine, Syria, Egypt and Cyprus. These boxes fall into two categories: game-boxes and container boxes. Based on the Hazor example, the latter were used for the storage of jewellery and other valuables. The motifs depicted on both types of boxes have much in common. Egyptian influence on the Hazor artist is clearly evident, however it seems that the influence was not always direct: some of the Egyptian motifs seem to have reached Hazor via Syrian intermediaries. Even though the Hazor box was discovered in a 13th century BCE context, a comparative study of similar boxes from Egypt and Cyprus clearly shows that this type of box was produced sometime in the 16th–early 15th centuries BCE. Being valuable objects, the boxes were certainly cherished by their owners and passed on from one generation to the next, which may explain the fact that some, like the Hazor box, were found in contexts two to three centuries later than the date they were produced.