Multiple-Spouted Jars of the Early Bronze I in Northern Jordan

Abstract

The 1999 discovery of an unprecedented multi-spouted jar at an Early Bronze I site in Wadi Ziqlab, followed by the discovery of two more near Tell ash-Shuna North the following year, suggests the possibility that this vessel type is specific to a small region in northern Jordan. They exhibit similarity to a variety of vessels at Early Bronze sites in northern Israel and Jordan and the Jordan Valley, but none of these have more than one spout, and most have spouts of rather different orientation. Although the first multispouted jar was found in a probable industrial site, the others were in two different tombs of a cemetery. Their function is not obvious, and the possibility that breakage of some of the spouts was intentional suggests their involvement in mortuary ritual.