THIRTEENTH-CENTURY POTTERY FROM THE MONASTERY OF ST. MARY OF CARMEL

Abstract

AbstractThe ruins of the thirteenth-century monastery of St. Mary of Carmel lie in the Wadi 'Ain as-Siyah, just above the 100 m. contour on the south-western flank of the Carmel range (Grid Ref.: 1477.2452; see Fig. d. The monastery owes its origin to a group of Latin hermits who settled near to the 'Ain as-Siyah, known then and now as the Spring of Elijah, around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Between 1206 and 1214 Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem (then resident in Acre), granted them a rule of life, thereby constituting them as a religious house under obedience to the church of Rome. The patriarch took care to avoid interfering with the traditional way of life of the hermits, based on poverty, asceticism, silence, abstinence and solitary work, prayer and contemplation. He instructed them, however, to elect'a prior and to build a church in which they were to come together for daily mass (Friedman 1979, 170–180).