Responsabilidad ética

Another type of material that appears frequently among the remains of the Upper City is glass. The refuse from a workshop in the Jewish Quarter testifies to a thriving glass industry in Jerusalem during the Herodian period.66 Cast bowls dominated the workshop refuse, but its assemblage shows experimentation with the earliest known examples of glass blowing.67 During the early Herodian period, glass ware consumption was characterized by a preference for cast forms, as illustrated by Area E, where roughly seventy-five percent of the glass fragments

belonged to cast bowls.68 However, the remains from the Burnt House suggest that by the end of the period, the picture had drastically changed, with new forms and blown glass dominating the corpus.69 In addition, although further quantitative investigation is needed, the Herodian period seems to have witnessed an increasing interest in imports, both from the Levantine coast and the broader Mediterranean.

66 _{Yael Israeli and Natalya Katsnelson date the refuse from the workshop based on coins of Alexander Jannaeus}

found with the collection and the absence of Herodian Quarters. However, their analysis of the date is not compelling. The coins of Alexander Jannaeus only provide a terminus post quem, and the terminus ante quem, is based on the covering of the miqveh by Pavement 800, which is dated either to 20-12 BCE (Ariel and Geva) or to ca. 15 BCE (Rosenthal-Heginbottom). This provides a date range for the deposition of the collection of 80/79 BCE to 12 BCE. Given no compelling reason is given for not connecting the deposition with the sealing of the miqveh by Pavement 800, a later Herodian date is preferable. This date is further supported by the fact that the coins of Alexander Jannaeus remain in circulation even under Herod. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, 85. On Israeli and Katsnelson’s conclusions on dates, see Yael Israeli and Natalya Katsnelson, “Refuse of a Glass Workshop of the Second Temple Period from Area J,” in Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem. Volume III: Area E and Other Studies, ed. Hillel Geva (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2006), 411–412. On the dating of the Early Herodian material, see Rosenthal-Heginbottom, “ER Fine Wares – JQE III,” 159; Ariel, “Coins – JQE III,” 195; Geva, “S&A – JQE III,” 32-33.

67

Israeli and Katsnelson, “Refuse of a Glass Workshop,” 430.

68

By seventy-five percent, I mean seventy-five percent of the published forms. Gorin-Rosen notes that the

published material only presents 76 of 316 shards discovered in Area E. The reasons for only partial publication are not clear. This approach to the glass appears to be common across all the volumes. Given that she defines it as a “representative sample” (239), I assume that the percentages were consistent across the assemblage, although this may not have been the case. Yael Gorin-Rosen, “Glass Vessels,” in Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem. Volume III: Area E and Other Studies, ed. Hillel Geva (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2006), 239–265.

Much work also needs to be done on the study of display and use of glass in ancient Palestine. As discussed by Dennis Mizzi, the field has been characterized by an assumption which considers all glassware expensive and symptomatic of conspicuous consumption.70 Not all glass was created equal. Mizzi contends that the most common types, such as the cast bowls and blown glass from the Area J workshop, should be considered relatively cheap wares,

accessible to all but the poorest of people.71 Although Area E yielded a number of these cheaper forms of glass, Yael Gorin-Rosen notes that the Area’s residents could “afford luxurious glass vessels of local manufacture as well as imported objects,” demonstrating the households’ considerable expenditure on glass.72 Similar patterns occur elsewhere in the Jewish Quarter, as evidenced by objects like the mold-made blown wares of Ennion.73

Apart from the investment in some forms of glass, determining how the use of these vessels changed over time is difficult. The dispersion of objects in Building 721 and in the Burnt House is very different and may suggest different storage-use patterns. For example, Building 721’s glass was concentrated in L719, the same room with the highest concentrations of fine

69 _{That said, Israeli also suggests that this appearance of change could be a circumstance of the particular residence.}

Yael Israeli, “Glass Vessels,” in Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem. Volume IV: The Burnt House of Area B and Other Studies, ed. Hillel Geva (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2010), 229.

70

Dennis Mizzi, “The Glass from Khirbet Qumran: What Does It Tell Us about the Qumran Community,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Text and Context, ed. Charlotte Hempel (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 99–100.

71 _{Of course, other factors beyond production method affected the cost, such as the color of the glass and whether or}

not it was imported. Mizzi, “Glass,” 104-105.

72 _{This statement was made more broadly about the area. Stratum 3 in Building 721, as defined according to Geva}

(Avigad’s definition was much larger), yielded only fourteen published pieces of glass (18% of the Area’s total), two of which are listed among Gorin-Rosen’s fine quality examples. According to Mizzi’s definition, only one of these (G58) would be considered fine glass. Gorin-Rosen, “Glass - JQE III,” 257; Mizzi, “Glass,” 101–108; Avigad,

Discovering Jerusalem, 83–88, Fig. 64; Geva, “S&A - JQE III,” 24–26, Fig. 1.2.

73 _{Avigad noted three to four pieces made by Ennion within the Palatial Mansion. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem,}

ware and coarse ware pottery.74 This concentration may indicate that these forms were used and stored together. However, the Burnt House, which lacked significant amounts of ceramic fine wares, still possessed a large assemblage of glass.75 The discrepancy between these two

assemblages may indicate changes in the storage-use pattern of glass and/or the de-valuation of certain types of glass.76 However, the differences between these assemblages could also be attributed to depositional processes.77 At the very least, the differences between them suggest that, over the course of the Herodian period, glass became an increasingly important part of the local assemblage, as indicated by the variation in the sizes of the assemblages.78