Bryant G. Wood
Plan of two Persian period pottery kilns found at Kh. Nisya in 1993.
The tenth season of excavations at Kh. Nisya was conducted August 22-September 9, 1993, by the Associates for Biblical Research under the direction of David Livingston. Twenty-four volunteers from the United States carried out the work. The outstanding discovery of the season was two adjacent stone-built pottery kilns from the Persian period found on the north-west side of the site.
The Persian Period extended for about 200 years from the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Biblically speaking, this was the time of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, the prophets Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi (ca. 539–432 BC), and part of the intertestamental period (ca. 432–4 BC). Ezra and Nehemiah told how the Israelites returned from captivity in Babylon to rebuild the Temple (completed in 516 BC) and the walls of Jerusalem (completed in 445 BC). Men descended from families who once lived in the central hill country, the area where Kh. Nisya is located, returned and resettled the region, and were involved in the rebuilding (Ezr 2:26–28; Neh 7:30–32; 11:31–33). It is
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Kiln A, looking west. The collapsed partition floor can be seen under the meter stick in the foreground. Pottery vessels to be baked were loaded into an upper chamber, now gone, from the top of the bedrock shelf in the background.
Kiln B, looking west. The wall in the center of the kiln divided the firing chamber into two “lobes” and supported a partition floor which held the pottery vessels to be baked. A fire was built just in front of the dividing wall and the hot gases passed through holes in the partition floor to the pottery chamber above.
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“Yehud” stamp on a body sherd, written in Aramaic script.
quite possible, then, that the kilns at Kh. Nisya were built and operated by returning exiles.
The Persian period in Palestine was a time of poverty and poor living conditions (see Hg 1:11; 2:15–19; Zec 7:14; 8:11–12). Consequently, there are few archaeological remains from this era. Finding a pottery kiln is important in and of itself, but the discovery of pottery kilns from the Persian period is doubly important.
Pottery kilns throughout Old Testament times were constructed of two parts — a lower fire chamber where the fire was built, and an upper pottery chamber where the pottery vessels were placed to be baked. Typically, only the lower fire chamber survives to be found by archaeologists. In the case of the Kh. Nisya kilns, the fire chambers are almost perfectly preserved. They are stone-built, with one being elliptical (Kiln A) and the other circular (Kiln B) in plan. In Kiln A a portion of the partition floor which separated the pottery chamber from the fire chamber remained, although it had collapsed into the fire chamber. One distinctive aspect of the Kh. Nisya kilns is that they were built adjacent to each other with a common wall. This is the first such pair of “Siamese twin” kilns to be found, as far as we know.
Additional finds of significance were made in Area 100 on the north side of the site. Area 100 was a 5×5 m square excavated in an agricultural
“Yehud” stamp on a jar handle, with two lines of writing.
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terrace to check an “anomaly,” possibly a wall, which showed up in a Ground Penetrating Radar scan made in March 1993. The terrace at that point was found to be made up of fill about 10 ft deep, mostly from the Persian period, which contained a number of interesting artifacts. Among them were a “Yehud” seal on a body sherd, thought to be a Persian government seal from the province of Judah. Another seal was impressed on a jar handle, again with the “Yehud” designation, plus a personal name. A head from a small figurine also came from Area 100, as well as a good quantity of Persian period pottery. Area A was excavated to bedrock with no sign of a wall being found.
Figurine head, fashioned in clay, with one eye missing.
It is exciting to have found the place where some of the pottery we have been digging up at Kh. Nisya was manufactured. It is even more exciting to think that the kilns and pottery were made by, “people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles” (Ezr 2:1; Neh 7:6).
Neck of a Persian period vessel, incised with circular and “V” impressions.