Hellenistic vitreous finds from Seleucid Tell Iẓṭabba

Abstract

This article publishes artefacts unearthed in the framework of the German-Israeli Tell Iẓṭabba Excavation Project. It analyses and discusses faience and glass artefacts recovered during recent field seasons at the site known as the Seleucid-founded town of Nysa (Scythopolis), located in the Beth She’an National Park. In addition to analysing a Bes/Udjat eye amulet, the first, so far, from the Levant from a well-secured Hellenistic context, it offers a more accurate date for the beginning of use of monochrome cast/sagged glass vessels in the southern Levant, as well as the end of use of Hellenistic faience bowls in the region, based on archaeological contexts of Tell Iẓṭabba (East) and other contexts from contemporaneous Hellenistic sites in the Galilee and the southern Levant.