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‘Atiqot 53 (2006)
ISBN 2948-040X
Chalcolithic Burial Sites at Ma‘abarot and Tel Ifshar
(pp. 45–63)
Yosef Porath
Keywords: Sharon plain, cemetery, ossuary production, technology, art
The two burial sites are located in the Sharon plain, south and north of Nahal Alexander. The kidney-shaped cave at Ma‘abarot was hewn in the
kurkar
sandstone. All the burials in the cave were secondary. Of the 63 burials identified, 42 were placed in three types of ceramic vessels—house-shaped ossuaries, chest-shaped ossuaries and large domestic kraters—and 21, in ‘bone heaps’. The finds consisted of pottery vessels typical of the Chalcolithic period, e.g., V-shaped bowls and fenestrated bowls and bottles, and a flake from a flint digging tool. At Tel Ifshar, two burial places were discovered, both damaged by infrastructure work. The finds included a chest-shaped ossuary, decorated in a red-painted net pattern, fragments of a house-shaped ossuary and a few sherds of a V-shaped and a fenestrated bowl. The two sites served the local communities living along the lower basin of Nahal Alexander.