Storage Jars in Sea Trade
Curator: Avshalom Zemer
In The Ethics of the Fathers it is written "Look not on the jar but on what is contained therein" (IV, 20). This saying refers to an ordinary jar. However, an ancient jar is a different matter. "What is contained therein" certainly deserves our attention and investigation, but so does the jar itself.
Most of the storage jars were brought in by fishermen who trawl their sack-shaped nets behind their boats along the bottom of the sea. Occasionally, when the nets are raised with their catches of fish, jars which had been lying on the sea-bed are retrieved. The rest were discovered by underwater archaeological expeditions. The jars exhibited were mainly found off Achziv, Acre, Shikmona, Athlit, Dor, Caesarea, Michmoret, Ashdod, and Ashkelon.
The jars recovered from the sea bottom bear silent witness to merchant shipping in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean in days gone by. The quality of preservation is amazing. Many of them are completely intact, and their conspicuous marine encrustations provide a criterion for their identification.
The principle source of these vessels is shipwrecks. However, finding a group of jars does not necessarily indicate that a ship was wrecked on that particular spot. In times of distress, during storms, or when a boat was in danger of foundering, its cargo would be jettisoned into the sea.
Narrow-mouthed jars were intended for transporting liquids, particularly wine and oil, hence the need to caulk the interior against loss of fluid. In the caulked jars, the material used is mainly pine resin. However, wax, bitumen, pitch, and immersion in a lime solution were also employed.
Cereals were not transported in jars because moisture poses a serious problem when transporting grain. Since man learned to caulk the sides of a ship hermetically, it has been possible to transport grain in the ship's hold, in sacks or in bulk. Ideally, for transporting grain, the entire hold should be exploited, which is impossible if jars are used.
The shape of the jars is adapted to the manner in which they were transported, shifted, and unloaded. For sea transport, the body of the jar is usually cylindrical, in order to maximize contact between jars and prevent weak spots at isolated points of contact, which could mean breakage during storms at sea. The bases of these jars are pointed to enable their insertion either into holes in wooden shelves on the floor of the hold, or between the ribs which reinforced the ship lengthwise, and also to maximize contact between the jars.
The lack of stoppers in underwater discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean leads us to conclude that the stoppers were made of lumps of "leather-hard" clay covering perishable organic material such as cloth, wood or vine leaves. Stoppers were also made from gypsum, cork, wax, limestone, bone, or pozzolana - a mixture of volcanic ash, powdered lime, and gravel..
The finds present a picture of a thriving and extensive trade from the Late Bronze period until the Early Arabic period. The storage jar was so well adapted to sea transport that its general shape hardly changed over the ages.