Stone vessel

Soft stones were worked as early as the 9th millennium BCE in the Arabian Peninsula and in the neighbouring regions of the Middle East: Egypt, Iran and any other territory with such geological resources. The production of soft stone objects has continued to the present-day, with peaks of manufacture in the Bronze Age and much later in the early Islamic period. Hard stones were also worked, for the manufacture of large vessels and macrolithic tools, but unlike for soft stone vessels, there is no evidence of a clearly identified tradition and long-term production.

Soft stone is a generic term for a wide range of rocks and minerals, quite similar to the naked eye and only distinguishable by petrographic analysis: these are mainly chlorite, a metamorphic mineral, and steatite, a talc-rich metamorphic soft rock. Their colours range from light blue to greenish grey. These categories of stone all have a low level of hardness (chlorite and steatite: 1 to 2.5 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness; calcite: 3 on the Mohs scale), which makes them easy to work and carve. Whitish calcite or alabaster-type vessels also fall into the category of soft stone vessels (see Alabaster).

In the Arabian Peninsula, steatite and chlorite deposits are found in the Sarawāt Mountains, straddling Saudi Arabia (e.g., Jabal Khubayd, Umluj, Ghurābah, Taʾif, Hijla) and Yemen (e.g., Ghaylān region), in the Province of Riyadh near Awḍākh (e.g., Wadi Māsil and Dawādmī region), and in the al-Hajar Mountains of Oman (e.g., Aqir al-Shamoos).

The Iron Age

No evidence of a workshop has been found, nor of structures where drilling and hand-carving activities have been identified, although the discovery of partially worked chlorite vases at the Iron Age site of Aqir al-Shamoos suggests that it may have been a production site (Harrower et al. 2016). Of the 261 soft stone artefacts collected there, about 80% are in various stages of manufacture, from roughly cut and chiselled outlines to partially smoothed pots. As none are decorated, it has been suggested that this stage of the chaîne opératoire took place elsewhere, probably in valleys, settlements, trading centres or markets, as is attested for the early Islamic period (Marchand 2022). Other unfinished vessels have been found in al-Maysar (Oman), Kalba and al-Tuqaybah (U.A.E.), suggesting other possible Iron Age production centres in the Oman Peninsula.

Despite a great variety of forms in the Iron Age, the discoveries were mainly made in funerary contexts (e.g., Sharm and Dibba, Emirate of Fujairah and Oman – Genchi & Tursi 2022). It is therefore impossible to attribute a clearly defined function to them (cosmetic purposes? prestige?). Only a very specific series of hemispherical “Steatite Cooking Bowls” from Hajar al-Rayḥānī, Hajar ibn Ḥumayd, Tamnaʿ, and Shabwa (Yemen) were probably intended for use over fire, based on the traces of soot and fire or carbonaceous material observed on their surface, and foreshadow early Islamic productions.

The characteristic assemblage of this period includes flat-bottomed flared chlorite bowls, sometimes with open spouts; conical vessels with lids; carinated bowls; tall cylindrical forms, sometimes with lugs; and compartmented boxes. Their sizes are generally larger than during the Bronze Age, and the hand-carved decoration is more varied (dot-in-circle, herringbone, sawtooth, and hatched motifs; e.g., the assemblages from al-Quṣayṣ, Qarn Bint Saʿūd, Rumayla, and Dibba in the U.A.E. and Oman). Some motifs and carinated shapes may also suggest influences from metalwork (e.g., the Rumayla assemblage).

The market for chlorite ware was flourishing, as evidenced by exports throughout the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, primarily in the Bronze Age, and to a lesser extent in the Iron Age. At Qalʿat al-Bahrain, such vessels were imported from southeast Arabia, along with pottery. It seems that these forms were supplanted by calcite vessels (footed cups and low closed pots with lugs) imported from Yemen, especially between the 1st cent. BCE/CE.

The late pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods

Around the 3rd century BCE, the introduction of the wheel-mounted lathe renewed the manufacturing process. This new technique reduced manufacture time and facilitated the manufacture of open symmetrical shapes for cooking, food processing and/or presentation purposes, partly imitating containers made of other materials (wood, metal and glass). The slightly darker stone colour than in earlier periods may indicate the exploitation of different deposits (this remains to be confirmed by petrological analysis). Production sites are documented in the al-Hajar Mountains: they obviously supplied the nearby consumption places in Southeast Arabia (e.g., ed-Dūr, Mleiha, Asimah, and Sharm) and in Eastern Arabia (Thāj and Dhahrān in Saudi Arabia). At the site of Mleiha, a chlorite workshop was apparently used to transform secondary and broken fragments into beads, spindle whorls and pendants (Mouton 1999).

A second production area probably operated in western Arabia. If so, this exploitation was presumably opportunistic and occasional and its productions do not seem to have spread far (Yemen? Qaryat al-Fāw?).

The frequency of repairs observed on soft stone vessels by means of bronze or iron cramps bestows a certain value on these objects related to their properties, functions and uses.

A major change occurred in the Early Islamic period: cooking bowls and pots, lamps and incense burners began to be manufactured in large quantities. They all had fire-related uses, exploiting the refractory properties of stone (already mentioned by Pliny, NH 36.44). They were traded on the pilgrimage routes.

A production of steatite-tempered pottery ware identified in ancient South Arabia could be related to these refractory properties (Porter 2018; see also Pavan & Pallecchi 2009 for another talc-tempered pottery production): these potteries would have acquired noteworthy refractory properties by using the by-products and stone cutting dust as a temper. Steatite-tempered pottery is also attested in Ptolemaic Egypt.

Julie Marchand

References and suggested readings

• David, H., M. Tegyey, J. Le Metour & R. Wyns 1990. Les vases en chloritite dans la péninsule d’Oman : une étude pétrographique appliquée à l’archéologie. Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences. Série 2, Mécanique-physique, Chimie, Sciences de l’univers, Sciences de la Terre 311: 951–958.
• Genchi, F. & G. Tursi 2022. The softstone vessels assemblage from the Long Collective Grave 1 (LCG-1) at Dibbā al-Bayah (Sultanate of Oman): A preliminary assessment. AAE 33: 108–151. DOI: 10.1111/aae.12209.
• Harrower, M.J., H. David-Cuny, S. Nathan, I.A. Dumitru & S. Al-Jabri 2016. First discovery of ancient soft-stone (chlorite) vessel production in Arabia: Aqir al-Shamoos (Oman). AAE 27: 197–207. DOI: 10.1111/aae.12076.
• Marchand, J. 2022. Early Islamic soft-stone vessels: Production and distribution on both sides of the Red Sea, in C. Durand, J. Marchand, B. Redon & P. Schneider (eds) Networked spaces: The spatiality of networks in the Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean (Archéologie(s), 8): 385–400. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée. DOI: 10.4000/books.momeditions.16446.
• Mouton, M. 1999. Le travail de la chlorite à Mleiha, in M. Mouton (ed.) Mleiha I. Environnement, stratégies de subsistance et artisanats (TMO 29): 227–43. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen.
• Pavan, A. & P. Pallecchi 2009. Considerazioni su alcuni frammenti di anfore con impasto a base di talco rinvenute nell’antico porto di Sumhuram (Oman). EVO XXXII: 221–233.
• Phillips, C.S. & S.J. Simpson (eds) 2018. Softstone. Approaches to the study of chlorite and calcite vessels in the Middle East and Central Asia from prehistory to present (British Foundation for the Study of Arabia Monographs no. 20). Oxford: Archaeopress.
• Porter, A. 2018. The distribution and provenance of ancient South Arabian steatite-tempered pottery: a thin-section analysis, in C.S. Phillips & S.J. Simpson (eds) Softstone. Approaches to the study of chlorite and calcite vessels in the Middle East and Central Asia from prehistory to present (BFSAM 20): 137–166. Oxford: Archaeopress.

_{Alternate spellings: Steatite, Chlorite, Alabaster, Calcite}