Re-examining space fillers and potmarks: A new perspective on their role in Early Bronze Age Canaanite glyptic and ceramic traditions

Early Bronze Age Canaanite glyptic and pottery traditions encompass many iconographic components, some of which are not fully understood. While various aspects of Canaanite glyptic traits have been thoroughly discussed, the component arbitrarily dubbed 'space fillers' has been neglected. Incised 'potmarks', which are part of the Early Bronze Age ceramic production process, have also been studied only sporadically. This article aims to show a relationship between iconographic motifs and symbols that have been designated as space fillers, and incised signs on pottery vessels that have been classified as potmarks. Through the examination of a specific case study, I challenge the notion that these symbols are meaningless, and aim to show that both components play a role in the same iconographic milieu whose set of ideas spread throughout the southern Levant during the third millennium BC.