@article{e077486fdacd45d8a2e3792e5e7a5f8b,
title = "The contents of unusual cone-shaped vessels (cornets) from the Chalcolithic of the southern Levant",
abstract = "Cornets are cone-shaped ceramic vessels, characteristic of the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4700-3700 BC) in Israel and Jordan. Their contents and use are unknown. Gas chromatography with flame ionization and mass-selective detection, showed that extracts of cornets from five different sites with different related activities (domestic, habitation cave and a cultic complex) all contain the same assemblage of mainly n-alkanes adsorbed within their walls. This assemblage differs from those found in other types of ceramic vessels from the same sites, as well as from the residues found within the associated sediments. The assemblage of odd and even-numbered n-alkanes found in the cornets is almost identical to that found in the residues of beeswax heated on modern ceramic fragments, as well as in a beehive from the Iron Age IIA strata at Tel Rehov, Israel. Thus the cornets are most likely to have contained beeswax. The presence of beeswax in the cornets contributes to our understanding of the Chalcolithic period; a time when secondary products such as milk, olive oil and wine are thought to have come into use.",
keywords = "Beeswax, Chalcolithic period, Cornets, GC/MS, Ghassulian culture, Residue analysis",
author = "Dvory Namdar and Ronny Neumann and Yuval Goren and Steve Weiner",
note = "Funding Information: We wish to thank Prof. Amihai Mazar, director of Tel Rehov Expedition, The Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University. Nava Panitz-Cohen was the field supervisor in Area C where the hives were found in 2005. We thank Prof. David Ussishkin, excavator of En Gedi shrine, Tel Aviv University. We thank Roi Porat and Uri Davidovich, directors of the Judean Desert survey, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We thank Dr. Peter Fabian, director of the Nahal Qomem and Qarqar South excavations, Israel Antiquities Authority and the Archaeological Division, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. We thank Prof. Isaac Gilead, the Archaeological Division, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. We thank Dr. Nizar Haddad from the bee research unit at the National Center for Agricultural research and Technology Transfer, Jordan and Yossi Sladezki, honeybee department, Ministry of Agriculture, Israel. We also thank the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science and Tel Aviv University for their financial support, as well as Mr. George Schwartzmann, Sarasota, Florida. R.N. is the Rebecca and Israel Sieff Professor of Organic Chemistry and the chair of the Department of Organic Chemistry. Y.G. is a Professor of Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. S.W. is the incumbent of the Dr. Trude Burchardt professorial chair of Structural Biology.",
year = "2009",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.jas.2008.10.004",
language = "English",
volume = "36",
pages = "629--636",
journal = "Journal of Archaeological Science",
issn = "0305-4403",
publisher = "Elsevier Inc.",
number = "3",
}
