Rotary Querns and the Presentation of the Past. In Stone Tools in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, eds. A. Squitieri and D. Eitam. 2019.

Abstract

This paper explores the place of the rotary quern in contemporary Middle Eastern culture and some of the issues involved in using unprovenanced, and thus undated, ground stone artefacts to illustrate women’s daily life activities in the recent past. Grinding stones have specific cultural meanings in the present and are valued, regardless of their date and provenance, as symbols of traditional women’s work that resonate with local audiences and tourists. Since archaeologists working in the southern Levant have generally overlooked these artefacts as a topic of serious study, there exists no typology; as a result, their value as artefacts that can inform about daily life from the Roman period through the nineteenth century in the region is currently limited. However, rotary querns persist in illustrations of traditional daily life activities and represent a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.

Full text

Stone Tools in the Ancient
Near East and Egypt
Ground stone tools, rock-cut installations and
stone vessels from the Prehistory to
Late Antiquity
edited by
Andrea Squitieri and David Eitam
Archaeopress Archaeology

Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Summertown Pavilion
18-24 Middle Way
Summertown
Oxford OX2 7LG
www.archaeopress.com
ISBN 978-1-78969-060-6
ISBN 978-1-78969-061-3 (e-Pdf)
© Authors and Archaeopress 2019
Cover illustration: Threshing oor with many rock-cut cupmarks and 4 shallow basins. Tel Bareqet
(Israel). Photo by David Eitam.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.
Printed in England by Oxuniprint, Oxford
This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com

To Karen Wright,
for establishing a new approach to
the study of ground stone tools

i
Contents
List of Figures and Tables �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������iii
List of Authors ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� viii
Introduction ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 1
David Eitam and Andrea Squitieri
Methodology and Classification
The archaeology of discard and abandonment: presence and absence in the ground stone
assemblage from Early Neolithic Bestansur, Iraqi Kurdistan �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
David Mudd
Survey of Rock-Cut Installations at Tel Bareqet (Israel): Food Processor devices in Epipaleolithic,
PPNA and the Early Bronze �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������27
David Eitam
Ayn Asil and Elephantine (Egypt): remarks on classification and function of
ground stone implements ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������52
Clara Jeuthe
Documentation: Non-Archaeological and
Archaeological Sources in Comparison
Mill-songs� The soundscape of collective grinding in the Bronze and Iron Age Near East
and eastern Mediterranean �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������71
Luca Bombardieri
Rotary Querns and the Presentation of the Past ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������81
Jennie Ebeling
Bourgul in Talmudic and Classical Literature, and Today ������������������������������������������������������������������������������93
Rafael Frankel
Wine and oil presses in the Roman to Late Antique Near East and Mediterranean:
Balancing textual and archaeological evidence ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������97
Tamara Lewit and Paul Burton
Raw Material and Manufacture
Tool marks on Old Kingdom limestone vessels from Abusir – production of canopic jars
and model vessels ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������113
Lucie Jirásková
Raw material variety and acquisition of the EB III ground stone assemblage of
Tell es-Safi/Gath (Israel) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������121
Jeremy A. Beller, Haskel J. Greenfield, Mostafa Fayek, Itzhaq Shai, and Aren M. Maeir
Function and Uses
The ground stone assemblage from the Early Bronze Age I site Wadi Fidan 4: Gender aspects ������������������153
Yael Abadi-Reiss, Mohammad Najjar and Thomas E. Levy

ii
Cereal processing in stone agri-technological system at late Natufian Huzuq Musa
in the Jordan Valley ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������162
David Eitam
Cuboid-Spheroid Stone Object – an Archaic Scale Weight – Public Weighting-Systems
in Iron Age Israel �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������179
David Eitam
Groundstone Tools from Site 35 – an Early Iron Age Copper Smelting Site in
the Timna Valley (Israel) �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������189
Aaron Greener and Erez Ben-Yosef
The Iron Age stone tool assemblage of Gird-i Bazar, in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq���������������210
Andrea Squitieri
Sites and Tools
Macrolithics and the on-going use of stone tools in Qantir-Piramesse and Tell el-Dabʿa-Avaris,
Eastern Delta/Egypt ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������223
Silvia Prell
Millstones, Mortars, and Stone Bowls from Tel Dover and the Southern Levant ����������������������������������������234
Refael Frankel
Stone Tools of the Iron Age Ein Gev and their Implication� The Japanese Excavation Project �������������������278
David Eitam
Selenite (gypsum) from the North Sinai collection: likely function and technology of production ������������299
Joan S. Schneider, David Valentine, Avraham Gabay, and Eliezer D. Oren
The stone tools and vessels from Tel Miqne-Ekron: a report on the Bronze and Iron Ages ������������������������305
Ianir Milevski
El-Khirba: Food processing and other ground stone tools from a Roman, Abbasid and
Mamluk period site near Nes Ziyyona, Israel ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������345
Erez Adama, Uzi ‘Ad and Danny Rosenberg

81
1� Introduction
The rotary quern became the primary domestic grain-
grinding apparatus in the southern Levant within
several centuries of being introduced from the western
Mediterranean world during the Roman occupation
of Palestine. Rotary querns were used to grind grain
and other foodstuffs in domestic contexts into the
twentieth century CE and, although no longer a routine
part of a woman’s kitchen equipment in the region,
they have been documented recently in limited use
in Jordan. Described in ethnographic studies and
depicted in photographs from the nineteenth and early
twentieth century, rotary querns are now appreciated
as important artefacts of traditional daily life. Many
unprovenanced examples can be seen in restaurants,
private homes, and antiques shops in Israel, Palestine,
and Jordan, and the image of a woman with a rotary
quern is used in bakery and restaurant logos and
representations of traditional Palestinian life on
postcards, posters, and other artwork. They are also
featured in daily life exhibits in Israeli, Palestinian,
and Jordanian museums and heritage centres along
with other ethnographic household objects. Since
most of them cannot be assigned a date due to lack of
provenance, their inclusion in such exhibits is fraught
with problems.
This paper explores the place of the rotary quern in
contemporary Middle Eastern culture and some of
the issues involved in using unprovenanced, and thus
undated, ground stone artefacts to illustrate women’s
daily life activities in the recent past. Grinding stones
have specific cultural meanings in the present and
are valued, regardless of their date and provenance,
as symbols of traditional women’s work that resonate
with local audiences and tourists. Since archaeologists
working in the southern Levant have generally
overlooked these artefacts as a topic of serious study,
there exists no typology; as a result, their value as
artefacts that can inform about daily life from the
Roman period through the nineteenth century in the
region is currently limited. However, rotary querns
persist in illustrations of traditional daily life activities
and represent a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.
2� Definition
Rotary querns, also called rotary grinding stones, hand
mills, etc., consist of two circular stones of varying
diameters that fit together: an upper, mobile stone and
a lower, stationary stone. The change from a lateral
motion required to use a handstone and grinding
slab/saddle quern to a rotary motion signalled a great
step forward in milling technology and this principle
was further adapted to use animal, water, and wind
power (Watts 2014: 21). Grain, pulses, and other foods
and materials are fed through a hole in the centre of
the upper stone and ground by turning it in a rotary
motion with the aid of a vertical stick or rod placed into
a socket in the upper stone. The crushed grains spill
out from between the two stones and this material is
collected and the process repeated depending on the
desired final product (for example, coarse-ground grain
or fine flour). Examples from the southern Levant are
usually made of vesicular basalt, although examples are
also known in granite, sandstone, beachrock, and other
raw materials.
3� Archaeological and Ethnographic Sources
Although examples from Europe and the Mediterranean
world have been the focus of study for some time (e.g.
Childe 1943), Levantine rotary querns have received
inadequate attention by archaeologists. The earliest
published example of a rotary quern in the region is
from first century CE Masada, Israel, and, according
to Frankel (2003: 18), rotary querns replaced the
Olynthus mill as the primary hand mill in the region
in the Byzantine period. Published examples from
archaeological contexts are found in site reports dating
from the Roman through the Ottoman period (Ayalon,
Tal and Yehuda 2013: 273, figs. 12-13; Ebeling 2009:
Ground Stone Artifacts Plate A: 4; Fischer and Tal 1999:
fig. 10.1:15, 17; Netzer 1991: 290-291, ills. 464-465; Nevo
1991: 26, pl. 2:5; Tzaferis and Peleg 1989: fig. 72:30 and
others). Unfortunately, ground stone artefact specialists
have not studied them as a single assemblage.
Therefore, there is much we do not know about
changes in rotary quern form and technology over
Rotary Querns and the Presentation
of the Past
Jennie Ebeling
Keywords: rotary quern, southern Levant, museums, heritage, identity
J. Ebeling: Rotary Querns and the
Presentation of the Past


82
their long period of use in the region. Examples
displayed in museums and owned by private
collectors vary in form and decoration, suggesting
chronological and/or regional differences. I
attempted to create a chronological typology by
examining rotary querns as part of a larger study
of traditional bread production in Jordan in fall
2012 (Ebeling 2014a, 2014b; Ebeling and Rogel 2015).
Unfortunately, this was impossible due to the lack
of archaeological contexts for the approximately
fifty examples I examined on display in Jordanian
museums, in the collection of the Department
of Antiquities of Jordan, and in the houses and
gardens of private collectors in Amman. As will be
demonstrated below, rotary querns dating to the
Roman and Byzantine periods might be included in
traditional daily life displays in museum exhibits in
the region.
Information about the recent use of rotary querns
in the southern Levant can be found in nineteenth
and twentieth century descriptions in travellers’
accounts, ethnographic studies, and photographs and
these sources universally describe and depict women
operating them. The method of use is described and/or
illustrated by Musil (1908: 145-6), Dalman (1902; 1933),
Avitzur (1976) and many others. A common trope in
early photographs taken in the region is the authentic
or staged image of Palestinian women, usually in pairs,
operating a rotary quern (Fig. 1). This Orientalist image
of the woman at the mill was particularly popular
among pilgrims and tourists because of biblical allusions
to this activity (Graham-Brown 1988: 151, Photo 9).
Since Western viewers saw them as illustrations of
New Testament passages, the observable present was
conflated with the mysterious and unobservable past.
Early archaeologists working in the region staged
similar scenes of Palestinian women operating ancient
grinding stones and included these photographs in
archaeological publications as illustrations of ancient
daily life. In doing so, they confused ancient and
contemporary traditions and technologies (Ebeling and
Rogel 2015: 346).
Although the use of rotary querns is strongly associated
with women, who have traditionally been responsible
for most food preparation in household contexts
(Ebeling 2010: 53; Meyers 2008), the manufacture of
rotary querns by men has been documented among
nomadic populations in the region. Musil (1908: 145)
Figure 1. ‘Two women at the mill.’ Matson Photographic Collection, Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-matpc-07552].

83

reported that the ‘Ammarin in southern Jordan made
rotary querns from local stone while others used
stone imported from Syria. Glueck (1965: 15-16) found
evidence for the manufacture of granite rotary querns
at a site north of Eilat, Israel; the presence of medieval
and modern sherds led him to suggest that ‘… these
mills are more or less modern in origin’ (16). In 1971,
Bedouin in central Sinai were documented making
rotary querns out of local sandstone (Goren 1999: Abb.
32). These studies bear witness to the continued use of
rotary querns in the region through the second half of
the twentieth century.
More recent ethnographic studies have contributed
to our understanding of the persistence of this
grinding technology, albeit on a limited scale. Palmer
(2002: 177) observed the use of rotary querns to split
lentils and break bitter vetch fruits to feed livestock
in northern Jordan. During my study of traditional
clay ovens in northern Jordan, one rotary quern was
observed still in use to grind wheat for semolina
(samid) (Fig. 2). Although the date of its manufacture
and acquisition is unknown, interviews with family
members revealed that this set had been in the
family for generations and might be one-hundred
years old. Interestingly, the informants related that
neighbourhood women borrow it every few days.
This is a far cry from the situation only a generation
or two ago, before imported flour was widely
available, when every rural family likely owned its
own rotary quern and relied on it to grind grain to
    

1987: 219-225).
4� Rotary Querns in Museums and Heritage Centres
Most rotary querns are featured in ethnographic rather
than archaeological exhibits in local museums, and it is
likely that tourists might encounter these objects for the
first time in museum displays. In summer 2010, I visited
twelve university, regional, and private museums and
heritage centres in Israel, Jordan, and Palestine in order
to document and report on portrayals of gender and
nationalism in ethnographic exhibits (Ebeling 2011).
Although my initial goal was to document how ancient
daily life, especially during the period of the Hebrew
Bible, was interpreted in museums, I soon found that
daily life exhibits universally represent traditional
life in the recent past in Palestine and Transjordan.
However, I also found that ancient artefacts,
specifically, ground stone tools, were included in some
of these ethnographic exhibits. I believe that this gives
visitors an inaccurate picture of recent ways of life and
conflates the past with the present in the same way
that Orientalist photographs did.
The ethnographic exhibits sometimes include a setting
          

are situated among artefacts of daily life. In most
cases, female mannequins are posed with rotary
querns, traditional clay ovens, ceramic vessels, and
other implements and installations related to food
preparation or with looms. In the National Heritage
Museum at the University of Jordan in Amman, for
example, a female mannequin is posed behind a rotary
quern and surrounded by vessels containing grain, a
sieve, and a large ceramic vessel; a threshing sledge
Figure 2. A rotary quern still
in use in northern Jordan.
Photograph by Dia’a Mazari
Gharaibeh.


84
hangs on the wall behind her (Fig. 3). Nearby, another
female mannequin is depicted kneading dough next
to a hearth. Another section of the museum features a
Bedouin tent scene; a female mannequin sits in front
of it with a churn while a female companion works a
horizontal loom. Labels in Arabic and English accompany
many of the scenes and items in this museum, although
a rotary quern sitting on its own is labelled in Arabic
only. Throughout the museum, the objects’ provenance
is usually unspecified other than ‘countryside.’ Malt
(2005: 66) reports that the collections include purchases
and gifts from the community and donations from
students; thus, the antiquity of the artefacts in these
displays is most likely unknown.
Lamentably now closed, the Joe Alon Museum of
Bedouin Culture in Lahav, Israel, featured a similar
Bedouin tent scene with a female mannequin sitting
behind a rotary quern while bread baked on a saj
nearby; another female mannequin stood behind her
(Fig. 4). This exhibit, and others in this well-organised
museum, was accompanied by detailed information
Figure 3. National Heritage
Museum at the University
of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.
Figure 4. Joe Alon Museum of
Bedouin Culture, Lahav, Israel.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.

85

about the items and their functions in Hebrew, Arabic,
and English. As in the National Heritage Museum in
Amman, however, the exact provenance is not given,
although most of material, which is from the collections
of Kibbutz Lahav and a Bedouin museum in the Sinai
Mountains, originated in the Sinai and Negev Desert
(http://www.joealon.org.il). Again, specific dates were
not provided for most of the artefacts and installations
that were on display.
Although similar sorts of ethnographic reconstructions
are on display in the Museum of Jordanian Heritage at
Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan, there are neither
mannequins nor much in the way of wall text. Rotary
querns and other artefacts and installations of daily
life are arranged somewhat randomly in various rooms
(Fig. 5), but most visitors would gain little more than
an impression of daily life activities given the lack of
explanatory information in any language. A faculty
member in the Department of Archaeology informed
me that most of the material was donated by the
students’ families and their provenance and dates were
unknown.
An exhibit in the Madaba Archaeological and Folklore
Museum, Jordan, includes a section with female and
male mannequins wearing traditional clothing and
posed with artefacts of daily life in several glass cases
with minimal explanatory text. Unfortunately, when
I visited the museum in 2010 and again in 2012, the
female mannequin in the far left display case was
gone and the rotary quern alone remained (Fig. 6)!
Museum staff could not tell me what had happened
to this display. The Salt Archaeological and Folklore
Museum in Jordan once contained a nice exhibit with
mannequins, including one posed with a rotary quern,
but the museum had been completely redone and these
exhibits were gone in 2010.
The Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem offers
something a bit different, as the centre, which is not a
museum per se, includes ethnographic exhibits similar
to those in the museums in Jordan and Israel described
above. In addition to a large and well-appointed
Bedouin tent in which visitors are encouraged to dress
up in traditional costumes and pose for photos, there is
a reconstructed Palestinian living room that includes
many objects of traditional daily life, among them a
rotary quern (Fig. 7). According to the description on
the website, ‘[v]isitors to the Center are welcome to
enjoy sitting, drinking coffee, and watching videos on
the archaeology, history, and religions of Palestine’
in this room (http://www.palestinianheritagecenter.
com/index.php/the-center). Although there are no
mannequins in these exhibits, the centre produces
postcards and posters featuring Palestinian women
posed in this and other settings (Moors 2000;
Semmerling 2004). In this image, labelled ‘Palestinian
women practicing traditional Palestinian activities,’
a group of young women in traditional embroidered
dresses pose with numerous elements of Palestinian
heritage, including what appears to be the same
rotary quern that is on display in the centre (Fig.
8). The rotary quern, like the colourful embroidery
and other traditional objects, symbolises traditional
Palestinian lifeways. Since the provenance of the
       
on display in the centre and printed on postcards
Figure 5. Museum of Jordanian
Heritage at Yarmouk
University, Irbid, Jordan.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.


86
and posters include a mix of pieces in director
Maha Saca’s vast ethnographic collection and items
recently commissioned by Palestinian women who

clothing, jewellery, and objects from different periods
and conveys a timeless sense of traditional Palestinian
life rather than a living room in a specific time and
place.
In all of the examples described above, the date of
the rotary querns on exhibit is either imprecise or
unknown and it is possible that artefacts dating to
as early as the Roman period are used to represent
traditional life in recent times. In two of the museums
I visited, ancient artefacts are deliberately displayed
among recent ethnographic material, albeit in very
different ways. In the Bedouin Heritage Center in
Shibli, Mt. Tabor, Israel, several mannequins are posed
in a generic daily life scene with bedding, clothing, and
tools of daily life. Near this scene sits a small collection
of ancient ground stone artefacts, including vessels,
mortars, and weights, among recent metal and wood
Figure 6. Madaba
Archaeological and Folklore
Museum, Madaba, Jordan.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.
Figure 7. Palestinian Heritage
Center, Bethlehem, Palestine.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.

87

objects in a corner labelled ‘utensils’ in English (but
‘cooking utensils’ in Hebrew and ‘kitchen utensils’ in
Arabic) (Fig. 9). The director of the museum confirmed
that some of these objects were ancient, although
there was no provenance information provided
and the casual visitor would probably assume that
these artefacts, some of which could very well date to
the Bronze or Iron Age, were modern ethnographic
items.
A mix of ethnographic and archaeological material
is also on display in the Man and His Work Center
in the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. This
recently-updated pavilion includes detailed exhibits
on traditional everyday life in Palestine and Israel and
features ethnographic photographs, accounts, and
objects in twenty well-organised sections. There are
no mannequins here, but photographs are mounted on
the walls that show women participating in activities
Figure 8. Image from
the collection of the
Palestinian Heritage
Center, Bethlehem,
Palestine. Photograph
copyright Maha Saca,
Palestinian Heritage
Center.
Figure 9. Bedouin Heritage
Center, Shibli, Mt. Tabor,
Israel. Photograph by
Jennie Ebeling.


88
like grinding grain and baking bread. The signage in
Hebrew, Arabic, and English is generally very good and
much of the collection originates in the 1930s, when
Shmuel Avitsur began collecting ethnographic artefacts
and utensils (http://www.eretzmuseum.org.il/e/121/).
A sign at the entrance to the pavilion informs the
viewer that most of the objects on display belong to
recent generations although a few ancient artefacts
are included with an explanation of their dates and
origins. The website provides explicit justification for
the inclusion of ancient artefacts: ‘The comparison
between the old and the new attests to the great
resemblance between the way of life in ancient times
and that of recent generations, and highlights how
minor the changes in work tools and daily artefacts has
been over the years’ (http://www.eretzmuseum.org.

an unusual basalt example that is decorated with raised

Golan Heights (Fig. 10); it is thus unclear if this piece
is considered to date to ‘recent generations’ or if it is
much older.
All of the museums and centres I visited display
objects from private collections and it is therefore
impossible to expect provenance information for
every item. However, the signage in these museums
and the texts associated with the exhibits should
make visitors aware of the problems involved in
displaying and interpreting these sorts of collections.
This is important simply because the museums and
centres explicity include ‘education’ in their mission
statements and objectives. For example, the National
Heritage Museum at the University of Jordan
offers as its first museum objective ‘[t]o educate
University students in general, and archaeology
and anthropology students in particular, in order
to provide them with full and broad knowledge
about Jordanian heritage in order to enrich their
national feelings’ (The Heritage Museum brochure).
While this is an admirable goal, it is difficult to
know how successful this and other museums are in
achieving it given the impressionistic character of its
ethnographic exhibits.
As mentioned above, it is impossible to know exactly
which past is being represented in these displays
because the specific period these scenes are intended to
represent are rarely given. As Malt (2005: 69) notes, the
presentation in the National Heritage Museum at the
University of Jordan ‘…reflects correlations between
natural, demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural
facts in a blending of archaeological and ethnographic
exhibits.’ As a result, they have a timeless quality that
conflates the recent ethnographic past with the ancient
past and ultimately provides a generalising picture of
traditional ways of life in the region. The deliberate
inclusion of ancient ground stone artefacts in primarily
ethnographic exhibits in two of the museums further
complicates this picture. Contrary to the stated
justification for including archaeological materials with
ethnographic ones in the Man and His Work Pavilion
in the Eretz Israel Museum, there are important
differences between the food-related technologies
common two hundred years ago and those used two
thousand years ago in the region. The lack of serious
study of rotary querns, which apparently remained
in near-continuous use for nearly two millennia,
proves this point: we currently have no idea how this
technology changed over this extraordinarily long
period of use despite clear morphological differences in
the artefacts in this corpus because they have not been
studied adequately. The belief that the ethnographic
present is a reflection of the ancient past common in
travelogues and photographs a century ago seems
to persist. Future study of rotary querns with known
archaeological provenance will most certainly prove
this to be false.
In addition, the inclusion of rotary querns in these
exhibits perpetuates stereotypes about traditional
male and female activities. Malt, in her study of
women working in the museum profession in
Jordan and Morocco (2006), cites as an example the
ethnographic exhibit of ‘Typical Life’ that used to
be on display in the Salt Archaeological and Folklore
Museum. In this exhibit, the female mannequins
wear work clothes and weave, cook, and grind while
well-dressed male mannequins are shown lounging,
smoking, and drinking coffee; from her perspective,
‘[t]hese dioramas reinforce subservience and the
inequality of women and perpetuate traditional
stereotypes (121).’ Since the scenes are undated, these
gender stereotypes also seem timeless and support
Figure 10. Rotary quern from the Golan Heights. Man and
His Work Center in the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.

89

popular ideas about male and female activities not
only in the recent, ethnographic past, but also in the
distant, archaeological, past. Visitors, both locals and
foreigners, may come away from these exhibits with
their preconceived notions about male and female
roles in ‘the past’ reinforced. Although Malt (2006:
121) identified an example of an effort to challenge
such notions in the Ethnographic Museum in Tetouan,
Morocco when a female curator redesigned a family
diorama to depict a fashionably-dressed female
mannequin drinking tea in a social setting rather than
grinding grain with a rotary quern or performing
other tasks of daily life, such a shift was nowhere to be
seen in the museums described above.
5� Rotary Querns Outside of Museums
Many rotary querns without provenance are on
display in restaurants and other public places in
Jordan as well as in private collections in Jordan
and Israel, and the image of the woman grinding
grain is still used in logos and signs in restaurants
and bakeries. Visitors to Jordan can expect to find
rotary querns in the décor in Middle Eastern/
Oriental restaurants frequented by tourists in
places like Jerash, Amman, and Madaba. Sometimes
these are displayed with other artefacts associated
with traditional life, like threshing sledges, sieves,
and ceramic vessels. In all cases, these objects are
likely intended to lend an air of authenticity to the
experience of dining in a restaurant that serves local
cuisine. Rotary querns, including one located at the
entrance to Haret Jdoudna Restaurant in Madaba,
are usually unlabelled and not always treated with
respect by customers (Fig. 11).
Rotary querns are also part of the garden décor in
Israeli and Jordanian homes and they are available for
sale in antique shops from the Old City in Jerusalem
to the Eighth Circle in Amman (Fig. 12). The meaning
and value of these objects must vary among those who
collect them; unfortunately for archaeologists, the
provenance of a rotary quern is usually lost by the time
it ends up in the private garden of an affluent Ammani
(Fig. 13) or Israeli who has no direct connection to those
who made and used this essential tool of daily life. For
those who are personally connected to the object,
however, its meaning is clear. Palmer (2002: 177) noted
in her study of food and food identity among fellahin
and Bedouin in Jordan that ‘[r]otary querns remain
Figure 11. Haret Jdoudna Restaurant, Madaba, Jordan.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.
Figure 12. Beit Al-Turath
Handicraft Company, Amman,
Jordan. Photograph by
M. Rogel.


90
valued family possessions as a symbol
of a way of life that has passed.’
The image of the woman at the mill
popular in authentic and staged
ethnographic photographs from the
late nineteenth and early twentieth
century lives on in bakery logos and
folk art. The Mill Bakery near the
Fifth Circle in Amman, for example,
includes this familiar image on its sign
and packaging (http://jo.jeeran.com/
en/p/the-mill-bakeries-amman/).
Even though commercial bakeries
are generally owned and operated
by men, the image of the woman
grinding grain is familiar and conveys
authenticity to patrons, some of whom
may remember a time when their daily
bread was baked by women at home.
This image can also be seen in a framed
artwork displayed in the Palestinian
Heritage Center in Bethlehem and a
very similar piece that I purchased
from the Arab Orthodox Society in the
Christian Quarter in Jerusalem (Fig.
14). These examples of Palestinian art
render the familiar image of the woman
at the mill in embroidery, a popular
expression of Palestinian identity
in art. As Malhi-Sherwell writes in
her study of the representation of
women in Palestinian art (2001), ‘…
Figure 14. Embroidered artwork of a woman with a rotary quern.
Photograph by Jennie Ebeling.
Figure 13. A private garden in
Amman, Jordan. Photograph
by Jennie Ebeling.

91

female peasants in traditional costume have become
the foremost signifiers of Palestinian national identity’
and ‘…artefacts from the peasant home in general, and
        
    
and marked as objects of Palestinian heritage …’
(163). In these works, which were displayed among
embroidered objects for sale in both the Palestinian
Heritage Center and the Arab Orthodox Society, the
artist associates a woman in a traditional Palestinian
embroidered dress with a traditional domestic cooking
utensil and, in doing so, reinforces both symbols as
markers of Palestinian identity.
6� Conclusion
Rotary querns are unique in the Levantine ground
stone assemblage because they have meaning and
value for the contemporary local population. Since
recent ethnographic examples are similar in form to
archaeological examples from as early as the Roman
period, they represent traditional domestic food
processing activities generally in ‘the past.’ Valued
as a symbol of a way of life that is extinct (or nearly
so), rotary querns are kept, collected, and displayed in
a variety of contexts in Jordan, Palestine, and Israel.
This, I believe, has hindered the serious study of these
essential tools of daily life, resulted in inaccurate
representations of traditional activities in museum
exhibits, and perpetuated popular stereotypes about
traditional gender roles.
The current state of affairs precludes the creation of a
chronological typology of rotary querns using examples
in museums and private collections. It may be possible
to glean some useful information from those who still
use rotary querns or have family heirlooms in their
possession; based on my experience documenting
traditional clay ovens in Jordan, however, I believe that
an ethnographic study would be difficult to undertake.
The best hope for ground stone artefact specialists is
for archaeologists to continue collecting and publishing
rotary querns found in excavations so that chronological
and regional variability can be assessed and a typology
developed. When this long-lived technology is better
understood, it may be possible for archaeologists and
others to address some of the problems that I have
identified in museum exhibits and other presentations
of the past in the region. In the meantime, ground stone
specialists must be sensitive to the fact that some of ‘our’
humble ground stone artefacts are powerful symbols of
identity for many in the present. Dare we imagine that
they were imbued with such meaning in the past?
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Global Scholar
program in the Institute of Global Enterprise in Indiana
at the University of Evansville in summer 2010 and a
National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral
Research Fellowship at the American Center of Oriental
Research in Amman, Jordan, in autumn 2012. Thanks to
the University of Evansville, the National Endowment
for the Humanities, ACOR Director Barbara Porter and
the staff and fellows at ACOR for their support, and
Dia’a Mazari Gharaibeh for her important contributions
to this project.
Bibliography
Avitzur, S. 1976. Man and His Work. Jerusalem: Carta/
Israel Exploration Society.
Ayalon, E., O. Tal and E. Yehuda 2013. A Twelfth-Century
Oil Press Complex at the Crusader Town of Arsur
(Apollonia-Arsuf) and the Olive Oil Industry in
the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Journal of Eastern
Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 1/4:
259-291.
Childe, V. G. 1943. Rotary Querns on the Continent and
in the Mediterranean Basin. Antiquity 17: 19-26.
Dalman, G. 1987. Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Band III:
Von der Ernte zum Mehl� New York: Georg Olms
Verlag.
Dalman, G. 1902. Grinding in Ancient and Modern
Palestine. The Biblical World 19/1: 9-18.
Ebeling, J. 2014a. Traditional Bread Baking in Northern
Jordan Part 1. Video online. Available at < https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=up7nC_bVD3M>
Ebeling, J. 2014b. Traditional Bread Baking in Northern
Jordan Part 2. Video online. Available at < https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaVca6KkMZQ>
Ebeling, J. 2011. The Presentation of Women’s Lives in
Antiquity in Museums in Israel and Jordan. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Schools of Oriental Research, San Francisco, CA.
Ebeling, J. 2010. Women’s Lives in Biblical Times. London:
T&T Clark, Int’l.
Ebeling, J. 2009. Ground Stone Artifacts, in E. M Meyers
and C. L. Meyers (eds) Excavations at Ancient Nabratein:
Synagogue and Environs: 284-295. Winona Lake (IN):
Eisenbrauns.
Ebeling, J. and M. Rogel 2015. The Tabun and its
Misidentification in the Archaeological Record.
Levant 47/3: 328-349.
Frankel, R. 2003. The Olynthus Mill, Its Origin, and
Diffusion: Typology and Distribution� American
Journal of Archaeology 107: 1-21.
Glueck, N. 1965. Further Explorations in the Negev.
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 179:
6-29.
Goren, O. 1999. Traditionelle Handwerksformen der
Beduinen in Israel und im Sinai. Jerusalem: Israel
Museum.
Graham-Brown, S. 1988. Images of Women: The Portrayal
of Women in Photography of the Middle East 1860-1950�
New York: Columbia University Press.


92
Heritage Museum Brochure. Faculty of Humanities and
Social Sciences, the University of Jordan.
Malhi-Sherwell, T. 2001. Imaging Palestine and the
Motherland, in T. Ben Zvi and Y. Lerer (eds) Self-
Portrait: Palestinian Women’s Art, 160-166. Israel:
Andalus Publishing.
Malt, C. 2006. Women, Museums, and the Public Sphere.
Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 2/2: 115-136.
Malt, C. 2005. Women’s Voices in Middle East Museums:
Case Studies in Jordan. Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press.
Meyers, C. 2008. Grinding to a Halt: Gender and the
Changing Technology of Flour Production in
Roman Galilee, in S. M. Subías and M. S. Romero
(eds), Engendering Social Dynamics: the Archaeology of
Maintenance Activities, 65-74. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Musil, A. 1908. Arabia Petraea� Wien: Buchhändler der
Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenshaften.
Netzer, E. 1991. Masada III� The Yigael Yadin Excavations
1963-1965, Final Reports: The Buildings, Stratigraphy, and
Architecture. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society
and Hebrew University.
Nevo, Y. D. 1991. Pagans and Herders: A Re-Examination of
the Negev Runoff Cultivation Systems in the Byzantine
and Early Arab Periods. Negev (Israel): IPS Ltd.
Palmer, C. 2002. Milk and Cereals: Identifying Food
and Food Identity among Fellahin and Bedouin in
Jordan. Levant 34: 173-195.
Semmerling, T. J. 2004. Israeli and Palestinian Postcards:
Presentation of the National Self. Austin: University of
Texas Press.
Wyatt, S. R. 2014. The Life and Death of Querns: The
Deposition and Use-Contexts of Querns in South-Western
England from the Neolithic to the Iron Age� Southampton
(UK): The Highfield Press.