Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware

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Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware or Tell el-Yahudiya ware (often abbreviated TEY) is a distinctive ceramic ware of the late Middle Bronze Age/Second Intermediate Period. The ware takes its name from its type site at Tell el-Yahudiyeh in the eastern Nile Delta of ancient Egypt, and is also found in a large number of Levantine and Cypriot sites. It was first recognised as a distinctive ware by Sir Flinders Petrie during his excavation of the type site.

The ware first appears in strata dating to the MBIIA period, reaching the peak of its popularity in the MBIIB-C periods when it is encountered very frequently in contemporaneous Canaanite and Delta sites. The last vestigial expressions of this ware die out during the LBI period.

Tell el-Yehudiyeh Ware forms a very useful diagnostic indicator for the MBIIB-C period especially. In the Nile delta it is often considered to mark the presence of the Hyksos invaders.

Many ceramicists see the form of the Tell el-Yehudiyeh juglet as being firmly grounded in earlier Canaanite ceramic traditions, able to be traced back to earlier prototypes such as the juglets from Tomb A at Jericho.^[1]