A.M. MAEIR- J. YELLIN and Y. GOREN A RE-EVALUATION OF THE RED AND BLACK BOWL FROM PARKER'S EXCAVATIONS IN JERUSALEM Sun.rnary. Att tutusual red atul blcrck bowl was Jbund irt Parker's excctv(ttions in Jerusalen at the begi ling of the centur\'. Tlrcre lurs been no ugreentett as to tlrc proycrience oJ thc bowl, tl1( nosl unnnkrr opinion lteing lhet it t|,1ts a Ct'priot import dating to Mitldlc Bronzc I o11c. Art Ardtuer ogi<'al re-uppraivl atul Arcltaeometric ex.! tinotions oJ tha bowl atul selected qdditionul potterl ft'otn the same excavation reveolcd that the bou'l is cleult' of locul utturufocttte onrl has no pertinence to the foraign relutiotts rl the Luntl oJ Isruel during the Midclle Brortze I age. INl'RODUCl'ION The excavations conducted by Parker in Jerusalem in the years 1909- l9l I have subse- quently continued to inspire interest. Besidl3s the public controversy that was aroused at the time (Silberman 1982, 180-188), fbllowing the incomplele publication oI the excavation (Vincent l99l ), numerous attempts werc made to re interpret the finds (for three recent attcmpts, see Wieppert 19851 Reich 1987, 163- 164; Steiner 1988). Oneofthe nrore ofi- discussed objects to have been found was a small black and red burnished bowl (Fig. 3: l), discovered in Tomb 3 (an additional bowl of this type may have been found as well by Parker, although no additional information is known about it; see Vincent l9l l. 3l). The bowl's anomaly was noticed already in the rcp()rt rnd it was cxplained as an import (Vincent l9l l, 3l). Sincethen, the dating and provenience of the bowl has been debated repeatedly (for reviews of the different opinions, see Amiran 1958,25-27: Merrillees (., OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY II{I) 1992 1981,50-51). Following Amiran ( 1958, l97la, although regarded suspiciously by Stewart 1962.281), the scholarly consensus had been that the brru I wus a Cypriol import of Early Cypriot III date (: Middle Bronze I: late third-early second millennium BCI for exanple. Saltz 1977,52: Knapp 1990, 152 with a question mark!), despite that the majority of the pottcry fiom the tomb was dated to the Early Bronze I period (late fourth millennium BC). Recently, this has been challengcd by Merrillees (1981, 50-52), who clainred that the bowl is not ofCypriot manufacture and is. in tact, probably locally made. Due to the controversy that the bowl has generated (and its significance for understand- ing the foreign relations of the Land of Israel in the Middlc Bronze I). und in conjunction with a review article to be published on the Archaeology of Pre-Davidic Jerusalem (Maeir, in press). it was decided to attempt to obtain a conclusive answer as to the provenience of 39