Multiple-Spouted Jars of the Early Bronze I in Northern Jordan Edward B. Banning Department of Anthropology 19 Russell Street University of Toronto Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 2S2 ted.banning@utoronto.ca Jihad Harun Department of Antiquities of Jordan P.O. Box 88-11118 Amman, Jordan jnia4@yahoo.com Stanley Klassen Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations 4 Bancroft Avenue University of Toronto Toronto, ON, Canada M5S ICI stanley_klassen@yahoo.ca The 1999 discovery of an unprecedented multi-spouted jar at an Early Bronze I site inWadi Ziqlab, followed by the discovery of two more near Tell ash-Shuna North the following year, suggests the possibility that this vessel type is specific to a small region in northern Jordan. They exhibit similarity to a variety of vessels at Early Bronze sites in northern Israel and Jordan and the Jordan Valley, but none of these have more than one spout, and most have spouts of rather different orientation. Although the first multi spouted jar was found in a probable industrial site, the others were in two different tombs of a cemetery. Their function is not obvious, and the possibility that breakage of some of the spouts was intentional suggests their involvement in mortuary ritual. In 1999, excavations at a shallow Early Bronze I site in Wadi Ziqlab (Tell Rak?n II, WZ 130; fig. 1) uncovered an enigmatic, nearly complete jar among dozens of smashed large jars on the floor of a possible industrial installation (Banning and Najjar 1999; 2000). The vessel is similar to other jars of that period, except that this example exhibited four tall, nearly vertical spouts distributed at equal intervals around its circumference (figs. 2 and 3:1). All but one of the spouts was broken off and missing, but the vessel was otherwise intact. Shortly after, in 2000, excavations by the Depart ment of Antiquities of Jordan at Tell as-S?khnah, an EBI cemetery about 1km southeast of Tell ash-Sh?na North (fig. 1; Harun 2005; Philip 2006), uncovered two rather similar spouted jars: one three-spouted (fig. 3:2) and another four-spouted example (fig. 4). The discovery of these closely similar vessels of quite unusual form, and, as far as we are aware, pre viously undocumented type, within a few kilometers of one another begs a number of questions about their significance. Was this form unique to a small region of northern Jordan? What was the vessels' function? Why were they deposited, substantially intact, in two quite different kinds of contexts, one mortuary and the other apparently industrial? And, finally, why have no others, it seems, been found before now? CONTEXTS OF THE VESSELS While the Ziqlab example comes from the floor of what seems an industrial complex, possibly an industrial-scale olive press, the others come from mortuary contexts. Wadi Ziqlab 130 This site, dubbed Tell Rak?n II by the excava tors (Banning and Najjar 1999), occupies a sloping 1