1 A LATE IRON AGE I CERAMIC ASSEMBLAGE FROM CENTRAL JORDAN: INTEGRATING FORM, TECHNOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION Bruce Routledge, Stephanie Smith, Alexandra Mullan, Benjamin Porter and Stanley Klassen Among Margreet Steiner’s many contributions to the archaeology of the Levant is an abiding commitment to pottery analysis. In particular, in her publications on Deir Alla, Abu Sarbut, Jerusalem, Kh. al-Mudayna (ath- Thamad) and al-Lehun, Margreet has shown the way to an effective synthesis of Leiden’s forming methods approach, the chrono-typological approach traditional to Syro-Palestinian archaeology and a materials approach derived from archaeometry. These rather technical concerns may seem far removed from the issue of archaeology and historical narratives that forms the central theme of this Festschrift. However, in the case of central Jordan during the early Iron Age, pottery analysis provides us with one of the few primary sources from which to construct an historical narrative. Pottery analysis is what will allow us to tell the story of the “Land of Moab” with evi- dence derived from the “Land of Moab.” Any narrative so constructed will, of course, be rather different from the stories of prophets, judges and kings familiar to us from the Hebrew Bible. However, this alterity ought to be viewed as a strength, rather than a weakness, when dealing with regions that were incorporated antagonistically into the biblical narratives as peripheral settings and plot devices. The need for this sort of indigenous evidence becomes clear when we consider past attempts to write historical narratives of early Iron Age Moab with only limited recourse to such evidence. A. H. Van Zyl’s 1960 monograph, The Moabites, attempts to construct a narrative history of Moab using the Bible, ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeological evidence. While an important synthesis for its time, Van Zyl’s work suffers from the fact that the Mesha Inscription was the only substantial