Qedem 55
The Fatimid Metalwork Hoard from Tiberias. Tiberias: Excavations in the House of the Bronzes. Final Report, Vol. II
2012
This volume deals with a metalwork hoard of the Fatimid period comprising about a thousand items, unearthed in excavations carried out in ancient Tiberias in the autumn of 1998 under the direction of the late Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld and Dr. Oren Gutfeld. The hoard, dated by coins to the end of the eleventh century, was discovered in a structure defined by the excavators as a metal workshop. The items of the hoard were discovered within three pottery pithoi, two sunk under the floor and the third placed behind a wall. Within the rich variety of bronze vessels, the lighting devices, tableware and kitchenware are outstanding, but hundreds of separate parts, such as legs and handles of various types for bronze vessels, hinges, clasps, decorated bronze strips and plates, casting molds, unfinished castings, metalworkers’ tools and more than 200 kg of bronze scrap were also found. Some of the items are decorated with vegetal motifs, geometric designs, birds and various animals, one human figure, and Kufic inscriptions. The vessels of the hoard are typical in form and decoration of the Fatimid period and display a marked resemblance to the hoard found at Caesarea. The wealth of the hoard testifies to the prosperity of Tiberias in the Fatimid period.