Some thoughts on sugar production and sugar pots in the Fatimid, Crusader/Ayyubid and Early Mamluk periods in Jordan

Résumé 0

Excavations during the last decade at the Tawahin es-Sukkar near Safi, to the south of the Dead Sea in Jordan, revealed structures connected with sugar cane milling and the refining of sugar. Study of the sugar pots from the 2002 excavations at the Tawahin and the adjacent settlement of Khirbet Shaykh ‘Isa (which can be equated with ancient Zoara) indicates that sugar production was taking place on a significant scale from the 11th century to the late 14th century.This paper presents the morphological and material characteristics of these sugar pots, comparing them with their counterparts from elsewhere in Jordan and Palestine. This is considered within the broad model of production and consumption, reviewing the evidence, for example, for centres where storage and secondary refining occurred separately. The issue of the extent to which sugar pots travelled with their contents is discussed, as is the potential of integrating typology with fabric analysis to begin elucidating some of the steps within the chain that led from primary production to secondary refining to selling, first within southern Jordan (encompassing the southern Ghor and the region administered by Kerak), and second, more widely within the Levant.