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A small “Negevite” bowl with knob handles. Glueck originally interpreted this type of crude, handmade, pottery bowl as a crucible associated with Solomon’s 10th-century B.C. copper-smelting installation; Iater he recognized that it was merely simple domestic pottery. For Glueck this handmade pottery was his primary indicator for the date of the earliest (casemate) fortress at Kheleifeh. Later experience at Negev sites has shown archaeologists that the “Negevite” pottery cannot be relied on for dating because its use in the Negev spanned the entire Iron Age (1200 B.C. to 586 B.C.), if not longer. “Negevite” pottery must be dated by its association with datable wheelmade pottery.