“Button” handles are comparatively uncommon; the loop handle is the style most generally used. “Ear” handles, both vertical and transverse, are also common; (see Figs. 101-103, and 105). The most striking feature of the pottery of this period is the increase in the variety of ornamentation and the introduction of the pictures of animals and birds as ornamental motifs. This was due, no doubt, to foreign influence. The best specimens of this type of ornamentation so far published are from Gezer, though it is found elsewhere. All kinds of vessels were made of clay during this period: jars, jugs, pitchers, bowls, saucers, drinking-cups, etc., etc. Many of the potters signed their work with a peculiar mark. This mark was sometimes an impression of the potter’s finger, sometimes linear devices of various kinds scratched on the handle, and sometimes the impression of an inscribed Egyptian scarab, usually of the period of the Middle Kingdom or the Hyksos time. Jar handles marked with scarabs were also found at Jericho; (Figs. 118, 119). =5. Third Semitic Period.=--The third Semitic period, 1400 to 1000 B. C., while its wares sometimes differed in form from those of the preceding period, is mainly marked off from the second period by a general degeneration in style. No great differences are noticeable in the kinds of clay employed. The jars have, as a rule, a less pointed bottom than in the preceding period; (Fig. 110). The combed decoration is rare, and the burnishing of the jars is both less frequent and less skilful than in the preceding period. There is an increase in the tendency to use painted ornamentation, which frequently consists of zigzag lines. Rough, conventionalized representations of palm trees are also common. In the last part of the period Cretan influences are traceable. This was probably due to the coming of the Philistines.[174] Potters’ marks continue, but scarabs are less often used in making them than in the preceding period. The various kinds of vessels made seem to have been as great as in the preceding period. A clay funnel or bottle-filler was also found in this period; (see Fig. 114).