In the 1930s, excavations in ancient Antioch, Sector 17-O, located in the heart of the city, uncovered two courtyard houses; in the courtyard of the western house were two kilns close together. Just west in a small room was a basin with a pipe, likely used for washing and levigating clay. While the excavators found no homogenous pottery around the kiln, they did recover wasters around and very close to it, of turquoise glazed and champlevé, including clay rods with bits of glaze used as supports. Dating is difficult because the digging was arbitrary and non-stratigraphic. Nonetheless, analysis from careful recreation of the stratigraphy indicates that the house dated to after 1050 (owing to a lead seal under the floor), with occupation into the 12th century.

It may be that pottery was also produced in the east house. The courtyard in this period was also subdivided into three rooms. The room closest to the threshold had an oven, and it may be that pottery was produced here as well, since clay rods were also found as well as a waster of Port Saint Symeon ware. The floor of one room could be dated from the second half of the 11th century by a lead seal for a minor administrator. In the same context was a 10th–11th-century Fatimid glass weight and Chinese celadon, likely of the late Five Dynasties or Song (960–1127). These were therefore pottery workshops and residences of the 11th and 12th centuries.