Location: The kiln at Paphos was "built outside the city walls, fairly far from the harbour but very near the coast...right next to the area that was extensively used during the Hellenistic and Roman periods as a cemetery" (Demesticha and Michaelides 2001: 290).
Typology: Produced LRA1 and LRA13 (also known as LRA2C) amphoras. The LRA1s are type A by Pieri's typology, and have necks of three different shapes: 1) with vertical parallel walls, 2) with slightly concave walls, and 3) slightly conical.
Number of kilns: Only one kiln was excavated, although extensive construction on the site had already destroyed the majority of this kiln, so the excavators propose that more likely existed (Demesticha and Michaelides 2001: 290).
Description of facilities: The kiln was built from soft bricks, stone, plaster, and amphora fragments against a pre-existing stone wall. The floor of the underlying furnace (?) was a curved depression sunk directly into bedrock, above which were five brick pillars which supported the kiln's firing floor. A tunnel connected this area to a stone "upside down truncated cone, and its bottom opened into the understructure of the kiln" (Demesticha and Michaelides 2001: 290). Because the kiln was built between the coast and a former cemetery complex, the potters probably could not have collected their clay on site.
Local fabric: The ware is hard, light brown to red in color, with many medium red and black inclusions and small lime inclusions, often densely concentrated close to the surface, sparse dark brown pieces. Petrographic analysis by Dr. Costas Xenophontos in 1999 determined that the matrix is marly with abundant quartz and feldspar, very little microcrystalline quartz and pyroxene. A key characteristic is the presence of red sediments and microfossils (foraminifera). Further study has identified a similar fabric for the LRA1s (Gillett 2023: 48–50). The main fabric (on the LCP, see here) has a limestone-rich clay matrix with numerous fragments of limestone, shell, and red serpentine, flecks of mica, chert, a small number of quartz grains and a little calcite. The matrix also occasionally contains discrete grains of pyroxene, feldspar and some fine argillaceous material. The second fabric contains hornblende and some mafic volcanic material.
