Macroscopic: Irregular break, orange-reddish to pinkish-reddish to reddish-brown colour. Diagnostic are quartz, red inclusions and black porous inclusions.
Petrographic: 7-15% inclusions, <1.82mm. Iron-rich to slightly kaolinitic clay matrix. Coarse fraction defined by: dominant quartz; frequent shale (reddish-brown); common kaolinitic clay pellets, K-feldspar and plagioclase; few chert and volcanic rock fragments (basalt); rare microcline, iron ore fragments; very rare granite, sandstone, serpentinite, muscovite schist, micrite and pellets of Nile mud. Fine fraction characterised by: quartz, hornblende, plagioclase, opaques, and traces of clinopyroxene, olivine, micas, amphibole, epidote.
This is the “Main Aswan Pink Clay” variant detected in ceramic assemblages in Syene and on Elephantine Island from at least the 2nd century BC to late antiquity/medieval periods. A natural combination of kaolinitic clay and Nile sediment in varying proportions is diagnostic of this paste. A local or regional provenance in the Aswan region can be supposed, also indicated by current raw material studies. Compare Petrofabric “ASW-PC_01” in Peloschek 2015, 102-103; Tomber – Williams 1996.
5th century - 8th century CE
Byzantine, Early Islamic - Umayyad/Abbasid/Tulunid
Abu Midrik (Egypt/Eastern desert/Red Sea Coast)
Abu Rahal, Abu Rahal Hill (Egypt/Eastern desert/Red Sea Coast)
Abu Rahal West (Egypt/Eastern desert/Red Sea Coast)
Aswan, Elephantine (Egypt/Upper Egypt)
Aswan, Syene (Egypt/Upper Egypt)
‘Abbad, Abu Gehâd (Egypt/Eastern desert/Red Sea Coast)
