A reddish matrix, with clay containing mainly limestone, chalk, rounded quartz sand, quartz silt, dolomite silt, chert and clay pellets. Feldspar mica and chert appear rarely. The matrix is sometimes opaque under crossed polarized light indicating a firing temperature over 850 degrees. There are several sub-groups of it according to differences in some of the components, with some sub-groups lacking the quartz sand, having more microfossils or more dolomite. This fabric encompasses terra rossa related clays developing from dust on hard limestone rocks, with not much chalk. Appearance of rounded quartz sand in some of the samples may relate to exposed outcrops of the Netzer formation that contain layers of quartz sand originating from ...
The clay matrix tends towards pink (7.5YR 7/4), branching in both reddish (2.5YR 6/6) and yellowish (5YR 6/4) directions depending on firing conditions. Clay particles are densely packed and inclusions are evenly distributed. Approximately 10% of the clay body consists of various tiny to very small inclusions. In order of frequency, inclusions consist of tiny (between 0.10 and 0.18 mm) angular white translucent mineral bits (quartz?) throughout the matrix (ca. 5% of the clay body); very small (between 0.14 and 0.25 mm) rounded black bits of what is likely basalt, based on its vesicular texture that is visible under magnification (ca. 2% of the clay body); small (between 0.35 and 0.87 mm) sized rounded bits of red sandstone (ca. 2% of the clay body); and tiny (between 0.09 and 0.17 mm), rarely medium (0.5 mm) round or elongated opaque white bits (probably lime, making up ca. 1% of the clay body). Very small round voids are present in section, caused by impressions of small red sandstone bits that remained embedded in other sherd.
A reddish matrix, with clay containing mainly limestone, chalk, rounded quartz sand, quartz silt, dolomite silt, chert and clay pellets. Feldspar mica and chert appear rarely. The matrix is sometimes opaque under crossed polarized light indicating a firing temperature over 850 degrees. There are several sub-groups of it according to differences in some of the components, with some sub-groups lacking the quartz sand, having more microfossils or more dolomite. This fabric encompasses terra r...
5th-2nd c. BCE
Achaemenid Persian, Early Hellenistic, Middle Hellenistic
c. 1800 - 500 BCE
Middle Bronze Age II, Middle Bronze Age III, Late Bronze Age, Iron Age
4th - 9th c. CE
Middle-Late Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic - Umayyad/Abbasid
Arad (Israel/Negev)
Khirbet er-Rasm (Israel/Shephelah)
Tel Azekah (Israel/Shephelah)
Tell Qasile (Israel/Central Coastal Plain)