Israel/Galilee
Achaemenid Persian
Lighting
This ware is characterized by a ferruginous fine calcareous (rather than foraminiferous) matrix, nicely cleaned and properly prepared. Some dark reddish-brown bodies appear, ranging in size from silt to sand and coarse sand (1.5 mm). Almost all of these bodies have a nucleus that is ferrizated foraminifera shell. Part of the other foraminifera shells within the samples are filled with ferric material and share a reddish brown aureole. The bodies may have originated as a result of partial ferrization of some interlayer within clay deposit. Fluxing activity of iron oxides was well known by potters of the past (Gopher, 1992:13-14). Clay, rich in it, reached the cintering at lower temperature. The firing temperature is estimated from just u...