Israel/Beth She'an Valley
Roman
Lighting
Fabric Description
Surface Colour: Exterior 10YR - 3/2 (buff) and interior 10YR - 8/6 (cream). Brown slip.
Break Colour: 10YR7/3 (pale brown)
Colour PPL: Orange-tan
Colour XPL: Orange-tan in middle; light brown on edges
Matrix: Clayey; Sedimentary Carbonates; Angular opaque minerals at the fine fraction (2% - sizing up to 100μm), subrounded at the coarser grain sizes. Quartz silt (1%) with few amount of plagioclase. Dense carbonate crystals (15% sizing 10μm - occasionally 20μm or 30μm); Calcareous clay.
Soil Type: rendzina Inclusions: exhibiting coastal bioclasts (beach sand) and limestone, some silty and quartz. Rounded fragments of fossiliferous coastal limestone (Beach rock)...
Tell el-Burak / Lebanon
Chhim / Lebanon
Porphyreon / Lebanon
LIM, CHERP. CHA, QTZ, QIT, MF, CAL, FDP, FOX, CP
Quaternary Coast, Neogene marl
Lebanon southern coast
Rendzina
The number of bioclastic formations of the Quaternary Coast, Neogene marl, and reduced quantity of quartz suggest the coast of Lebanon: Senonian or Eocene and Cenomanian-Turonian age sedimentary outcrops in the Lebanese mountains. The provenance of this lamp group is identified in the broader Sidon hinterland to the region of Akko (Group Sidon-Akko).
Petrographic data suggests they were produced in or around key Roman pottery centers like Chhim and Porphyreon, where similar ceramic traditions thrived. Sites such as Tell el-Burak present similar sediments but in Bronze Age vessels. The large cities of Beruit, Sidon, and Tyre may have produced lamps with equal soil origins.
Many thanks to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the University of São Paulo, Tel Aviv University, and Durham University. Acknowledges to FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation).