General Information

This ware is characterized by a micaceous fabric fired to a gray color in a reducing atmosphere, typically with a black or gray glaze. Some Hellenistic gray wares are burnished, but this step was often omitted. Glaze is usually present on the interior and upper part of the exterior. Vessels in this ware vary in quality, with respect to the consistency of firing and the viscosity of the glaze. This ware is represented by table vessels: fish plates, incurved rim bowls, everted rim bowls, small bowls with projecting ridged rims, and platters.

This ware was discussed by Susan Rotroff in her 2003 monograph (pp. 31–33), but was not at the time distinguished as a discrete local ware. At Sardis, this ware appears in the 3rd century and continues to be in made throughout the Hellenistic period and into the early Roman period. In the Late Hellenistic period, local potters producing this ware adopted additional shapes from a broader Ionian tableware repertoire (cf. Ionian Micaceous Gray Table Ware Family).