General Information

The naturally fine, highly micaceous clay of the Hermus River Valley has long supplied potters in the region of Lydia with a ready source of excellent clay for all manner of household pottery. From the late fifth through first centuries BCE, potters used this clay to make an array of common vessels for household use: large and small pitchers, deep bowls with ledge rims, and sometimes specialty items such as bins and large jars. On occasion, potters adorned these vessels with casually painted wavy lines or wide bands in white, red, or black. 

This ware is named for Sardis, the largest city in ancient Lydia and surely the region's market center. No workshops for Household Ware (of any period) have yet been found, and it may be that these were located somewhere in the wider vicinity rather than near the city itself. As a series of chemical analyses conducted on pottery excavated at Sardis has shown, Sardian Late Classical-Hellenistic Household Ware was just one of many wares for which the same clay was used; others are represented by utility and table vessels dating to the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age, Lydian, Hellenistic, Roman, Medieval, and Modern periods. 

The fabric is clean and dense, with some to significant amounts of mica. The color ranges from warm pink-brown to bright pink-red. The clay is non-calcareous, with relatively low concentrations of calcium and chromium, significant amounts of sodium, iron, and potassium, and further enriched by a broad suite of trace elements (Neff and Glascock, 1997). 

Sardis (Turkey/Aegean)