General Information

Aila Byzantine Painted Coarseware (ABPC) represents a class of materials produced in Aila of the typical, Classical period cream colored fabric (wares 1a or 1b) but is decorated with shapes and motifs reminiscent of the much earlier Nabataean Painted Fineware tradition (NPFW), including vegetal motifs, such as palmettes, or (rarely) schematic animals. The main shapes are wide, flat-bottomed bowl with painted decoration on the interior, and jugs with painted or dripped decoration on the exterior, although additional shapes have also been identified. Unlike the eggshell-thin walls of NPFW, the walls of these bowls are markedly thicker and coarser. The surface is unslipped, with the painted decoration applied directly on the surface. The paint can vary in color from purple, red, to brown.

It was previously thought that Aila Byzantine Painted Coarseware was a continuation of the Nabataean Painted Fineware tradition, but there is seemingly a significant gap between the decline in the production of NPFW (ca. 2nd/3rd century, although some forms have been dated into the 4th century CE) and the initial production of Byzantine Painted Coarseware. So too, the majority of the identified ABPC have come from southern Jordan, and only rarely from the Petra region where NPFW was produced. 

Patterns are similar to Nabataean Painted Fine Ware vessels but generally more splotchy. The clay was tempered with quartz, potassium and sodium feldspars, iron oxides, a high prevalence of gold-flecked biotite, and also organic material that left voids. 

al-'Aqaba, Aila (Jordan/Wadi 'Arabah)