General Information

NPFW is an egg-shell thin, hard fired ware produced from highly levigated clays. Vessels carry a range of painted patterns of many varieties: geometric designs, patterns evoking plants and vegetation, and sometimes animals.  Later, and less carefully manufactured examples of NPFW occasionally display inclusions such as quartz or limestone, which may indicate a kind of "mass production" in the 2nd/3rd c. CE. The extremely thin body walls evoke Roman thin-walled wares as well as blown glass. NPFW is represented through all forms e.g. cups, jugs, juglets, jars, unguentaria, bowls, and plates.

Petra was the center of NPFW production; and it was also manufactured in Aila ('Aqaba). Vessels from the two production centers can be distinguished by the color of their clay: Petra's clay is dark red in color, while that from Aila is a pale brownish white.

The chronology of NPFW is largely based on stratified deposits from excavations of az-Zantur, a palatial villa in Petra. The first strata that contained NPFW also contained fragments of Eastern Sigillata A, which puts the ware's beginnings around 100 BCE. In this first phase (c. 100-50 BCE), Petra's potters made standard table forms: saucers, bowls, cups/beakers, platters, table amphoras. Vessels display the characteristic features of the ware: light red to orange fabric, hard fired, thin walls (c. 4-6 mm thick), and red slip applied to inner and/or outer surfaces. On the interior of small bowls, potters also occasionally added single or doubled red painted lines either in straight or wavy patterns.

The second phase of NPFW dates c. 50 BCE - 20 CE, again dated by ESA vessels found in the same contexts along with Nabatean coins and occasional other imported fine ware. It is in this phase that Petra's potters begin producing the vessels for which the ware is best known: delicate and exceptionally thin-walled (wall thickness 2-3 mm), and decorated with dense, elaborated red painted patterns, including delicate, feathered lines, radial palmettes, clusters of leaves, and dotted circles (which Schmid terms "peacock eyes"). Schmid's close study of the decoration has led to the recognition of three successive 'dekor phases' (2a, 2b, and 2c) each lasting about 20 years or so.

The third phase of NPFW spans most of the 1st c. CE into the 2nd century. Very thin-walled forms continue, with the most common forms being open plates and delicate drinking bowls. The paint color darkens, and a dark core now often appears, features that Schmid attributes to a change in firing techniques. The painted motifs remain mostly similar but their application changes from small and detailed to larger and more stylised. In this phase palmettes and geometric motifs are more clumsy, and somewhat realistic floral motifs now also appear, frequently painted against a background of fine, criss-crossing lines.

Production of Nabataean Painted Fine Ware certainly continued after the Roman annexation of the Nabataean kingdom in 106 CE. As for the cessation of manufacture, this seems to be sometime in the later 2nd to mid-third century CE, although the precise timing is still unclear. Subsquent production of painted table ware is taken up by Southern Jordan Byzantine Painted Coarse Ware (Aila), which was manufactured in Aila/Aqaba. These vessels carry similar vegetal and geometric painted motifs, but the vessels have thicker walls and coarser fabric.

* The bulk of this entry derives from Schmid 2007, pp. 311-316.