General Information

Nile Silt Ptolemaic Cooking Ware is made from micaceous clay and is used exclusively to manufacture various shapes of cooking vessels, including cooking pots, casseroles, stewpots, cooking plates (Syene/Aswan), and dish-lids (Herbert and Berlin 2003, 28-29). At Coptos, this ware first appears in the late 4th century BCE in the earliest Hellenistic ceramic assemblage. It continues to be used into the final Hellenistic phase at Coptos, dating to the early 1st century BCE, as evidenced by the appearance of stew pots, a new cooking ware shape, in this assemblage. Vessels of this ware appear in Syene starting in the 3rd century BCE.
It is not always easy to distinguish it from the Roman Nile Silt Cooking ware and can only be identified on the basis of the vessel shape.

Nile Silt Ptolemaic Cooking Ware is made from a very clean, hard, and somewhat grainy bright brown silt fabric with no visible inclusions. Vessels are generally almost fully fired, with a dull red core.

Kochgeschirr/ASW_Nile (Rembart 2018)

Abu Rahal, Abu Rahal Hill (Egypt/Eastern desert/Red Sea Coast)

Aswan, Elephantine (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

Aswan, Syene (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

Coptos (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

Luxor/Karnak, Temple of Ptah (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

Luxor/Thebes West, Temple of Millions of Years of Amenhotep II (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

'Akko, Harbor (Israel/Northern Coastal Plain)