General Information

This coarse handmade ware is rich with chaff inclusions and was used almost exclusively to create large vessels with very thick walls. Potters used this process of production for basic, utilitarian vessels, including bread molds, bread disks or trays, large basins and lids, and occasionally pithoi. Potters made this ware by hand using the coiling technique; some of the bread molds excavated at Amheida even have finger impressions left on the surface. This ware is attested in Egypt since the Old Kingdom; vessels manufactured in post-Pharaonic times appear in the same shapes and according to the same manufacturing technique.

At Coptos, this ware first appears in the late 4th century BCE in the earliest Hellenistic ceramic assemblage and continues to be used throughout the Hellenistic period. At Karnak, the fabric of the bread plates of the Ptolemaic period is not distinguished from the earlier specimen classified within the Nile C of the Vienna System. For the Ptolemaic Period this group is named "Ordinary hand-made wares" (David et al. 2016). At Syene/Aswan vessels of Nile Silte Handmade ware mainly include large basins and lids. Some pieces are decorated with plastic ledges, so-called finger ledges. Handmade chaff-tempered wares are quite common in the western desert oases of Dakhla and Kharga, where they are made of the local ferruginous clays rather than Nile Silt.

Chaff-tempered Handmade Ware vessels are thick-walled and generally not fully fired, leaving a medium-wide yellow brown core. Chaff-tempered Handmade Ware was made with locally available clays, either Nile Silt or, in the western oases, a coarse ferruginous clay with sand and limestone inclusions. It was heavily tempered with chaff, as well as lime and small rounded black and grey inclusions. It is fired reddish to brown to gray/black, and there were often finger impressions left on the baking vessels excavated at Amheida.

tongrundiges Alltagsgeschirr/ASW_NILE (Dissertation Rembart)

Chaff-tempered ware (Caputo 2020, p. 31)

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

Amheida (Egypt/Western desert)

Aswan, Elephantine (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

Aswan, Syene (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

B'ir Samut (Egypt/Eastern desert/Red Sea Coast)

Coptos (Egypt/Upper Egypt)

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