General Information

This is the common ware used for cooking vessels in the Shephelah and in the Central Hills of Israel in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. The texture of this ware is gritty; vessels feel sandy, and they are hard and well-fired. They vary in clay colour between grey and dark red. The surface is fired to a grey, dark red, sometimes very dark red-purple. Vessels were finished on the wheel.

The ware is characterised by visible white flecked chalk voids, and poor surface treatment, sloppy smoothing was done when the clay was still wet.

The ware is associated with two petrofabrics. Israel-shephelah-ferruginous-clay-calcareous-sand-quartz-silt and with T

his ware differs from that used in these regions in the Iron Age in the amount and the distribution of the white grits. While in the Iron age, these are small and densly distributed; during the Persian and Hellenistic periods, they are of various sizes and not evenly distributed. By the 1st century BCE, they will be replaced by the Judean Roman thin-walled compact cooking ware

The fabric is quite clean, with some small inclusions. The color ranges from dark grey to red-brown. Most vessels have a thick grey core. Surfaces are smooth and a little bit gritty.

Amazia (Israel/Shephelah)

Horvat Midras (Israel/Shephelah)

Khirbat Shumeila (Israel/Shephelah)

Khirbet Qeiyafa (Israel/Shephelah)

Khirbet er-Rasm (Israel/Shephelah)

Tel Azekah (Israel/Shephelah)

Jerusalem, City of David/Ophel/Silwan (Israel-Palestinian Authority/Central Highlands)