Grey/Black Gaza ware is a long-lived ware family with multiple production centers in and around the southern Levantine cities of Gaza and Faluja. The consensus belief is that the beginning date of production is around c. 1800, on the basis of 19th c. travelers accounts and archaeological evidence from Ramot Nof, Be'er Shema, and Nahal Be'erotayim. A few scholars believe that production began much earlier, in the 16th c. CE, on the evidence of (as yet-unpublished) finds from Aphek-Antipatris and Tel Beth Shemesh.
This ware family is represented by a wide range of utilitarian/household shapes, all fired in a reducing atmosphere so that they are fully fired grey all over. On the basis of historical and ethnographic records, we know...