General Information

‘Simple Ware’ is plain wheel-made pottery native to the Amuq, tributary valleys, and northwest inland Syria (Orontes Valley) generally. It should be noted that Woolley never used this term, preferring an undefined range of descriptive terms such as “plain light ware”, “coarse drab clay”, “plain” and so on (1955: 320-332). In his seminal publication
Mounds in the Plain of Antioch, Braidwood described all plain and coarse (cookware) pottery as “staple simple wares” and noted that these wares from the period 2600-1200 BC had not yet been well studied (1937: 6-7). The new Atchana typology (Horowitz 2015, 2019) classifies all plain-ground local pottery as part of the ‘Simple Ware Group,’ defined as a spectrum of calcareous fabrics with  variable amounts of river-sand temper (containing ophialitic serpentine and olivine, radiolarian chert, and magntite). The hardness of these Simple Wares was typically high in the MBA levels, but decreases significantly throughout the LBA levels, especially in some shape types. 

Those with average amounts of river-sand temper, no decoration, average porosity, and little to no water working are simply referred to as ‘Simple Ware.’ These typically are of a tan, cream, or slightly greenish color but can fire with pinkish blush patches on the surface where a strong air flow in the kiln affected the oxidation process.There is usually a tan interior on closed vessels and no core. There is also a fabric of similar composition and temper that is more strongly salmon-pink or orange in color, and may derive from a different clay source, such as those closer to the terra umbra soils to the east of Alalakh, around the town of Reyhanli. This variant is described as red-washed, due to the use of abundant water finishing, leaving an uneven reddish surface wash.This may be the same variant of Simple Ware that Woolley described as having a ‘haematite wash’ (Woolley 1955: 305).Typically, the water washing is used over the shoulder and body but not as much around the rim or base, making isolated sherds difficult to associate and type.This variant also tends to have thicker walls, sparse organic temper, and scattered 2-3 mm nodules of un-processed clay matrix.However, there is a continuum with the other fabric variants, and no clear cutoff point can be established to distinguish the variant in quantitative terms.Thus, ‘red-washed’ Simple Ware is not recorded as a separate ware type.

Plain Ware, Plain Light Ware, Coarse Drab Ware, Cilician Late Bronze Plain Ware