General Information

Beirut Frankish Cooking Ware (BE.CW) is a red fabric cooking ware found throughout the Levant and Cyprus. Potters produced mostly two shapes, shallow baking dishes and deep globular pots, with the pots being the most common form. Both the pans and the deep pots had two handles on opposite sides, which made it easy for users to carry them and also tip contents out (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:129). 

The production of BE.CW spans the eras of the Fatimid Empire (9th-11th centuries) through the Frankish/Crusader conquest (12th century), during which local peoples and Europeans (“Franks”) coexisted in coastal and rural settlements (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:113). Finds from Acre, Israel, show that the forms of BE.CW vessels did not change much from the Fatimid to the Frankish periods (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:132). BE.CW’s popularity over time and space is a testament to its functionality. 

In the Fatimid period, BE.CW cooking pots had upturned rims and thick walls. Only the interior bottom of of the baking dishes carried glaze. Potters added a large amount of coarse quartz sand into the fabric. The quartz inclusions, as well as the thick walls may suggest that people favored the durability of the vessel over heating speed (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:129).

In the twelfth century, after the Franks moved into the region, potters began using a fine, silty clay which allowed them to produce vessels with thinner walls. As in the Fatimid period, only the inside bottom of the baking dishes carried glaze (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:129). The change to thinner walls may suggest a interest in having vessels that took less time to heat through.

In the thirteenth century, BE.CW potters again added quartz sand inclusions to the clay, which resulted in vessels with thicker walls. Baking dishes were now completely glazed inside and outside, which made the walls less porous (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:129). 

Petrographic analyses of BE.CW showed that potters used clay from the same source in Lebanon. Generally, the fabric is a red (2.5YR 4/4 - 6/8) or occasionally yellowish red (5YR 5/8 - 6/8) with quartz and limestone inclusions. When fired, unglazed BE.CW takes on a red to brownish-orange color (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:129).

BE.CW is one of several household wares that were made in Beirut and distributed widely in the Fatimid and Frankish eras. A sister ware is Beirut Frankish Glazed Ware (BE.GL), a tableware characterized by the appearance of slip-painted decorations on both sides as well as shiny glaze. Analyses of some BE.GL vessels show that some originated from Beirut while the origin of others is less clear (Stern, Waksman, and Shapiro 2020:132-34). Since BE.GL and BE.CW shared the same clay source and manufacturing locale, it was possible for consumers to purchase matching sets of vessels for cooking and table use.*

* This description was written by Marissa Wong, as part of a project for a course at Boston University in Fall 2025: AR 590, Life Is A Bowl, taught by Professor Andrea M. Berlin.

The fabric is usually red (2.5YR 4/4 - 6/8) or occasionally yellowish red (5YR 5/8 - 6/8) with sand, lime grits and limestone inclusions.