General Information

This ware family encompasses a broad array of plain, undecorated, non-cooking wares produced along the southern Phoenician coast from Sidon/Sarepta in Lebanon to the area around Jaffa on the central Israeli coast. A wide range of utilitarian shapes were manufactured, including large jars for transport and storage (Persian-period torpedo jars, Hellenistic-period baggy jars with rounded, squared, and straight rims), mortaria, large bowls with ledge rim (sometimes called lekane or krater), small bowls, and lamps.

Moderately hard, very granular fabric fired pink-orange (5YR 6/8-7/8) often with a wide gray core (5YR 6/1). Many tiny to small rounded white inclusions that are often pocked through the slip, making the surfaces of vessels appear porous. Sometimes surfaces were left plain, so that the exterior and interior are the same color; other times vessels were covered with a thin saltwater wash or a thick, matte, white slip.

Phoenician White Ware (Berlin 1997), Carmel Coast Plain Ware, South Carmel Coastal Light Fabric

Horbat Zefat 'Adi (Israel/Northern Coastal Plain)

Khirbet esh-Shuhara (Israel/Galilee)

Mizpe Yammim (Israel/Galilee)

Qedesh/Kedesh (Israel/Galilee)

Tel Dor (Israel/Carmel coastal plain)

Tel Istabbah (Israel/Beth She'an Valley)