Light-Faced Painted Ware was named by Helene Kantor (1965). Vessels are thin-walled and delicately painted with lines of equal thickness; possibly they were also high-fired. The painting, in red or brown, was done on light colored, usually polished slips, aspects from which the ware’s name is derived. The refined technique indicates that they are products of highly skilled potters.
The shapes of Light-Faced Painted Ware vessels have parallels in southern Levantine forms of the Early Bronze Age II, which suggests that the origin of this distinctive group may be found somewhere in the Levant. Small numbers of Light-Faced Painted Ware vessels are known from sites in both the southern and northern Levant (Amiran 1969, Photo 60; Esse...
One vessel, the lower portion of a juglet, of LFPW was analyzed in the context of a pilot petrographic study of 20 vessels from several of the tombs at Abydos (Hartung et al. 2015, pp. 310-312, Sample #12 from juglet T-W/71, Figs. 8 and 17:1). The vessel has a very pale brown surface (10 YR 8/4), and the section towards the inside is light grey. The surface was burnished with very fine strokes in a vertical direction. The interior appears to have received a fine smoothing with the fingers ...