General Information

This name describes a very broad ware family that includes the enormous range of plain, non-decorated, non-cooking ceramics produced throughout the northernmost Levant, including Syria and northern Lebanon, from the Early Bronze Age through the end of the Iron Age. A wide range of vessels for household use were produced, from small bowls to large storage jars (pithoi).

Vessels have in common an unslipped surface, often wet-smoothed. Manufacture is generally and variously by coil and finished on a slow wheel. A wide range of petro-fabrics are attested, as this ware family was produced over a broad geographic area.

These plain ware vessels were made for local use and were rarely exported.This ware is the northern Levantine analogue to Southern Levantine Bronze-Iron Age Plain Wares. 

Tell Tweini (Syria/Coast/An-Nusayriah Mountains)

Sirkeli Höyük (Turkey/Eastern Mediterranean)