This ware family is best characterized by a shared repertoire of exterior decoration styles, the most frequent being painted wavy lines and band motifs. Other common designs include: incised wavy lines and bands, painted garlands, swirls, and more free-hand imagery. Potters decorated vessels of all sorts: those for table use such as cups, bowls, and jugs, as well as cooking vessels. All were wheel-thrown, with some evidence for modifications by hand.
Byzantine-Islamic Geometric Painted Ware (BIGPW) shares many features with Fine Byzantine/Fine Palestinian Ware, the refined table ware made in Jerusalem. The ma...
The fabric color ranges from light reddish brown to light reddish yellow to light gray, and the core is often gray, suggesting these vessels were fired in a reducing environment. Many, though not all, of these vessels were slipped, and the slip color varies between light brown to white.
