Pebble Temper Ware (P)

Temple BA, AK wing of palace, strata above the palace.

Many small quartz pebbles used as temper, very friable, exterior highly burnished. In those rare cases when a vessel was unused as a cooking vessel it can be seen that the original surface on the exterior is heavily burnished and brick red in color; with use the exterior becomes dark brown to black.

Ferric clay, coarse, uneven particle sizes, color before utilization as cooking vessels medium brown (5YR7/4 pink); used dark brown, fragile because of temper size and repeated secondary firing.

Large amounts of organic temper; vessels can also have some mineral inclusions.

Low to medium, most secondarily burnt.

None.

Very friable, burnished to compact the surface which otherwise would have little consistency since the proportion of paste to temper is low. Original surface color is dark orange to bright orange, however most are burnt secondarily to a dark brown or black.

Yes but not carefully done.

Some ribs below the neck can occur.

Temple BA, strata of AK palace and above.

All third millennium Khabur sites, Chuera, Harran, western Syria.

This ware was the principal third millennium cooking ware at Mozan. Many sherds are secondarily fired and appear to have been fired repeatedly making the vessels very friable. Some had been secondarily fired so many times that the sherds broke apart on washing. Earlier shapes can have two triangular tab handles opposite each other on the rim exterior while later shapes sometimes have two small loop handles extending from the rim to the upper part of the semi-hemispherical body. These are also placed opposite each other.