Rough Ware (R)

Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati – September 2011
Laerke Recht – May 2016

General Description
Characteristics

General Description

Rough ware was found only in the burned deposits outside the city wall (area K1). This ware is characterized by open vessels with white or plum colored plaster on the interior. The surface of the vessels are rough with out any smoothing. Often the layers of the slab construction can be seen in section.

Characteristics

Basis for Definition	K1 f16 burnt deposit outside city wall, some sherds from temple BA; large jars from F1, some jars in Area AA.
Identifying Attributes	Open vessels with interior plastered with white or plum colored plaster; large jars with traces of calcite based liquid dripping down the exterior.
Temper	Much chaff with some sherd temper.
Firing	All examples found were well fired but this may be due to the fact they came from a store house which had burnt down (the K1f16 deposit), probably originally they were medium fired. In some examples the interior plaster was burnt to a bright orange red by the destruction fire. Few examples had a carbon core.
Color	Red-brown on exterior; open shapes have a white to plum color thick interior plaster.
Surface Treatment	The surface was left rough without any wet smoothing in the manufacturing process.
Wall Thickness	In larger vessels 2.5 cm thick; thinner vessels are ca 1.3 cm thick.
Manufacturing Techniques	Slab made and constructed in layers which can be seen in section; cracks from the drying process can also be seen on the exterior. In some cases the lower body wall is much thicker than the base, as much as 8mm difference. Vats have a thick interior plaster.
Shapes	Large jars with rolled rims or vats with very little curvature shown in some body sherds. Large jars with outturned rims (rim diameters ca 48-70 cm). Vats Deep bowls with squared rims (can have interior oval lugs). The thinner shapes have more curvature in the body walls so were probably of somewhat smaller jars. Both flat and rounded bases are preserved.
Comments	A few R ware sherds were found in temple BA. The K1f16 deposit came from a burnt building so that all the vessels were secondarily fired. Some vessels had a plum red color on the interior plaster and also semi-transparent white drip marks down part of the exterior of the vessel. This is not uniform and may have been the result of later use rather than part of the manufacturing process. One explanation is that the drip marks are the result of water born calcite running down the exterior of the vessels, as in the sweating of vessels containing water. Another possible explanation is that the unevenly wavy lines were the result of the application of a slipped based decoration, similar to "scrabbled" decoration. In conjunction with this it can be seen that a variety of Rough ware at Mozan is buff with the typical streaked chalk based slip on the exterior. It is possible that this type of decoration which looks in many cases dripped and not painted on, but in other cases painted on, is related to Scrabbled ware. The typical Scrabbled ware is found in the west, in the Amuq but also found close to Mozan in the nearby site of Chagar Bazar.