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Dr
David
Williams
Dept of Archaeology
University of Southampton
Avenue Campus
Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
England
Tel: 080 593032
Almagro 54 fabric |
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CommentsEquivalent to: GAM AM of the National Roman Fabric Reference Collection (Tomber & Dore, 1998: 96), and P&W AM66 (Tomber & Dore, 1998:111) |
Visual characteristicsA hard, thick sandy fabric with a little white limestone scattered throughout, drab brown (5YR 5/6) in colour, sometimes with a greyish core (10YR 5/1). Another production noted in Beirut (from the Negev?) has a rather smooth cream outer surface (use of salt water?) and a pale red-orange well fired, fairly fine fabric with common fine-.5mm quartz, often with lime eruptions on the surface. It can readily be distinguished from the classic ‘Gazan’ clay. |
PetrologyClassic ‘Gazan’ fabric. Abundant well-sorted angular and subangular grains of quartz and occasional plagioclase felspar. The average size of the grains is 0.05-0.1 mm across, though there is a sparse scatter of slightly larger grains which are often well rounded. Also present are some fragments of microcrystalline limestone with indistinct fossil remains and occasionally (?) fossil shell with augite and tourmaline as accessory minerals. This composition and texture compares well with a sample of modern fired clay from Gaza (Peacock, 1975). |