Hydria

A form of Greek water pot; a large jar or pitcher for carrying water with two or three handles. The body was bulbous, the neck round. It was wider and usually lower than the amphora and it had well-defined foot and neck. There were two horizontal loop handles on the body for carrying and one vert...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Hydria

Incised Decoration

A type of pottery decoration in which the soft surface of the clay is cut with a sharp instrument. The term also refers to decoration scratched into the surface of other artifacts and structural features. Incised decoration has narrow lines; excised has wide lines.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Incised Decoration

Ware

Generally, articles made of pottery or ceramic. Specifically, a class of pottery whose members share similar technology, paste, and surface treatment.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Ware

Flemish Black Ware

A type of later medieval pottery known from paintings of the Renaissance period. Some of the wares were well-decorated but most Flemish wares were coarse black wares with pinched bases. They emerged a Roman tradition of potterymaking in Flanders.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Flemish Black Ware

Ipswich Ware

A pottery ware made in the 7th-9th centuries at Ipswich, England, where kiln debris has been found. The cooking pots and undecorated pitchers were distributed widely in East Anglia, while stamp-decorated pitchers were traded as far as York and Richborough. This ware makes it possible to identify ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Ipswich Ware

Castor Ware

A distinctive pottery named after a Roman settlement site on the north bank of the Nene in Northhamptonshire. Castor ware is a slate-colored pottery which commonly had hunting scenes of dogs, boars, etc. on the outer surface, which were applied by squeezing paste from a bag or applying by brush. ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Castor Ware

Lagena

A Greek or Roman earthenware vessel with a globular body, used for holding wine, vegetables, or fruit.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Lagena

Beveled-Rim Bowl

A widespread, crudely made conical pottery vessel formed in a mold and having a sloped rim, characteristic of the Late Uruk period.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Beveled-Rim Bowl

Phocaean Ware

Roman red-glossed pottery made from the 4th-7th century AD on the west coast of Turkey. It was widely distributed in the eastern Mediterranean.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Phocaean Ware

Carrowkeel Ware

A type of later Neolithic pottery found in Ireland during the 3rd millennium BC, named after material recovered from the passage graves at Carrowkeel in Co. Sligo, Ireland. The fabric of Carrowkeel ware is generally rather thick, coarse, and heavily gritted. The forms comprise mainly open round-b...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Carrowkeel Ware

Black-Burnished Ware

A standard range of culinary vessel-forms manufactured in two different fabrics and widely imitated. BB1 (black-burnished ware Category 1), was black, gritty, hand-made, mainly in Dorset, and widely distributed from c. AD 120 to the late 4th century AD. BB2 (black-burnished ware Category 2) was g...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Black-Burnished Ware

Prototype

A prototype is the first in a series of artifacts, the earliest form of some type which later develops - e.g., the first of a new type of pottery. A prototype is a model after which objects are copied: the prototype for a clay wine jar could be a metal wine jug of similar shape.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Prototype

Bell Beaker

A type of pottery vessel found all over western and central Europe from the final Neolithic or Chalcolithic, c 2500-1800 BC. The culture's name derives from the characteristic pottery which looks like an inverted bell with globular body and flaring rim. The beakers were valuable and highly decora...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Bell Beaker

Coarse Ware

A classification of sandy, rough pottery including castor ware, new forest ware, and rustic ware.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Coarse Ware

Stroke-Ornamented Ware

Early / Middle Neolithic culture of west-central Europe, developed directly out of the Linear Pottery culture, c 4000-3800 BC. The pottery has zigzag patterns made by a series of distinct jabs rather than continuous lines. Bohemia, southwest Poland, Bavaria, and central Germany were its locale. T...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Stroke-Ornamented Ware

Huntcliff Ware

A distinctive variety of calcite-gritted pottery limited to a range of distinctive forms, made in east Yorkshire from the 1st century AD through to the 4th century AD. The fabric is black or dark brown, and the dishes and jar bodies were hand-made. During the late 4th century an extremely common ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Huntcliff Ware

Coiling

A primary forming technique for producing pottery vessels, by which ropelike cylinders of the body are gradually added along the circumference of the vessel, starting at a disklike base, to build up the vessel's shape.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Coiling

Greenware

Unfired pottery.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Greenware

Mortar

Part of an ancient device for processing plant foods; usually used with a pestle. It was a stone or wooden receptacle with a cup-shaped depression. Mortars were frequently made of special rocks, which might be traded over considerable distances. The mortars of the medieval period in Europe have b...

archaeologsEnglishTools, Ancient Pottery

Mortar

Complex

A group of artifacts and traits that regularly appear together in two or more sites within a restricted area over a period of time and which are presumed to represent an archaeological culture. A complex could be a characteristic tool or type of pottery or it could be a pattern of buildings that ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Complex

Chien Ware

A dark brown or blackish glazed Chinese stoneware made for domestic use, mainly during the Sung dynasty (960-1279) and into the early 14th century. Within its limited palette, Chien ware has a range of variations. By careful control of the kiln temperatures, streaking and iridescent patches were ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Chien Ware

Self-Slip

A thin slurry of clay left on the surface of a pottery vessel as a result of wetting the body during the vessel's manufacture.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Self-Slip

Red Polished Ware

A fine red ware with red or orange slip that is highly burnished. It was made in southern Asia in the first three centuries AD. It is often thought to be an imitation of the Roman Arrentine ware. The characteristic and most widely dispersed type of pottery of the Roman Empire was the red, polishe...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Red Polished Ware

Arretine Ware

A type of bright-red, polished pottery originally made at Arretium (modern Arezzo) in Tuscany from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD. The term means literally ware made of clay impressed with designs. The ware was produced to be traded, especially throughout the Roman Empire. It is clearly...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Arretine Ware

Clouded Ware

A ware developed shortly after the introduction of creamware. Thomas Astbury and Thomas Whieldon mixed ground flints into the clay that gave white-salt glaze when high fired and a cream-colored ware when fired at lower temperatures. After preliminary firing the ware could be dipped in a clear gla...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Clouded Ware