ENSOW - N Norfolk micaceous and clay pellets

Common fine/medium sandy (white, clear, pink, brown) with sparse to moderate mica and rare ferrous oxide. Typically oxidised with buff surfaces/margins and red core, but can be reduced (dark grey/black with a red core), although other colours occur. Some may be handmade, but both simple and developed forms occur. Probably more than one production site.

TS description (NDR MCW1) (P. Quinn): Bimodal grain size distribution consisting of medium-coarse, rounded to sub-angular quartz and polycrystalline quartz sand including rare chert and perthite, plus a fine fraction of sub-angular to sub-rounded silt-sized inclusions with some muscovite mica, rare chert and amphibole. The coarse fraction appears to represent sand temper. The sample also contains a large ferruginous inclusion with quartz sand and silt. The sample has a non-calcareous matrix. It is moderately porous due to the presence of meso- and macro-elongate voids. The presence of optical activity and the green colour of the amphibole indicates a firing temperature of <750°C. The sherd is well oxidised.

TS description (NDR MCW4) (P. Quinn): Weakly bimodal grain size distribution due to the presence of a coarse to fine sand-sized fraction of well-rounded to sub-angular quartz and polycrystalline quartz with few chert and opaques and a fine fraction of silt-sized angular to sub-angular quartz, polycrystalline quartz, white mica, plagioclase, amphibole, untwinned feldspar and opaques. The sample contains one possible grog fragment, though this is likely to be an accidental incorporation due to its low abundance. The polycrystalline quartz can be foliated. The sample has a non-calcareous clay matrix with heterogeneity that appears to be natural in origin. Porosity is low and formed mainly of meso-elongate voids. The sherd may have been tempered with moderately sorted quartzose sand. Firing took place in an oxidising atmosphere and the significant optical activity and the green colour of the amphibole indicates that the temperature was not above 750°C.

Also Great Ellingham MCW3.

Samples from Postwick and Great Ellingham.