MTN1 - Melton Shelly Ware

A soft fabric with a rough feel and hackly fracture, in colours ranging from pale grey through buff and pink to brick red, occasionally black. Inclusions: common rounded pink and white sand (0.1-1.0mm); moderate sub-rounded ferrous oxide (0.2-1.0mm, occasionally up to 5mm); sparse to moderate shell (0.5-2mm, occasionally larger) which had generally been leached out leaving a vesicular appearance; and sparse angular mica (0.05-0.4mm).

TS sample description (Patrick Quinn): Poorly-sorted inclusions of quartz with less common polycrystalline quartz, ranging from rare rounded very coarse sand to dominant sub-rounded medium and fine sand, to less common more angular silt-sized inclusions. The latter contains significant chert and muscovite mica, plus opaques. Non-vitrified non-calcareous clay matrix that is oxidised on the exterior and poorly oxidised in the interior. Abundant meso-elongate drying voids, plus several macro-vughs.

Examples from production waste at Melton.