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.
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This website, and the type series, was created by Dr Sue Anderson, Spoilheap Archaeology: www.spoilheap.co.uk
I am available for contract work on pottery from East Anglia and beyond. Email sue@spoilheap.co.uk
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