Categorization of Egyptian Pottery Types

The Vienna System175 divides Egyptian fabrics into two major groups—“Nile silts”176 (composed of clays deposited by the Nile flood-waters) and “marls” (calcareous clays which derive from the weathering of desert rocks, rather than alluvial sediments)—and then breaks each group down into subcategories177 based on temper178 . However, the Vienna System is designed for Pharaonic-period pottery179 and does not map perfectly onto Greco-Roman fabrics.

Studies of post-New Kingdom fabrics are still in a more preliminary phase, despite the recent blossoming of important work in this field180 . There is as yet no complete “synthese sur les ateliers et les productions ceramiques” (Ballet and Vichy 1993: 109) of Greco-Roman Egypt, although Ballet has taken some tentative steps toward this massive project (see n. 275); in a study of Pharaonic through Roman-period figurine production, he discusses the identifying features of several fabrics (Ballet 1996) .

Only relatively recently has fabric analysis attained much prominence in Egyptian coroplastic studies. Most published catalogs of Egyptian figurines still discuss ceramic fabric in a few sentences only181, and one still encounters the now-outdated assumption that marl clays came from Alexandria while silts came from the chora182 . However, a few studies have begun to display heightened interest in chemical and mineralogical studies of terracotta fabrics183 . Also, a growing number of publications present figurines from controlled excavations, where contextual information permits more multi-leveled analyses