Amheida III. Roger S. Bagnall
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period and Late Antiquity (Fig. 9). Large bowls used in food preparation include craters and basins. Craters have usually outward everted rims, deep carinated bodies, and rounded bases. Most of the examples found at Amheida have red-purple wavy lines or spiral patterns painted over cream-colored bands that decorate the inner side of the rims. Very common at Amheida are also basins or deep bowls used in food preparation. They typically have slightly flattened rims with triangular sections, convex walls, and ring bases. Although these shapes are usually dated to the Early Roman Period (1st–2nd c. CE),36 the comparative materials from houses at Kellis are dated to the Late Roman Period.37
Small and medium-sized bowls, part of the table wares, can be divided into three main types, all very common at Amheida.
Figure 7. Transportation and storage vessels.
Figure 8. Cooking vessels.
Figure 9. Food consumption and serving vessels.
Small bowls with convex profiles and slightly domed or flat bases were used for the consumption and the preparation of food, as evidenced by the presence of black soot on the external surfaces. However, they were more often utilized as lids for storage jars, as proven by the presence of residues of gypsum plaster attached to their inner walls. Convex bowls were produced as early as the beginning of the Hellenistic period, both in the oases and in the Nile valley.38 Parallels from Kellis date primarily to the second or third century CE.39
A second type of bowl, with straight-sided rim, is characterized by slightly raised bottoms and sloping walls. Many of them have an internal ledge where the lid sat and present heavily blackened surfaces caused by exposure to fire during the cooking of food. This type was found at Kellis in contexts dated to the second and third centuries CE.40
Finally, small bowls with high carinations on the upper body have small flared or tapered rims and convex bases. They are sometimes heavily blackened on the exterior surfaces, as they were used also as cooking vessels. The inner side of their rims is usually decorated with painted red dots on a cream-colored band. This decoration is characteristic of the end of the third century and fourth century CE.41
All these containers are made in A1 and A2 fabrics; they often present white drips and spots on both rims and bodies, and they are frequently decorated with red dots or thick marks on the rims, a decorative motif which is characteristic of the oasis during the Late Roman Period.42
3.2.3. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OSTRAKA
In general, all ostraka at Amheida are in a good or fair state of preservation. Most of the texts were written on the potsherds’ convex faces, though some examples were written on the concave sides. In a few instances the same text stretched over both sides of the sherd, or the same sherd was used for two separate texts, each written on one of the two sides. The texts were written for the most part in black ink, but there are some examples in brown ink.
The fragments were originally part of the vessels’ bodies, more commonly from the shoulders or the main body of the containers, areas that are generally straighter and have smooth surfaces and lack external ribs (98%). There are only a few instances where the texts are written on diagnostic parts of the vessel (i.e., rims, handles, bases); in fact, only 17 out of 893 Greek ostraka (2%) are diagnostic sherds (Figs. 11–14). Texts identified on these sherds are mostly memoranda, lists or uncertain (i.e., 1.77, 258, 355, 380, 402, 419, 2.504, 569, 644, 737, 806, 815, 838). None of these refers to trading or administrative transactions.
Most of the ostraka analyzed are from locally produced vessels: 122 from jars, 30 from kegs, 24 from jugs, 23 from basins, craters, and large bowls, 17 from small bowls, 6 from cooking pots, 6 from lids. In addition there are 318 ostraka also made from locally produced vessels, but for which it was not possible to define the shape. The highest percentage (96.50%) belongs to fragments in Group A fabrics (i.e., A1a, A1b, A2a, A2b, and A5), the same used for the production of the majority of containers present on the site. 1.60% is kaolinitic clay (A11), used for the production of containers, known as Christian Brittle Ware, 1.04% is in calcareous local clay (B10) used mainly for the production of jugs. Only 0.86% is in B3b, the fabric associated with the yellow slipped productions of the Kharga Oasis.
Table 3. Distribution of ostraka according to ceramic group (fabric).
No ostrakon made with fragments of Oasis Red Slip Ware or imports from other areas of Egypt and the Mediterranean was found (Table 3). The majority have irregular quadrangular shapes; however, ostraka used as tags seem to maintain a quite constant shape and size, with rectangular and triangular outlines. Very few ostraka are circular in shape (Fig. 15). These circular examples are the result of a secondary reuse of the sherd: indeed, the sherds were first cut to become circular lids used in stoppers to seal containers such as jars or amphorae, and only after the jars were opened and the lids disposed of did they become supports for writing. Interestingly, at Amheida one example shows that also the opposite process was possible. In this case, the sherd first was used as an ostrakon and only later was recut, partially obliterating the written text, to become a lid (Fig. 16).
The thickness of the sherds used as support for writing ranges between 0.5 and 1 cm (Table 4), dimensions that are characteristic of vessel types such as medium-sized bowls, jars, kegs, and cooking pots. Therefore, fragments of basins and craters were rarely used as support for writing, apart from a few notable exceptions. The size of the fragments is between 6 (min.) and 18.5 (max.) cm in the case of accounts or letters, while tags vary between 1.4 (min.) and 7 (max.) cm.
Figure 10. Wine flasks from the Kharga Oasis.
Table 4. Thickness range and writing surface of fragments in cm2 of ostraka.
Contrary to what has been previously argued, some categories of texts, primarily well tags, were not written on randomly chosen sherds,43 but rather they were specifically manufactured in large quantities by cutting body sherds into similar shapes meant to accommodate formulaic texts.44
The process was probably as follows: once a ceramic vessel broke, as commonly happened because of heavy daily usage, the larger body sherds were selected and collected for reuse as ostraka. This could have happened inside each dwelling right after the vessel broke, or the selection could have happened after the sherds were discarded in an open area dump. At present there is no evidence that could exclude or confirm one hypothesis over the other. An attendant, possibly trained in this skill, would break these larger fragments using a sharp tool, most likely a flint or a hammer, by hitting them. Such a blunt stroke would produce a series of fragments differently shaped.45 Only those fitting a predetermined size would be kept, while the remaining ones would be discarded.
The thickness of the sherds