Figure 15a: PPL view at x10 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture (width of field c. 6mm)
Macroscopic paste description: Stonepaste, dense white body with barely discernible granularity.
Petrographic description: Stonepaste body comprising predominantly quartz grains fused together by filamentous glass. Body includes about 50-60% quartz, comprising 2-15% clear, 20-25% slightly cloudy, 10-20% cloudy, 1-10% very cloudy, with little or no sheared or polycrystalline quartz, but this may be a function of the fine grainsize; mostly straight but occasional strongly undulose extinction; also trace to 5% chert or cryptocrystalline quartz. Maximum grainsize diameter 0.15-0.2mm. Occasional grains may show facets of rounded sand which, if they had been preserved uncrushed, would have a diameter of perhaps around 0.5mm. The finely ground inclusions are very distinctive, but this is a technological feature and not necessarily related to provenance. Although the fine grainsize makes comparison difficult, the relative clarity of the quartz and inclusions of cryptocrystalline quartz make it distinct from comparable petrofabrics (samples with laboratory number beginning with MRT are from the Bartels gift attributed to Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and belong to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).
Figure 15a: PPL view at x10 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture (width of field c. 6mm)
Figure 15b: XP view at x10 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture (width of field c. 6mm)
Figure 15c: PPL view at x40 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture (width of field c. 1.5mm)
Figure 15d: XP view at x40 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture (width of field c. 1.5mm)
Figure 15e: PPL view at x100 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture and chert inclusion (width of field c. 0.6mm)
Figure 15f: XP view at x100 of sample MRT.07 showing general texture and chert inclusion (width of field c. 0.6mm)