Glossary Pottery and vessels
Slip
A thin coat of fine clay mixed with water, brushed or dipped over a pot before firing to give it a smoother surface and a different colour.
A slip is liquid clay, finer than the body of the pot, applied as a skin over the surface. Because it can be made from a different clay, it lets a potter cover a coarse or dull body with a red, black or white finish. Many Cypriot ware names describe exactly this: Red Polished has a red slip that was then burnished, and White Slip has a thick, light slip over a dark fabric.
Slip also served as glue. Handles, spouts and feet were often joined to the body with a little slip while the clay was still leather-hard. Worn slip is common on excavated pots, and a heavily worn slipped sherd can be hard to tell from an unslipped one.
Related terms
- Burnishing
Rubbing the surface of an unfired pot with a smooth pebble, bone or tool to compact the clay and give it a sheen after firing.
- Fabric
The fired clay body of a pot as seen in a fresh break: its colour, hardness, texture and the grains and particles it contains.
- Leather-hard
The stage in drying when clay is firm enough to hold its shape but still damp enough to be trimmed, joined, incised or burnished.
- Black Slip ware
A Middle and Late Cypriot ware with a dark slip over a light clay, mostly incised juglets; the name was later reused for Iron Age classes too.
- Red Slip ware
A name given to several red-slipped Cypriot wares: a Middle and Late Bronze Age ware, an Iron Age class, and a Roman fine ware.
Where it appears
- Red Slip Ware
- Hellenistic and Roman Pottery in Cyprus
- Coarse Wares, Pithoi and Cooking Pots
- Plain White Ware
- Bichrome Red Ware
- Black Slip Ware
- Black-on-Red Ware
- Combed Ware
- Neolithic and Chalcolithic Wares
- Bottles
- Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus
- Decoration Techniques
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