The Beginnings of Pyrotechnology, Part II: Production and Use of Lime and Gypsum Plaster in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Near East

Abstract

AbstractCharacterization techniques of modern materials science have been used to extend a prior study (W. H. Gourdin and W. D. Kingery, “The Beginnings of Pyrotechnology: Neolithic and Egyptian Lime Plaster,” Journal of Field Archaeology 2 [1975]: 133–50) of plaster materials and their processing in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (ca. 7200–6000 B.C.). The “invention” of lime plaster can be traced back to at least the Epi-PaleolithicGeometric Kebaran (ca. 12,000 B.C.) and its use in architecture to the Natufian (10,300–8500 B.C.). The production of lime and gypsum plasters is described as a multi-step process requiring selection and collection of raw materials, heating of limestone at 800–900°C (gypsum at 150–200°C), slaking the quicklime in water to form the hydroxide, mixing with various additives, applying and shaping as a paste, and often coating with a slip coat and burnishing—a skilled craft activity having some structural similarities to pottery manufacture. Plaster production expanded in the Pre-Potter...