limestone.

Red brick the material for all large buildings. Limestone capitals of
debased leafage. Rudely cut relief patterns in wood. Coarsely carved
and turned bone or ivory. Pottery in Byzantine Age with white facing
and rudely painted figures. Textiles, with embroidery in colours, and
especially purple discs with thread designs of the earlier Arab
period. A characteristic of late Roman and Arab mounds is the organic
smell.

Muhammadan Period. Seventh to fifteenth centuries.
Characterized by great amounts of glazed pottery. Smaller antiquities
found in cemeteries or on ruined sites, the earliest transitional,
and related to Coptic examples of the same kinds. Pottery: lamps at
first continue Christian forms and are unglazed; afterwards long
spouted lamps of dark green glaze. Fragments of vessels, &c., from
the rubbish heaps of old Cairo are glazed; a typical faience has a
soft sandy body of light colour with painted designs in blue or blue
and brown with transparent glaze. Those of the Mamluk period, and
probably some of earlier date, show a general resemblance to Western
Asiatic contemporary wares, due to importation of potters from Syria,
Asia Minor, and Persia (between twelfth and fifteenth centuries).
Other varieties have decoration in metallic lustre on an opaque white
tin glaze; others again have monochrome glazes imitating imported
Chinese wares. Inscriptions very rare. Glass: if found, is in
fragments; rich coloured enamel designs are seldom earlier than the
thirteenth century. Textiles: chiefly found in small pieces; the
colours rich; ornament consisting of geometrical designs and Cufic
inscriptions. Any silk, or printed patterns, should be secured.