Lime plaster
Burning limestone at 900 degrees produces a material that sets hard with water.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1.5 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 300 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Pre-Pottery Neolithic communities across the Levant burn limestone in kilns to make quicklime, then slake and apply it as floors, wall coatings and vessels. It is genuinely difficult pyrotechnology — sustained high temperature, and a chemical transformation that reverses on contact with water and air. Vaisselle blanche, white ware made from it, functions as containers before pottery exists, and the same chemistry underlies every mortar and cement since.