Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where a potter makes such wares is also called a pottery (plural potteries). The definition of pottery, used by the ASTM International, is "all fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products".'Standard Terminology Of Ceramic Whitewares And Related Products.' ASTM C 242–01 (2007.) ASTM International. End applications include tableware, decorative ware, sanitary ware, and in technology and industry such as electrical insulators and laboratory ware. In art history and archaeology, especially of ancient and prehistoric periods, pottery often means only vessels, and sculpted figurines of the same material are called terracottas."terracottas (sculptural works)", Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
Pottery is one of the oldest human inventions, originating before the Neolithic period, with ceramic objects such as the Gravettian culture Venus of Dolní Věstonice figurine discovered in the Czech Republic dating back to 29,000–25,000 BC. However, the earliest known pottery vessels were discovered in Jiangxi, China, which date back to 18,000 BC. Other early Neolithic and pre-Neolithic pottery artifacts have been found, in Jōmon Japan (10,500 BC), the Russian Far East (14,000 BC), Sub-Saharan Africa (9,400 BC),Simon Bradley, A Swiss-led team of archaeologists has discovered pieces of the oldest African pottery in central Mali, dating back to at least 9,400BC, SWI swissinfo.ch – the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), 18 January 2007. South America (9,000s–7,000s BC), and the Middle East (7,000s–6,000s BC).
Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a desired shape and heating them to high temperatures (600–1,400 °C) in a bonfire, pit, or kiln, which induces reactions that lead to permanent changes, including increasing the strength and rigidity of the object. Much pottery is purely utilitarian, but some can also be regarded as ceramic art. An article can be decorated before or after firing.
Pottery is traditionally divided into three types: earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. All three may be glazed and unglazed. Various techniques may also decorate all. In many examples, the group a piece belongs to is immediately apparent, but this is not always the case; for example, fritware uses little or no clay, so it falls outside these groups. Historic pottery of all these types is often grouped as either "fine" wares, relatively expensive and well-made, and following the aesthetic taste of the culture concerned, or "coarse", "popular", "folk" or "village" wares, mostly undecorated, and often less well-made.
Ceramic vessels have been used for cooking since antiquity due to their excellent thermal retention and even heat distribution. Porous earthenware, like the tagine, absorbs and releases moisture as steam to tenderise ingredients while preserving flavours.Wolfert, P. (2009). Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking. Wiley. Vitrified stoneware provides a dense, non-reactive surface that resists acidic interaction, ensuring taste purity.McGee, H. (2004). On Food and Cooking. Scribner. Structural integrity under thermal stress is managed by formulating the clay body to lower thermal expansion. This prevents cracking from temperature gradients between heat sources and ambient air.Kingery, W. D. et al. (1976). Introduction to Ceramics. Wiley-Interscience. Modern ceramic cookware often employs specialised glazes to resist thermal shock and scratching, providing a durable, hygienic interface for ovens and hobs.Myhrvold, N. et al. (2011). Modernist Cuisine. Cooking Lab.
A person who makes the pottery is called a potter.
Main types Earthenware
The earliest forms of pottery were made from clays that were fired at low temperatures, initially in pit-fires or in open bonfires. They were hand-formed and undecorated. Earthenware can be fired as low as , and is normally fired below .
Because unglazed earthenware is porous, it has limited utility for storing liquids or as tableware. However, earthenware has had a continuous history from the Neolithic period to today. It can be made from a wide variety of clays, some of which fire to a buff, brown, or black colour, with iron in the constituent minerals resulting in a reddish-brown. Reddish coloured varieties are called terracotta, especially when unglazed or used for sculpture. The development of ceramic glaze made impermeable pottery possible, improving the popularity and practicality of pottery vessels. Decoration has evolved.
Stoneware
Stoneware is pottery that has been fired in a kiln at a relatively high temperature, from about to , and is stronger and non-porous to liquids.Cooper (2010), p. 54 The Chinese, who developed stoneware very early on, classify this together with porcelain as high-fired wares. In contrast, stoneware could only be produced in Europe from the late Middle Ages, as European kilns were less efficient, and the right type of clay was less common. It remained a speciality of Germany until the Renaissance.Crabtree, Pamela, ed., Medieval Archaeology, Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, 2013, Routledge, , 9781135582982. At Google Books.
Stoneware is very tough and practical, and much of it has always been utilitarian, for the kitchen or storage rather than the table. But "fine" stoneware has been important in China, Japan, and the West, and continues to be made. Many utilitarian types have also come to be appreciated as art.
Porcelain
Porcelain is made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between . This is higher than that used for the other types, and achieving these temperatures was a long struggle, as was determining which materials were needed. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arise mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures.
Although porcelain was first made in China, the Chinese traditionally do not recognise it as a distinct category, grouping it with stoneware as "high-fired" ware, opposed to "low-fired" earthenware. This confuses the issue of when it was first made. A degree of translucency and whiteness was achieved by the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906), and considerable quantities were being exported. The modern level of whiteness was not reached until much later, in the 14th century. Porcelain was also made in Korea and in Japan from the end of the 16th century, after suitable kaolin was located in those countries. It was not made effectively outside East Asia until the 18th century.Cooper (2010), pp. 72–79, 160–79
Archaeology
The study of pottery can help provide insight into past cultures. Fabric analysis (see section below), used to analyse the fabric of pottery, is an important part of archaeology for understanding the archaeological culture of the excavated site by studying the fabric of artifacts, such as their usage, source material composition, decorative pattern, color of patterns, etc. This helps to understand characteristics, sophistication, habits, technology, tools, trade, etc., of the people who made and used the pottery. Carbon dating reveals the age. Sites with similar pottery characteristics share the same culture; those with distinct cultural characteristics but some overlap indicate cultural exchange, such as trade, living in the vicinity, or continuity of habitation. Examples are black and red ware, redware, Sothi-Siswal culture and Painted Grey Ware culture. The six fabrics of Kalibangan are a good example of how fabric analysis can identify a differentiated culture that was previously thought to be typical of Indus Valley civilisation (IVC) culture.
Due to its inherent durability, pottery serves as a primary source of archaeological data, often surviving as diagnostic fragments long after artifacts made of organic materials have decayed. When synthesised with broader archaeological evidence, the analysis of ceramic assemblages is instrumental in constructing theories regarding a society's socioeconomic organisation, economic prosperity, and cultural evolution.https://www.britannica.com/art/pottery/Archaeology-and-pottery Furthermore, ceramic studies allow for significant inferences concerning a culture's daily life, religious practices, and social hierarchies. The decorative and functional choices reflected in pottery can also reveal a society's complex attitudes toward neighbouring groups, its internal worldview, and its conceptualisation of the universe.
It is valuable to examine pottery as an archaeological record of potential interactions between peoples. When pottery is placed within the context of linguistic and migratory patterns, it becomes an even more prevalent category of social artifact. As proposed by Olivier P. Gosselain, it is possible to understand ranges of cross-cultural interaction by looking closely at the chaîne opératoire of ceramic production.See for further discussion and sources.
The methods used to produce pottery in early Sub-Saharan Africa fall into three categories: techniques visible (decoration, firing, and post-firing techniques), techniques related to the materials (selection or processing of clay, etc.), and techniques for molding or fashioning the clay. These three categories can be used to consider the implications of the recurrence of a particular sort of pottery in different areas. Generally, the techniques that are easily visible (the first category mentioned above) are readily imitated and may indicate a more distant connection between groups, such as trade in the same market or even relatively close settlements. Techniques that require more studied replication (i.e., the selection of clay and the fashioning of clay) may indicate a closer connection between people, as these methods are usually only transmissible between potters and those otherwise directly involved in production. Such a relationship requires the ability of the involved parties to communicate effectively, implying pre-existing norms of contact or a shared language between the two. Thus, the patterns of technical diffusion in pot-making visible in archaeological findings also reveal patterns of societal interaction.
Chronologies based on pottery are often essential for dating non-literate cultures and helpful for dating historic cultures as well. Trace-element analysis, mostly by neutron activation, allows the sources of clay to be accurately identified, and the thermoluminescence test can be used to provide an estimate of the date of last firing. Examining sherds from prehistory, scientists learned that during high-temperature firing, iron materials in clay record the state of the Earth's magnetic field at that moment.
Fabric analysis The "clay body" is also called the "paste" or the "fabric", which consists of 2 things, the "clay matrix" – composed of grains of less than 0.02 mm grains which can be seen using the high-powered microscopes or a scanning electron microscope, and the "clay inclusions" – which are larger grains of clay and could be seen with the naked eye or a low-power binocular microscope. For geologists, fabric analysis means the spatial arrangement of minerals in a rock. For Archaeologists, the "fabric analysis" of pottery entails the study of clay matrix and inclusions in the clay body, as well as the firing temperature and conditions. Analysis is done to examine the following 3 in detail:Fabric Analysis, cambridge.org, accessed 10 July 021.
How pottery was made, e.g., material, design, such as shape and style, etc. Its decorations, such as patterns, colors of patterns, slipped (glazing), or unslipped decoration Evidence of the type of use.