Pottery of the Ancient World - FBISD Campuses

Pottery of the Ancient World

The Beginnings of Ceramics

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Fired Clay Figurines

Made of clay and bone ash,
this is the tiny baked clay
figurine is known as the
"Venus" of Dolni
Vestonice. It is thought to
be about 29,000 years old
and have been fired in a
beehive shaped kiln in a
Stone Age village.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Ceramics in Prehistoric
Western Asia

An Outline Map of Western Asia Today
(also called the Middle East).

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

This tiny fired clay image of a wild boar
c.7000 BC. was also from Tepe Sarab in
Iran

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

A New Container Comes Out Of
The Bonfire

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

A Discovery

Shells, skulls, nuts and scooped out fruit skins all
must have been used to hold water, milk or blood
by our prehistoric ancestors. The discovery that
small lumps of clay could be squeezed and pressed
into cup or bowl shapes and then put in a bonfire
to make hard was an important stage in the life of
most prehistoric communities. Using the palm,
thumb and fingers to squash, squeeze, press and
poke, small bowls could have been made by
pressing out from seed and nut husks or shells and
also by pressing lumps of clay over large pebbles.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

The Basket and the Pot

In some communities basket making
probably led to the technique of pottery
making.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Egyptian Basket

Baskets like this made
from a variety of
plants would be strong
enough to carry quite
heavy loads. If such a
basket were lined with
animal skins and fat,
even water could be
carried from the river
to the village.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Clay-lined Baskets

At some point, probably before 7000 B.C.,
someone discovered an easier, less wasteful, way
to waterproof a basket - by smearing the inside
with a layer of stiff mud or clay.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

A Better Basket

Serious fires must have destroyed huts, even
villages on occasion. The discovery that clay lined
baskets became hard rot proof pots after such a
conflagration must have been one of the few
benefits of such a calamity. It would nevertheless
have been a very valuable discovery.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

A New Technology

A typical tiny prehistoric
pot pressed out of a small
lump of clay with the
thumb and shaped in the
palm of one hand with the
fingers of the other hand.
Decorated with just a row
of finger marks round the
sides.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Another tiny thumb
pot but with a more
sophisticated shape.
Probably for ritual
use, it has holes for
hanging and four beak
spouts. From a
neolithic "shrine" in
Liguria, NW Italy.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Women Potters

Clay pots would
have made
carrying water and
cooking a lot
easier than using
leather or woven
containers.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Reflections

What is the definition of “technology”?
What do you think of when you think of
new technologies? Why?

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

More Reflections

What are some reasons why people have
come up with new technologies?
What “old” technologies might pottery have
replaced (been a better solution for)?
Why do you think a technology continues to
be learned and used by people?

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Ancient Bowls: Various
Decorative Techniques

Impressing
Stamping
Scratching

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Egyptian Bowl

Bands have been scratched into the red clay, allowed to
stiffen a bit, and then white slip brushed or smeared over
and then allowed to dry somewhat more. It could then be
gently scraped until the incised pattern appeared white,
looking rather like stitches. This decoration may have been
done in stages.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Detail of Egyptian Pot

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Pottery Techniques

The technique of pressing and coiling clay
vessels and firing them in simple bonfires
had probably spread throughout most of
villages of Western Asia before 6500 BC.
The pressed and scratched decoration was
soon followed by brush painting with
different clay slips, usually cream, brown,
red, black or white. But human beings are
generally slow to accept change; most of us
like to keep the things we are used to.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Brushed Decoration

A bold basket decoration brushed on using
red and white slip. A small food bowl from
Hacilar in western Turkey c.5000 BC.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Examples of Brushed
Decorations

Part of a collection of shards from this early
period in Western Asia showing the brush strokes
and incised marks imitating basket patterns.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Brushed Dish

Halfa type dish found at Arpachiyah North
Iraq c.5000 BC.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Reconstructed Designs

Color drawing reconstruction of the dish
found at Arpachiyah in North Iraq.

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Reflections

What techniques of construction were first
used in creating pots?
What types and styles of decorations were
first used?
Can you find pots being done today using
these same methods of construction and
decoration?

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com

Resources

Hands in Clay: An Introduction to
Ceramics, Charlotte F. Speight, 1983
Victor Bryant’s web site,
http://www.victor.bryant.hemscott.net/

Back to www.pottery.netfirms.com