Clay & Pottery - Brief History
Our word ceramics comes from the Greek word
keramos which means potters' clay or earthen vessel.
Pottery is our oldest handicraft. In
prehistoric times, most likely water was carried in woven baskets lined with
river clay. After the water was poured out of the container the layer of clay
dried. The loss of moisture caused the shape to shrink and separate from the
sides of the basket. When the clay, now shaped like a pot, was removed, and
dried in the sun on hot sand, it retained the basket pattern. Early men and
women then discovered that they could harden the molded pottery in hot ashes
and make sturdy containers to transport and store foodstuffs. From these would
have been extended the pots formed by hand and decorated with crude tools.
From a very early date in history, some say at
least 400 B. C., earthenware pottery was produced on a mass scale by a potter's
wheel in many parts of the world.
The Egyptians made kilns to place their clay pots in for firing. The kiln was
lined with a kind of insulation brick that was made from a mixture of straw and
clay which had been dried in the sun. Later, the ancient Egyptians used a finer
clay with a high quartz content for their delicate pottery. They rubbed the
pieces with a smooth stone to give the a dull sheen or coated them with a fine
layer of another color of clay.
Further experimentation lead the Egyptians to
coat their clay objects with a bluish-green substance to make them non-porous.
This was a glaze composed of quartz, soda, and a mineral containing copper
which when fired covered the clay bowls and vases with a glass-like surface.
Ancient Greek vases are highly valued for form
and decoration. The graceful lines an perfect balance speak to our desire for
beauty. The pottery was decorated with pictures of the daily lives of the
people and stories of their gods, goddesses and heroes. On the red figure vases
the background was painted black and the figures were left the natural red
color of the clay. The color was reversed on the black-figured vases
In medieval times sand was mixed with clay to
make cooking pots strong enough to be placed over an open fire. Today, for the
same reason, casseroles used for baking are made from clay mixed with grog
which is a ground-up fired pottery. The openness of grog clay allows water to
evaporate more evenly as it dries and prevents cracking and warping during the
firing. Grog clay eases the problem of heat expansion which can cause large
thick pieces of pottery or sculpture to blow up in the kiln.
Around the middle of the thirteenth century German potters started to
produce stoneware. This pottery was made form finer clays and fired at a higher
temperature than earthenware. Stoneware was tan or gray in color, strong and
naturally non-porous.
Light, transparent porcelain was first produced
in China. Porcelain was made from a very plastic and pure clay called kaolin
mixed with felspar. The colorful decoration of the porcelain was accomplished
by firing each color individually after it was applied. These delicate china
dishes and figurines were in demand all over Europe. In their efforts to
unravel the secret of the composition of the Chinese porcelain, European and
other Asian potters developed many variations in their glazing techniques.
Rakuware is another type of pottery of special
interest. The crackled glaze of raku originated in Japan where tea bowls were
modeled by hand from a very coarse clay (Hanson, 1970).
Late in the sixteenth century, a trade route through Manila, brought pottery from China to Acapulco to Vera Cruz, Mexico to Europe.