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When studying the history of ceramics there are two
separate but related themes to look for; The technology and the
aesthetics. The technology develops in a fairly linear fashion
and to a great extent is a measure of a culture's overall technical
sophistication. At first, pots are made by hand with rolled coils
and fired on the ground in bonfires. Later the potters wheel
is invented, firing is made more fuel efficient and controlled
with kilns and glazes are developed. The aesthetic traditions
of a particular culture are greatly effected by the technical
means available to them, but the development of imagery is otherwise
quite independent from the idea of progress. The classical Roman
potters knew only low temperature firing techniques and were
ignorant of glazes. These Roman pots are technically less developed
than the glazed stoneware being made in China at the same time
but the imagery of the one can not be judged less sophisticated
than the other. Pot making is one of humankind's first inventions and because of the durability of fired clay it remains one of the best records of the beginnings of culture. Even so the record fades the further back in time we look. The earliest known pot making dates to about 10,000 BC in parts of Asia with other evidence from the middle east dating to about 6,000 BC. Because of the difficulty in firing to higher temperatures , and thus more durable ware, it is likely that the very earliest ceramic work was too soft to have survived or perhaps too scarce to have been found.
All of the earliest work was earthenware with no glaze. Many of these pots had the texture of basket weave embossed in the surface. Sometimes the impression is from a real basket suggesting that baskets were used as molds - especially for the base. Others have a simulated basket texture suggesting that older technique using baskets implied a tradition for surface decoration. The earliest know glazes are found in the Nile valley about 5,000 bc - "Egyptian past". water soluble soda and copper was mixed with the clay. This proved to be a technical oddity that did not lead to true glazing anywhere in the Mediterranean area. Most of what we call "high temperature ceramics" stoneware, porcelain, glazes, were developed by the Chinese about 2000 years before the rest of the world. Because of this, early development, the history of ceramics in Asia is a very complex and distinct subject. Potters Wheels are known to have been used in the Indus valley (Pakistan and northern India) about 3 to 4,000 BC but possibly earlier. We can't be exact about these dates however. Like many inventions, the idea of the potters wheel did not simply spring into the mind of one individual but evolved over many centuries independently in many areas of the world. Early port-potters wheels were simply a round base that could be pivoted easily to make hand building quicker. The idea evolved to the point where true potters wheels (able to sustain a constant rotation and powered by kicking a flywheel) appeared around 3000 BC in several areas of the middle east and China
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