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primitive pottery
Sep. 3rd, 2006 07:37 amDeva & Jen sent me a gift for my birthday they got in Ecuador. Two small ceramic bowls made by the indigenous people there. Very technically simple pots. I am interested in all pottery but have a particular interest in primitive and folk pottery still being created in traditional cultures because it provides an understanding of early period and Medieval peasant pottery.
These little bowls are hand built, very thin, even walls, the floor of one is convex. It is a slightly deeper red, which I believe is because it got hotter in the fire and the clay bloated. The only way to verify this is to break the pot and examine the interior which I’m certainly not going to do. ;-)
They have black geometric designs painted on them from “crushed rock’, which is probably a form of iron oxide; some outlines in buff which is probably white clay slip. They were decorated with a paintbrush made of the potter‘s hair. And finally my son was told the bowls were fired over an ‘open pot‘, probably a form of bonfire firing rather than a pit fire. While still hot from the fire these little guys were painted overall with a tree sap to render them water proof. Use of these pots is only for a few years before they begin to disintegrate. Some of the women in this village are the potters, but outsiders aren’t allowed to meet them.
I can so easily imagine a small Anglo Saxon or Norse village doing very similar things. I haven’t heard of painting the pots with tree sap, but they were dipped in other things to make them more waterproof.
These little bowls are hand built, very thin, even walls, the floor of one is convex. It is a slightly deeper red, which I believe is because it got hotter in the fire and the clay bloated. The only way to verify this is to break the pot and examine the interior which I’m certainly not going to do. ;-)
They have black geometric designs painted on them from “crushed rock’, which is probably a form of iron oxide; some outlines in buff which is probably white clay slip. They were decorated with a paintbrush made of the potter‘s hair. And finally my son was told the bowls were fired over an ‘open pot‘, probably a form of bonfire firing rather than a pit fire. While still hot from the fire these little guys were painted overall with a tree sap to render them water proof. Use of these pots is only for a few years before they begin to disintegrate. Some of the women in this village are the potters, but outsiders aren’t allowed to meet them.
I can so easily imagine a small Anglo Saxon or Norse village doing very similar things. I haven’t heard of painting the pots with tree sap, but they were dipped in other things to make them more waterproof.
