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Pottery

Also Known As Ceramics
Ceramics and Pottery Crafts
Potter's Wheel with Vessel Forming

Clay shaped by hand or wheel and made permanent by fire: the craft behind every bowl, jug and tile before industry, and behind the studio ceramics movement since. Pottery is humanity's oldest synthetic material, older than agriculture, and the potter's wheel, the kiln and the glaze are among the deepest tool traditions any craft carries. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Craft Class
Ceramic and Glass 1
Earliest Evidence (Circa)
Ceramic figurines circa 29,000 years before present (Dolni Vestonice); the oldest known pottery vessels circa 20,000 years before present (Xianren Cave, China) 1
Origin
The very earliest fired-clay objects were not containers at all: Gravettian figurines such as the Venus of Dolni Vestonice, fired roughly 27,000 years ago, predate the earliest known pottery vessels, found at Xianren Cave in China, by several thousand years. Firing distinguishes pottery types as much as clay does: stoneware is fired in a kiln at roughly 1,100 to 1,200 degrees Celsius and comes out strong and non-porous, unlike lower-fired earthenware. 1
Pottery
Filter Results7 entries
Connections

Associated With

The V&A holds dedicated Ceramics Galleries and one of the world's largest and most comprehensive ceramics collections.

Source Victoria and Albert Museum (Wikipedia)

Japanese ceramics carried the wabi-sabi outlook into asymmetry and unpredictable ash glazes.

Source Wabi-sabi (Wikipedia)

Has Figure

Bernard Leach, Figures
Source Bernard Leach (Wikipedia)
Source Maria Martinez (Wikipedia)
Shoji Hamada, Figures
Source Shoji Hamada (Wikipedia)

Open Questions

Tools Used

Source Ball Mill (Wikipedia)
Source Kiln (Wikipedia)

Kiln Furniture is used in Pottery.

Source Potter's Wheel (Wikipedia)

Pottery Gauge is used in Pottery.

Pugmill is used in Pottery.

Pyrometric Cone is used in Pottery.

Sources
1. Pottery (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery, History section
    The earliest known ceramic objects are Gravettian figurines, such as those discovered at Dolni Vestonice
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery, Stoneware section
    Stoneware is pottery that has been fired in a kiln at a relatively high temperature, from about 1,100 °C (2,010 °F) to 1,200 °C (2,190 °F), and is strong and non-porous to liquids.
View the Source
Ball Mill (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationTools Used: Ball Mill (Ceramics), Applications section
Quote, Tools Used: Ball Mill (Ceramics), Applications section
Ball mills are used for grinding materials such as mining ores, coal, pigments, and feldspar for pottery.
View the Source
Open Questions (1 open question)
When was porcelain, as distinct from stoneware, first made in China?

Chinese tradition never classified porcelain apart from stoneware, grouping both as high-fired ware against low-fired earthenware, so no historical record marks the moment a recognizably distinct porcelain first appeared.

What would resolve this A materials study fixing when Chinese high-fired ceramics first meet the translucency and composition thresholds used to define porcelain today.
ceramic materials sciencePottery (Wikipedia)
Frequently Asked Questions

What temperature is stoneware fired at?

Roughly 1,100 to 1,200 degrees Celsius.

Stoneware is fired in a kiln at roughly 1,100 to 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,010 to 2,190 Fahrenheit), which makes it strong and non-porous to liquids, unlike lower-fired earthenware.

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