Top 4 Lost Techniques of Ancient Potters
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- 4 things that the ancient Southwest potters were masters of but we have few ideas how they did it today.
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CHAPTERS
0:00 Controlling Clay Drying
2:45 Making Glaze Paint
3:55 Purifying Slip Clay
5:55 Lost & Found Firing Techniques
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Andy Ward PO Box 43601 Tucson, AZ 85733
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What lost pottery techniques did I miss? Leave a comment below.
This is unrelated but have you tried using a can of PAM Spray to seal? While it is still hot, This may make applying sealing convenient. Assuming that it works in layers.🍕
You hit all the big questions! Awesome!
Don't know about the southwest but there is a tradition of using "sifting" baskets or baskets made with a weave that has holes of a certain size, to sift or strain liquids. They were used to remove the husks from corn and to sweep up the meat from hickory nuts when processing them.
I should look into this, I don't know a lot about baskets but this could definitely be something they did.
I was digging in my back yard making some post holes and it felt like digging through concrete when I got an inch deep. I wet the hole and got down with a post hole bar. After piling up the mud I dug out it dried out into a solid tower. I tested it how you showed in your wild clay videos and it seems like excellent clay. I've never done any pottery but thanks to your videos in going to try to make some ollas for my garden with the clay that came out of the post holes I dug in it.
I love your videos.
Thanks! Clay can be a curse for digging post holes but a blessing for the potter, have fun.
I'm always impressed with your depth of knowledge. Thanks
My pleasure!
Cordage made from local plants could theoretically be woven on a forked branch to make a sieve-like tool.
In NW NM you see pottery with black paint that is both carbon and mineral and kind of glaze-y. It really looks like they were trying to create glaze paint and not getting it right. I've never seen it described properly, just seen it in the field in San Juan County. How it is described depends on who is doing the description. It also depends on the amount of weathering because sometimes, under magnification, you can see how an upper layer of black paint came off leaving a dark or light gray line behind.
You are probably exactly right. I now from experience that glaze paint can be very hard to get right using natural materials. Very interesting, thanks.
I noticed, as a child, that the clay on bottom of a mud puddle was very pure at the top layer and more sandy at the bottom. Gently lifting the clay would give me very pure clay (slip) to play with. I used a spoon to gather it, but you could use a cupped pot shard. If there was still sand in it, I could purify it by mixing it with water in a jar (or pot) and pour the clean clay off and let it settle out. I never used a filter.
Wouldn't winnowing tend to blow away the stuff you want? Baskets can be very effective sieves.
Winnowing can be done carefully to sort particles by size much like a creek bed will. With the larger particles under the basket and the finer ones farther out. Certainly there will be some loss but likewise there is always some lost in levigation too. I’m no basket expert but I have never seen one that can effectively screen only the finest material like a paint strainer, the ones I have tried always let sand sized particles through.
I have used cotton cloth to screen fine particles out of slips, it works pretty well, although I'm never sure what the actual filter size is. I'm sure the Southwesterners had access to cotton, maybe even in different sized weaves. Wonderful and thought provoking video as always, Andy.
Instead of sieving I use a comb to take the twigs, roots and insects out of the clay while levigating it, because the ancients didn't have sieves. A certain amount is left in inevitably, and will make small burnt out markings of organic matter just as what you find on the original pots but that you usually don't find on modern ones. I think levigation was widespread practice to make most alluvial clay somewhat usable. There was nothing easier to do: you pour it from one container into the other many times and this won't leave any trace in archaeology except for having actually ancient pots made of clay in regions where the clay is really messy, which is the only ones I am familiar with.
Oh! A comb is a great idea, I will try that, thanks!
Great video, thank you.
Glad you liked it!
👍 What if you do the following if you want to do reduction? You smother the pot with dry soil and cover this dry pile of soil with a layer of wet clay, which hopefully allows less oxygen to pass through.
Thanks, I have been thinking about something similar. Using wet clay on the outside to make a good seal. I think it is worth a try.
@@AncientPottery
😀👍
That was a great video Andy, someday someone will find the answers to those questions
Thanks, hopefully we will.
Possible substitutes for plastic wrapping: cloth soaked with a mixture of beeswax and oil...
Perhaps very well greased leather.
Animal intestines can also make for good airtight/watertight wrapping. The Inuit make coats for kayaking to keep dry from whale intestines.
I plan to use waxed linen for wrapping my clay and pots when I work at the museum (iron age skandinavia)
Edit:
Not sure if there were honeybees in the Americas, but tallow or pitch from trees might also be an option.
Also perhaps rubber traded from middle America?
Great suggestions thanks. Bees wax was not available in North America before European contact.
@@naturebehindglass6512 The Aztecs collected honey from a different species of bee. As I understand it (probably poorly) this bee produced its honey in droplets rather than in honeycombs.
love it
That was wonderful
Thank you. Your knowledge and thoughts are much appreciated.
You are very welcome
I kinda wonder if the dye is actually clay itself.
Make clay a desired color, bake it, render it down as needed, and the color will be consistent as long as you're pulling form the same 'color brick'.
One thing archaeologists are pretty good at is examining the paints and determining what chemicals are there. So you can read archaeological publications and easily figure out what the paints were made from.
I used to live in Phoenix. There is hard layer of white caliche if you go down more than a couple feet. IIRC its mostly calcium carbonates and magnesium. Do know if it was used as a paint or glaze in native ceramics? Have you tried it. Im not sure if the Tuscon area has a similar layer
Fascinating they stored clay ready to use. Somewhat similar to a "mother" bread dough where a small uncooked portion is saved to inoculate or start the next batch. Keeping the clay from dying/drying....
Yes although I’m not sure if they would add a little of the old clay to the new the way you do sourdough starter
Howdy Andy - another great video ! Pottery building & Archaeology ! This video comes at a great time, I was pondering the other day about how the ancients made/stored their clay !
It's a question worth pondering. Thanks for watching!
@@AncientPottery I watched this video again & noticed that the old potter( 2:10 ) has a bowl to her left & it has an inner rim , where possibly another bowl may have been inverted onto it , thus providing a “sealed” jar ?!
I love Archaeology & these historic photos yu dig up , that I’ve never seen before , get me to thinking ! I appreciate you for your time & efforts & what you share !
Watching one of your other videos, you comment about having to be careful not to touch the surface with your gloves whilst it's still hot, or it will leave a mark. That raised the question for me (not for the first time!) of how they pulled the wood back from the pots in an oxidation firing, and even manipulated the pots. It occurred to me that antler might be used--probably elk. It's harder than bone and the tines would help to "hook" the pot, etc. Next time you're out and about and find a shed, maybe snag it and see how it works!
That's a good idea. I have used pieces of broken pots to good effect
Hello mister Andy
You're lucky to have this knowledge and the right tools to work with pottery
I really wish to start a pottery business but I can't
I just watch videos and enjoy watching the whole process
Thanks, I hope you get to play with clay very soon.
To keep clay wet, maybe clay was used wet primarily during the monsoon, or during the weeks (like now, late July) that precede the monsoon and the humidity is higher. Keeping it under a semi-waterproof cloth isn't completely unrealistic, as well. What few textiles have been found were frequently very high quality and we know that people knew how to waterproof textiles (and pots) using pitch or wax. Obviously, this isn't something that can be demonstrated archaeologically.
Yes good point.
Great video! I agree, when I’m building and firing a pot I often think of what techniques ancients may have had out of necessity to build, keep wet, and paint that ultimately lead to their success, that with our modern ways and plastic buckets, we might be missing key parts of the process leaving all of us just a bit shy of really good replication.
Levigation would be possible with unslipped pots to hold the suspensions.
Oh sure, they definitely had the right tools to perform levigation, the question is whether they actually ever figured out levigation or did it to purify clay. We may never know for sure, not all things about ancient life are provable through archaeology.
Indeed. I am not sure what kind of evidence would be indicative of the use of deliberate levigation. A lot of unfired clay deposited in a fired earthenware pot in a way such that a gradient of changing granularity might be indicative if there was no obvious natural source of water (like if the pot was on a raised alcove in a cave), suggesting deliberate mixing of clay and water along with allowing the suspension to settle. Not definitive, but certainly suggestive.
Terrible grammar on my part.
I'[ve long suspected that they may have used wet hides to keep clay and pots in progress damp. A well-soaked hide should stay damp much longer than cloth. It would be somewhat heavy, so it is possible that it was supported on a tripod of sticks or something like that to help prevent deformation--though thinner skins of smaller critters like rabbits would help solve the weight problem. That, in combination with building pots in the (relatively) higher humidity of monsoon season might help prevent cracking. So much of pottery making is tactile--you can gauge the smoothness of a pot or the thickness of a wall much better with your hands than your eyes--that pots may have been made in the dim (but cooler and slightly more humid) confines of a roomblock, and only brought out into the sun once it had dried and was ready for painting.
Good idea, this might be a fun experiment. How is Alberta? Are you coming to the conference this year?
@@AncientPottery Absolutely! Wouldn't miss it! We were actually down in Montana for a few days (just got back today), and that was when I watched your "Clay in Montana" vid. There is a pale green layer in a road cut not far from the cabin that I've had my eye on for many years...maybe this will give me the impetus to check it out!
@@silverriverarts I just uploaded next week’s video and you’re in it!
@@AncientPottery Brave man...I might have jinxed the whole video!
what kind of clay is best for slip
Clay that is a desirable color and is relatively fine in texture
I know we like to use only primitive methods, but is it possible to use commercial low fire clay as a slip on our wild clay pots? (like Laguna low fire grey colored clay turns white when fired) I may do an experimental little scrap piece to find out in the next fire. Just wondered what you know about that idea. Thank you : )
@@CeeJayKay sure pretty much any clay can be turned into a slip.
thanks it was really helpful ❤
Cool! I’ll try it. @@AncientPottery
Hi Andy, I mixed my clay in water and poured it through a sieve to get rid of the larger particles, I then drip dried the clay in a fabric bag.. what came out was a very fine slip! might be worth a try
good one
Thanks
Are old pottery shards protected? Do you have classes on finding them? I live in Phoenix ,but work in Tucson every Tuesday and Wednesday. I enjoy your videos. thanks Gary
Oh my, don't collect pottery sherds that takes away the joy of discovery from future explorers. These sherds I have were all collected many decades ago. I have classes on making them but not on finding them. The law, since you asked is that you can collect artifacts from private land with the owners permission but it is illegal to collect artifacts from public land.
Would you not be able to keep pottery from drying out with cloth soaked in oil/fat/wax/resin? Or seal a fired pot with a lid with unfired clay to make a fairly airtight container?
Maybe. Oil/fat was a fairly scarce commodity in the ancient Southwest.
Guesses:
1 - Animal stomachs hold water quite well. Add to a wet stomach and tie up with water in it. The sun causing water to evaporate some into air inside sack and keep it wet.
2 - I wonder if they didn't use metalic driers like cobalt or other metal sicatives mixed with silicates. These can be obtained with enough looking in wild. They could obtain by trade if not near sources. Herodotus may be worth a look.
3 - No clue.
4 - Possibly using metal or clay tubes to build heat hotter and introduce oxygen along with ash to keep oxygen away from pot and fire on top, maybe for days and slowly building up heat and slowly cooling. Key is oxygen galore for fire but no oxygen near pot. And slow build ups and slow drops in temp. Keeping stones around the fire in pit form would hold heat well.
Just ideas from a newbie with a bushcraft and historical mind and also an engineer.
I've always wondered about that first point for the same reason/s. Perhaps some cultures stored it in a wet hide? (One that was periodically wetted to keep it moist?)
I definitely like that buried jug hypothesis mentioned in the video. In many ways it definitely sounds more reasonable and pragmatic than the hide idea I just wildly guessed at lol
Yes, I have had a few comments here about using damp leather and the idea definitely has merit. I just wonder if keeping leather wet would ruin it. It seems like a deer hide would be a valuable item that you wouldn't want to ruin.
I wonder if they wrapped it in wet buckskin ? As a taxidermist i know you can keep it damp for many hours quite easily .
Hey Andy, I was struck by something at the end when you were digging up that pot. When it comes to killing the o2, how about using sand? Warm it next to the firing, then after you remove the coals completely bury your pot in this sand?
Also, you’ve said organic material can put marks on the pot. Is it possible to cook that material to preburn out all the organics? ( I have no idea on the how. Just wondering :)
Thanks! Love the channel
Thanks. I have tried sand and it seems like it lets a little oxygen seep through because it is a bit porous.
Storing processed clay.
Wrap it in damp cloth or animal hide, and put it in a earthenware pot which is placed in a creek, or inside a larger pot full of water. The weeping of the water through the vessel walls would maintain moisture levels of the stored clay.
There would likely be no archaeological record of this process.
Yes, good ideas. Thanks
I have assumed that bison dung was used before cattle dung. Is this wrong?
Depends on where you are. Bison (Buffalo) were not found west of the Rio Grande and even in areas where they were found they were not always common.
@@AncientPottery thx!
I think that they might have used a beeswax wraps to prevent clay from drying. Those wraps work like a plastic wrap and even better
There were no honey bees in America before European contact.
@@AncientPottery oh, thank you so much for your reply. I'm not really into American history, that's why I didn't know :)
Maybe ancient potters added some sticky liquid to make the clay more elastic, such as guar gum, or agave sap. I’m not a potter.
Maybe. Which of these 4 lost techniques do you suggest this would help with?
I realized that reduction (not with carbon to smoke things black) firing was the common method to fire, but there was a switch to oxidation firing over time so much of the Northern Pueblos dos this now. The only time they fire reduction today that i've seen is in the concert with adding sawdust or other plant things to make a black smoldering smoke for blackening pottery. That's one change. Another that I've seen, or suspect, is that much of the current methods for building pottery; this idea of building a cylinder and then pushing the sides out into the shape you want, is probably not traditional. Lastly, the coiling used today is thicker. If corrugated ancestral pottery is any indication, the coils used were generally small and continuous. Looking at Maria's pottery making and others, they use thick coils and more often make a doughnut or ring rather than a continuous upward progressing coil. Oh, and firing. Seems in the ancient past they used higher fired clay necessitating kilns. That switch from reduction fire to oxidation fire, and switch to favoring lower fired clays seem to have moved people away from formal kiln setups. Just my observations.
Don't confuse reduction with smudging.
The fact that there is no evidence can be considered as evidence of a technique that leaves not trace as the most likely source.
Wouldn't deer skin be a good moisture collector to keep clay pliable if kept moist? I'd be afraid of mold with underground wet storage.I'm kinda reticent to do all the work to use organic paints to carbonize and make black. Isn't it possible the added charcoal or carbon or is the color dependence on the organic binder embedding into the clay itself? My $12 corn grinder from WalMart is so small I doubt even very much corn could be ground much less chucks of clay. I will have to add higher wall for the bin and probably have to crush the clay into smaller 1" bits. But the price was $12. post paid. Love your editorials and the enthusiasm you have for this historical recreation work. If you;re ever near Phoenix to do a burn let me know. I've been collecting Pueblo pottery for a while and never understood why it was so different then my normal ceramics, the low fire and native clay! I still have two five gallon buckets of gray clay collected on the Hopi reservation from my fellow Vet and Hopi potter. I'm afraid to screw it up ,-)
Yes, I suppose leather might work, I am not all that familiar with working with leather. Would getting leather wet ruin it or cause it to decomposing?