Chapter IX: Part 9

_Technical Methods._--All primitive pottery, whether of ancient or of
modern times, has been made by the simplest methods. The clay, dug
from the earth's surface, was or is prepared by beating and kneading
with the hands, feet or simple mallets of stone or wood; stones and
hard particles were picked out; and the mass, well tempered with
water, was used without any addition. From this clay, vessels were
shaped by scooping out or cutting a solid lump or ball, by building up
piece by piece and smoothing down one layer upon another or by
squeezing cakes of clay on to some natural object or prepared mould or
form. The potter's wheel, though very ancient, was a comparatively
late invention, arrived at independently by many races of men. In its
simplest form it was a heavy disk pivoted on a central point to be set
going by the hand, as the workman squatted on the ground; and it may
be seen to-day in India, Ceylon, China or Japan, in all its primitive
simplicity (see fig. 1). This form of potter's wheel was the only one
known until about the Christian era, and then, in Egypt apparently,
the improvement was introduced of lengthening the spindle which
carries the throwing-wheel and mounting on it near the base a much
larger disk which the potter could rotate with his foot, and so have
both hands free for the manipulation of the clay (fig. 2). No further
advance seems to have been made before the 17th century, when the
wheel was spun by means of a cord working over a pulley; and though a
steam-driven wheel was introduced in the middle of the 19th century,
this form remains the best for the production of fine pottery.

A prevalent misconception with regard to the potter's wheel needs
correction. For anything beyond very simple shapes it is impossible to
carry the work to completion on the wheel at one operation as is
generally imagined. All that the potter can do while the clay is soft
enough to "throw" on the wheel is to get a rough shape of even
thickness. This operation completed, the piece is removed from the
wheel and set aside to dry. When it is about leather-hard, it may be
re-centred carefully on the wheel (the old practice), or placed in a
horizontal lathe (since 16th century) and turned down to the exact
shape and polished to an even, smooth surface. The Greek vase-makers
were already adepts in what is often reckoned a modern, detestable
practice. Many Greek vases have obviously been "thrown" in separate
sections, and when these had contracted and hardened sufficiently they
were luted together with slip, and the final vase-shape was smoothed
and turned down on the wheel, and even polished to as fine a degree of
mechanical finish as the modern potter ever attains. So too with the
Chinese; many of their forms have been made in two or three portions,
subsequently joined together and finished on the outside as one piece.
Indeed it is remarkable how the Greeks and Chinese had discovered for
themselves many devices of this kind which are generally held up to
opprobrium as the debased methods of a mechanical age. Always it
should be borne in mind that the shaping of pottery by "pressing"
cakes of clay into moulds is much older than the potter's wheel, and
has always been the method of making shapes other than those in the
round. The modern method of "casting" pottery by pouring slip, a fluid
mixture of clay and water, into absorbent moulds seems to have
originated in England about the middle of the 18th century; and this
too is a genuine potter's method which does not merit the disapproval
with which it has been generally regarded by writers on the potter's
art.

In all ages the work of the "thrower" or "presser" has been largely
supplemented by the modeller, who alters the shape, and applies to it
handles, spouts or modelled accessories at will.

_Firing._--The firing of pottery has become in modern times such a
specialized branch of the manufacture that the student can only be
referred here to the technological works mentioned in the bibliography
at the end of this article. It is, however, necessary that we should
briefly describe the earlier forms of potters' kilns used by the
nations whose pottery counts among the treasures of the collector and
the antiquary. Here again we now know that the primitive types of kiln
used by the potters of ancient Egypt or Greece have not vanished from
the earth; it is only in the civilized countries of the modern world
that they have been replaced by improved and perfected devices. The
potters of the North-West Provinces of India use to-day a kiln
practically identical with that depicted in severest silhouette on the
rock-tombs of Thebes; and the skilful Japanese remain content with a
kiln very similar to the one shown in fig. 3. This Greek type of kiln
was improved and enlarged by the Romans, and its use seems to have
been introduced wherever pottery was made under their sway, for
remains of Roman kilns have been found in many countries (see fig. 4).
With the end of Roman dominance we have ample evidence that their
technical methods fell into disuse, and the northern European potter
of the period from the 6th to the 12th century had to build up his
methods afresh, and improved kilns were invented. The general type of
medieval potter's kiln is illustrated for us in the manuscript of an
Italian potter of the 16th century, now in the library of the Victoria
and Albert Museum[3] (fig. 5). Kilns of a different type, horizontal
reverberatory kilns, were used for making the hard-fired pottery of
Europe (Rhenish stoneware, &c.), as well as for Chinese porcelain and
the earliest German porcelains. With the organization of pottery as a
factory industry in the 18th century, improved kilns were introduced,
and the type of kiln now so largely used in civilized countries is
practically a vertical reverberatory furnace of circular section, from
10 to 22 ft. in diameter and of similar height, capable, therefore, of
containing at one firing a quantity of pottery that would have formed
the output of a medieval potter for a year. Every device that can be
thought of for the better utilization of heat and its even
distribution throughout the kiln or oven has been experimented with;
and, though the results have been most successful from the point of
view of the potter, even the most recent coal-fired ovens remain very
wasteful types of apparatus, the amount of available heat being
relatively small to the fuel consumption. Gas-fired kilns and ovens
are now being used or experimented with in every country, and their
perfection, which cannot be far distant, will improve the most vital
of the potter's processes both in certainty and economy.

_Glazes._--We are never likely to known when glaze (i.e. a coating of
fired glass) was first applied to pottery, though the present state of
knowledge would incline us to the opinion that the earliest glazed
objects we possess are those of ancient Egypt,[4] but the practice may
have been originated independently wherever a knowledge of the
elements of glass-making had spread, as all the early glazes were of
the alkaline type, which must first be fused into a glass before they
can be applied to pottery.

Many primitive races seem to have burnished their pottery after it was
fired, in order to get a glossy surface; and in other cases the
surface was rendered shining and waterproof by coating it with waxy or
resinous substances which were often coloured. It is possible that the
black varnish of Greek vases was obtained by such a method, and though
that point is not settled, we have many types of primitive pottery,
both modern and ancient, which are coated in this way. Such a coating
is only a substitute for glaze in the work of peoples who do not know
or have not mastered the technical secrets of true glazes. We can only
consider as glazes those definite superficial layers of molten
material which have been fired on the clay substance. Glazes are as
varied as the various kinds of pottery, and it must never be forgotten
that each kind of pottery is at its best with its appropriate glaze.
The earliest known glazes (Egyptian and Assyrian) were silicates of
soda and lime containing very little alumina and no lead. Such glazes
are very uncertain in use, and can only be applied to pottery
unusually rich in silica (i.e. deficient in clay). Consequently these
alkaline glazes cannot be used on ordinary clay wares, and when they
have been used successfully, the clay has always been coated with a
surface layer of highly siliceous substance (e.g. the so-called
Persian, Rhodian, Syrian and Egyptian pottery of the early middle
ages). The fact that glazes containing lead-oxide would adhere to
ordinary pottery when alkaline glazes would not was discovered at a
very early period; for lead glazes were extensively used in Egypt and
the nearer East in Ptolemaic times, and it is significant that, though
the Romans made singularly little use of glazes of any kind, the
pottery that succeeded theirs, either in western Europe or in the
Byzantine empire, was generally covered with glazes rich in lead.
Throughout Europe, and over the greater part of the world, leaded
glazes have been continuously used and improved for all ordinary
pottery, and it is only with certain special hard-fired types of ware
that they have yet been successfully replaced. Chinese porcelain and
all the European porcelains made by analogous methods are fired at so
high a temperature that a glaze by felspar softened by lime and silica
is found most suitable for them, and the hard-fired stonewares, rich
in silica, are often glazed with a salt glaze, or a melted earth rich
in oxide of iron.

Every kind of potter's clay (the mixture of clay, sand, flint, &c.,
from which the potter shapes his wares) has its own type of glaze, and
from the earliest time down to our own what the potter could produce
in form or glaze or colour has been largely decided for him by the
clay material at his command. With any good plastic clay which cannot
be fired at the highest temperature, lead glazes have always proved
the most practicable. A similar clay, to which large quantities of
sand are added, may be glazed by the vapours of common salt; and
mixtures rich in felspar, like Chinese or European porcelain, can be
glazed by melting felspathic materials upon them. Naturally those
species of pottery which are the hardest fired are the most
durable--the glazes of hard porcelain are more unchangeable than lead
glazes, and these in their turn than alkaline glazes.

The most important types of glaze are (1) alkaline glazes (e.g.
Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, &c.), the oldest and most uncertain; (2)
lead glazes, the most widespread in use and the best for all ordinary
purposes; (3) felspathic glazes, the glazes of hard-fired porcelains,
generally unsuited to any other material; (4) salt glaze, produced by
vapours of common salt, the special glaze of stonewares. Many
intermediate glazes have been devised to meet special needs, but these
remain the only important groups. Fuller details on this important
subject must be sought in the technical works.

_Colours._--The primitive potters of ancient and modern times have all
striven to decorate their wares with colour. The simplest, and
therefore the earliest, colour decoration was carried out in natural
earths and clays. The clays are so varied in composition that they
fire to every shade of colour from white to grey, cream, buff, red,
brown, or even to a bronze which is almost black. One clay daubed or
painted upon another formed the primitive palette of the potter,
especially before the invention of glaze. When glaze was used these
natural clays were changed in tint, and native earths, other than
clays, containing iron, manganese and cobalt, were gradually
discovered and used. It is also surprising to note that some of the
very earliest glazes were coloured glasses containing copper or iron
(the green, turquoise and yellow glazes of the ancient Egyptians and
Assyrians). Marvellous work was wrought in these few materials, but
the era of the finest pottery-colour dawns with the Persian, Syrian
and Egyptian work that preceded the Crusades. By this time the art of
glazing pottery with a clear soda-lime glaze had been thoroughly
learnt. Vases, tiles, &c., shaped in good plastic clay, were covered
with a white, highly siliceous coating fit to receive glazes of this
type, and giving the best possible ground for the painted colours then
known. With this rudimentary technique the potters of the countries
south and east of the Mediterranean produced, between the 9th and 16th
centuries of our era, a type of pottery that remains ideal from the
point of view of colour: for, with nothing more than the greens given
by oxide of copper and iron, the turquoise of pure copper, the deep
yet vivid blue of cobalt, the beautiful uncertain purple of manganese,
and in certain districts the rich red of Armenian bole, they achieved
colour schemes that have never been surpassed in their brilliant yet
harmonious richness.

When the coating of white siliceous clay was replaced by an opaque
tin-enamel as in Spain, Italy, France, Holland, &c., a necessary
change in the colour schemes resulted. At first only the copper-greens
and cobalt-blues could be used on such a ground; the fine manganese
purple turned to brown or black and the rich iron-reds to filthy
shades of yellow. We cannot wonder that the Spanish-Arab potters paid
more attention to their lustre decoration, for that was the natural
thing to do. How strong and fine a palette could be evolved for use on
a tin-enamel ground was shown by the Italian majolists of the 15th and
16th centuries; and when the later developments of tin-enamelled
pottery took place in France, Holland, Germany, &c., their colour
schemes are only echoes of Italian majolica crossed with Chinese
porcelain. Delft, Nevers, Moustiers and Rouen may each charm us with
its individuality; Nuremberg and other south German towns may show us
that they too had mastered the use of tin-enamel; yet our minds always
go back to the colour schemes of Italian majolica and of the Persian
and Syrian pottery that lie behind and beyond them.

The colours already spoken of were either clay colours or what are
known as "under glaze" colours, because they were painted on the
pottery before the glaze was fired.

The earliest glazes of the Egyptians appear not to have been white,
but were coloured throughout their substance, and this use of coloured
glazes as apart from painted colour was developed along with the
painted decoration by the later Egyptian, Syrian and Persian potters.
Green, yellow and brown glazes were almost the only artistic
productions of the medieval European potters' kilns, and their use
everywhere preceded the introduction of painted pottery. The most
extensive application of coloured glazes was, however, that made by
the Chinese, who developed this type of colour decoration before they
used painted patterns in underglaze colour. The earliest Chinese
porcelains, and the hard-fired stonewares out of which their porcelain
arose, were decorated in this way, and the beauty of many of the early
Sung coloured glazes has never been surpassed.

With the exceedingly refractory felspathic glazes of Chinese porcelain
very few underglaze colours could be used; and the prevalence of blue
and white among the early specimens of Chinese porcelains is due to
the fact that cobalt was almost the only substance known to the
potters of the Ming dynasty which would endure the high temperature
needed to melt their glazes. Consequently the Chinese were driven to
invent the method of painting in coloured fusible glasses on the
already fired glaze. They adopted for this purpose the coloured
enamels used on metal; hence the common term "enamel decoration,"
which is so generally applied to painting in those colours which are
attached to the already fired glaze by refiring at a lower
temperature. With the introduction of this many-coloured Chinese
porcelain into Europe the same practice was eagerly followed by our
European potters, and a new palette of colours and fresh styles of
decoration soon arose amongst us. Painting in on-glaze colours, being
executed on the fired glaze, resembles glass painting, and it
generally offers a striking contrast both in technique and
colour-quality to the painting executed in colours under the glaze. In
the former the work can be highly finished and the most mechanical
execution is possible, but the colours are neither so rich nor so
brilliant as under-glaze colours, nor have they the same softness as
is given by the slight spread of the under-glaze colour when the glaze
is melted over it.

It must be pointed out that the colour possibilities in any method of
pottery decoration are largely dependent on the temperature at which
the colour needs to be fired. The clay colours are naturally more
limited in range than the under-glaze colours, and these in their turn
than the on-glaze colours.

When, about the middle of the 18th century, European pottery took on
its modern form, of earthenware made after the English fashion, and
porcelain like the French and German, the lead or felspathic glazes
used brought about another revolution in the potter's palette. The
growing ideal of mechanical perfection discounted the freedom of the
earlier brushwork, and printed patterns, or painting that might almost
have been printed, removed the mind still farther from the richness of
painted faience or majolica. It is useless to look for the glorious
colour of Persian faience, Italian majolica, or Chinese porcelain, in
modern wares produced by manufacturing processes where mechanical
perfection is demanded to a degree undreamt of before the 19th
century. The finest modern pottery colour is only to be sought in the
work of those enthusiasts and experimenters who are striving to
produce work as rich and free as the best of past times.

_Metals_.--The noble metals, such as gold, platinum and silver, have,
since the early years of the 18th century, been largely used as
adjuncts to pottery decoration, especially on the fine white
earthen-wares and porcelains of the last two centuries. At first the
gold was applied with a kind of japanner's size and was not fired to
the glaze, but for the last 150 years or so the metals have generally
been fired to the surface of the glaze like enamel colours, by mixing
the metal with a small proportion of flux or fusible ground glass.
There can scarcely be a doubt that the ancient lustres of Persia,
Syria and Spain were believed to be a form of gilding, though their
decorative effect was much more beautiful than gilding has ever been.
The early Chinese and Japanese gilding appears, like the European, to
have been "sized" or water-gilt, not fired; and it seems probable that
the use of "fired" gold was taught to the Oriental by the European in
the 18th century. To-day "liquid" gold is exported to China and Japan
from Europe for the use of the potter.

PRIMITIVE POTTERY

We can group together that great and widely-spread class of vessels made by the primitive races of mankind, whether before the dawn of civilization or at the present day, for it is interesting to note that many modern races still make pottery by the same rude method as the Neolithic races of Europe and Asia, and with striking similarity of result. In fact, the knowledge of the methods and practices of the primitive potters of our own time furnishes the best possible guide to the methods of fabrication and ornamentation of the ancient specimens that are dug up from barrows, grave mounds, and tumuli. It is only natural that the materials and methods of such pottery are always of the simplest. The clay is used with very little preparation, and it is no unusual thing to find bits of stone, gravel, &c., embedded in the paste of such wares, though at a later stage of development they would have been removed. It must be remarked, however, that no race of potters practised the art for long without discovering that their vessels were not so liable to crack in drying, or lose their shape in firing, if fine sand or pounded "potsherds" were mixed with the clay; and when we are dealing with the work of races that have passed beyond the Stone Age and have learned the use of metals we find this custom universal.

There are three methods of shaping which seem to be common to almost every primitive race:--

1. The scooping out of a vessel from a ball of clay.

2. The building up of a form, often on a piece of basket-work or
matting, gradually raising the walls higher by applying and smoothing
down successive layers of clay.

3. Coiling; in which the clay is rolled out into thin ropes, and these
are coiled round and round upon each other and smoothed down with the
hands and with simple tools of bone, wood or metal.

The use of the potter's wheel is unknown, while it is remarkable how beautifully true and finely-fashioned much primitive pottery is. The primitive red and black vases discovered by Flinders Petrie in Egypt, and the somewhat similar vessels of prehistoric date from Spain, are remarkable instances of this. Some primitive races leave their pottery without decoration, especially when they have a fine red-burning clay to work in, but, generally speaking, primitive pottery of every race and time is elaborately decorated, but only with the simplest patterns. Such decorations consist of lines, dots or lunette-shaped depressions arranged in crosses, chevrons, zigzags or all-over repeated pattern. All this ornament is scratched or impressed into the clay before it is fired. Simplest of all is, perhaps, the pattern which has so obviously been produced by pressing a twisted thong round the neck or bowl of a vase; though the thong may have been used in the first instance merely to serve as a support while the vessel was dried. At a later stage the ornament is generally obtained by scratching with a tool, by pressing the end of a hollow stick into the clay to form rows of circles, by using a stick cut at the end into the shape of a half-moon, or other equally simple decorative device. In certain tropical countries this rudimentary pottery becomes hard enough for a certain amount of use when merely dried in the sun, but in all northern and temperate countries it must have been fired, probably in the most imperfect way, in an open fire or in such a kiln as could be formed by sinking a hole into the ground and erecting round it a screen of stones. How imperfect the firing was is shown by the ashen-grey colour due to smoke. In those countries where the ware has been more perfectly fired the pieces naturally become buff, drab, brown or red.

The primitive vessels that have been found in the grave-mounds of England and the northern countries generally have received a number of fanciful names for which there is very little warrant except in the case of the cinerary urns. These are generally the largest vessels of this class, and as they were used to contain burnt bones there seems sufficient warrant for the supposition that they were made for this and for no other purpose.

Our knowledge of primitive pottery has been greatly improved during recent years by the labours of a number of American students connected with the United States Geological Survey, who have carefully recorded the present-day practices of those native tribes who make and use pottery in various parts of North America and Mexico; while, in the same way, Peruvian, Brazilian and other South American pottery has been as closely investigated by European observers. It should be noted that no primitive pottery reveals any trace of a knowledge of glaze, though much of it has been highly polished after firing, and in some cases a varnish has been applied which may perhaps be regarded as the earliest kind of "glazing" ever applied to pottery vessels.

LITERATURE.--On primitive pottery the following works may be specially
mentioned. W. Greenwell, _British Barrows_ (1877); Boyd-Dawkins,
_Early Man in Britain_ (1880); Mortimer, _Forty Years' Researches in
British and Saxon Burial-mounds of East Yorkshire_ (1905); Abercromby,
"The Oldest Bronze-age Ceramic Type in Britain," _J. Anth. Inst._ vol.
xxxii. (1902), 373; _Guide to Antiquities of the Bronze Age_ (British
Museum, 1904); Koenen, _Gefässkunde der vorrömischen, römischen und
fränkischen Zeit in den Rheinländern_ (1895); Wosinsky, _Der
inkrustierte Keramik der Stein- und Bronze-zeit_ (1904); Walters,
_History of Ancient Pottery_ (Greek and Roman) (1905); Holmes,
_Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States_ (Bureau of
Ethnology, Washington, 1899); also Holmes and Cushing in _Report_ of
Bureau of Ethnology for 1882; Wiener, _Pérou et Bolivie_ (1880); Von
der Steinen, _Natur-Völkerei Central Brasiliens_ (1894); Hartman,
_Archaeological Researches in Costa Rica_ (1905); Strebel, on "Mexican
Pottery" in _Publications_ of Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlin, vol. 6,
1899); Werner, _British Central Africa_ (1907); Füllborn, _Deutsche
Ost-Afrika_, vol. ix. (1907); Macluer, "Kabyle Pottery," _Journ. Anth.
Inst._ vol. xxxii. p. 245, and "Upper Egypt," _ibid_. xxxv. p. 20;
Myres, "Early Pottery Fabrics of Asia Minor," _Journ. Anth. Inst._
xxxiii. p. 367; Turveren Museum, _Notes analytiques sur les
collections ethnographiques du Congo_, tome ii. (1907); Cupart,
_Debuts de l'art de l'ancienne Égypte_ (1903). (W. B.*)

EGYPT AND WESTERN ASIA

_Egyptian Pottery_.--Egypt affords us the most striking instance of the development of the potter's art. As in other countries pottery was made even in Neolithic times, for the Nile mud forms a fine plastic clay and sand is of course abundant. With these materials various kinds of pottery, often extremely well made and of good form, have been continuously produced for common domestic requirements, but such pottery was never glazed.

The wonderful glazes of the Egyptians were applied to a special preparation which can hardly be called pottery at all, it contained so little clay. Yet as early as the 1st Dynasty the Egyptians had learnt to shape little objects in this tender material and cover them with their wonderful turquoise glazes. We have therefore to study the development of two independent things: (1) the ordinary pottery of common clay left without glaze; (2) the brilliant glazed faience which appears to be special to Egypt, though it may have been the groundwork for the technique of the slip-faced painted and glazed pottery of the nearer East.

We probably do not possess any specimens of the most primitive Neolithic pottery; the oldest type known to us, the black and red ware of Ballas and Nagada (1), dates from the later Neolithic age, when copper was just beginning to be used. This ware is very hard and compact and the face is highly burnished. The red colour was produced by a wash of fine red clay; the black is an oxide of iron obtained by limiting the access of air in the process of baking, which was done, Professor Petrie suggests, by placing the pot's mouth down in the kiln, and leaving the ashes over the part which was to be burnt black. Both red and black colour go right through in every case. All-red and all-black vases are occasionally found, the red with geometrical decorations in white colour, and the black with incised decoration. The forms are usually very simple, but at the same time graceful, and the grace of form is more remarkable when it is remembered that none of this early pottery was made on the wheel. Pottery of almost similar technique was found in Crete in 1905 during the American excavations at Vasiliki near Hierapetra. The general appearance of the Cretan pottery is much the same as that of the Egyptian, and the duller red and black decoration (which here has a spotted or mottled appearance) was probably obtained in the same way, the black spots being due to the action of separate fragments of the baking material. This discovery is important in view of the probable early connexion of the Cretan and Egyptian culture-centres.

A very similar red and black ware, usually of thinner and harder make, and often with a brighter surface, was introduced into Egypt at a later date (XIIth Dynasty), probably by Nubian tribes who were descended from relatives of the Neolithic Egyptians. From their characteristic graves these people are called the Pan-Grave people, and their pottery is known by the same name.

Perhaps rather later in date than the early red and black wares, but by no means certainly so, the second characteristic type of primeval Egyptian pottery is a ware of buff colour with surface decorations in red. These decorations are varied in character, including ships, birds and human figures; wavy lines and geometrical designs commonly occur. The whole _facies_ of this ware seems very un-Egyptian, and it has been compared with the decorated "Kabyle pottery" of modern times. To call the people who made this ware "Libyans" on the strength of this resemblance of their pottery to that of the modern Kabyles, six thousand years later, seems, however, rash. The prehistoric Egyptians were not Kabyles or Libyans, but Nilotes, and the peculiar decoration of their pottery, which seems so strangely barbaric, is in reality merely the most ancient handiwork of the Egyptian painter, and marks the first stage in the development of pictorial art on the banks of the Nile (2). Other types of pottery (3), in colour chiefly buff or brown, were also in use at this period; the most noticeable form is a cylindrical vase with a wavy or rope band round it just below the lip, which developed out of a necked vase with a wavy handle on either side. This cylindrical type outlived the red and black and the red and buff decorated styles (which are purely Neolithic and predynastic) and continued in use in the early dynastic period, well into the Copper age. The other unglazed pottery of the first three dynasties is not very remarkable for beauty of form or colour, and is indeed of the roughest description (4), but under the IVth Dynasty we find beautiful wheel-made bowls, vases and vase-stands of a fine red polished ware (4). This fine ware continued in use at least as late as the XVIIIth Dynasty, though the forms of course differed from age to age. Under the XIIth Dynasty, and during the Middle Kingdom generally, either this or a coarser unpolished red ware was in use. The forms of this period are very characteristic (5); the vases are usually footless, and have a peculiar globular or drop-like shape--some small ones seem almost spherical. At this period the foreign "Pan-Grave" black and red pottery was also in use (see above).

The art of making a pottery consisting of a siliceous sandy body coated with a vitreous copper glaze seems to have been known unexpectedly early, possibly even as early as the period immediately preceding the Ist Dynasty (4000 B.C.). Under the XIIth Dynasty pottery made of this characteristic Egyptian faience seems to have come into general use, and it continued in use down to the days of the Romans, and is the ancestor of the glazed wares of the Arabs and their modern successors (6). The oldest Egyptian glazed ware is found usually in the shape of beads, plaques, &c.--rarely in the form of pottery vessels. The colour is usually a light blue, which may turn either white or green; but beads of the grey-black manganese colour are found, and on the light blue vases of King Aha (who is probably one of the historical originals of the legendary "Mena" or Menes) in the British Museum (No. 38,010) we have the king's name traced in the manganese glaze on (or rather in) the blue-white glaze of the vase itself, for the second glaze is inlaid. This style of decoration in manganese black or purple on copper-blue continued till the end of the "New Empire" shortly before the XXVIth (Saite) Dynasty. It was not usual actually to inlay the decoration before the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The light blue glaze was used well into the time of the XIIth Dynasty (British Museum, No. 36,346), but was then displaced by a new tint, a brilliant turquoise blue, on which the black decoration shows up in sharper contrast than before. This blue, and a somewhat duller, greyer or greener tint was used at the time for small figures, beads and vases, as well as for the glaze of scarabs, which, however, were usually of stone-schist or steatite --not faience. The characteristically Egyptian technique of glazed stone begins about this period, and not only steatite or schist was employed (on account of its softness), but a remarkably brilliant effect was obtained by glazing hard shining white quartzite with the wonderfully delicate XIIth Dynasty blue. A fragment of a statuette plinth of this beautiful material was obtained during the excavation of the XIth Dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahri in 1904 (British Museum, No. 40,948). Vessels of diorite and other hard stones are also found coated with the blue glaze. A good specimen of the finest XIIth Dynasty blue-glazed faience is the small vase of King Senwosri I. (2400 B.C.) in the Cairo Museum (No. 3666) (6). The blue-glazed hippopotami of this period, with the reeds and water-plants in purplish black upon their bodies to indicate their habitat, are well known. Fine specimens of these are in the collection of the Rev. Wm. MacGregor at Tamworth (8).

The blue glaze of the XIIth Dynasty deepened in colour under the XIIIth, to which the fine blue bowls with designs (in the manganese black) of fish and lotus plants belong (8) (British Museum, Nos. 4790, &c.). The finest specimens of XVIIIth Dynasty blue ware have come from Deir el-Bahri, in the neighbourhood of which place there may have been a factory for the manufacture of votive bowls, cups, beads, &c., of this fine faience, for dedication by pilgrims in the temple of Hathor (good collection in British Museum). Towards the end of this dynasty polychrome glazes came into fashion; white, light and dark blue, violet, purple, red, bright yellow, apple-green and other tints were used, not only for smaller objects of faience, such as rings, scarabs, kohl-pots, &c., but also for vases, e.g. No. 3965 of the Cairo Museum (Amenophis III. wine-bottle), the ground colour of which is white with a decoration of flower wreaths in blue, yellow and red, with an inscription in delicate blue (6). This polychrome faience was also now used for the _ushabti_ figures which were placed in the tombs; hitherto they had been made exclusively of stone or wood, never of glazed stone or pottery; henceforward they were made exclusively of faience, but the polychrome glazes (e.g. British Museum, Nos. 34,180, 34,185) were soon abandoned, and the plain blue and black of the ordinary vases was adopted. The _ushabtis_ of King Seti I. (British Museum, No. 22,818, &c.) (9) are fine specimens of this type. Under the XXth Dynasty the blue paled and became weak in quality, but the priest-king family of the XXIst used for their _ushabtis_ a most brilliant blue glaze, an extraordinary colour which at once distinguishes the faience of this period from that of all others (9). The same brilliant glaze was used for vases of various kinds as well. The polychrome ware had developed into a style of inlaying with glazed faience, which we see at Tel el-Amarna under the XVIIIth Dynasty (1400 B.C.) (10), and at Tel el-Yah[=u]d[=i]ya under the XXth (1200 B.C.), used for wall decoration. After this time polychrome ceramic decoration seems to have died out in Egypt, but was retained in Asia (see below).

The technical skill of the New Empire potters is shown by such a remarkable object as the gigantic _Uas_-sceptre of blue glazed faience, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (12, 8). This is the largest known piece of Egyptian glazed faience; really large vases of faience are not found. Faience vases were very commonly built up or carved out of a ball of the dried material, perhaps held together by some mucilaginous substance --it seems impossible that such a substance could ever have been fashioned on the wheel. Sometimes even small vases were made of separately moulded pieces united by a glassy material (6). Under the XXIInd Dynasty small glazed vases with figures of deities or animals in relief became common; these were made in moulds (6). In the matter of form the faience pottery of the New Empire follows the lead of the new earthenware types. Forms had altered considerably from those of the XIIth Dynasty. In place of the simple flowing lines of that period, we now find egg-shaped bodies with cylindrical necks, with or without handles, great _amphorae_ with almost pointed bases, sometimes with the handles perched upon the shoulders of the vase; flat-tipped, squat jugs; little handleless vases somewhat resembling the modern _kulla_, "_mit mehrfach eingezogenem Bauch_" (V.B.), and the common flat flask-like type known as the "pilgrim bottle" (6, 13, 14, 15).

Owing to the extended foreign relations of Egypt at this time, imported vases from Greece and Asia, including Mycenaean _Bugelkannen_ and Cypriote black "base ring" jugs, have been found in the tombs and deposits of this age (14). Imitations of foreign forms, especially the _Bugelkannen_, are found[5] chiefly in faience (British Museum, 22,731, is an imitation of a Minoan jug from Crete). The faience forms of the XVIIIth and XXIInd Dynasties include also the _kulla_ shape, the pilgrim bottle, miniature _amphorae_, &c. (see fig. 6), and miscellaneous forms not found in common pottery, imitating metal and stone vases, e.g. the blue-green ribbed pots of the XXIInd Dynasty, imitating bronze originals, and the _alabastron_ of the XVIIIth; these last go back to the XIIth Dynasty. Very pretty cups in the shape of lotus flowers (see fig. 7) are to be seen in most museums; they are of the XIXth Dynasty, and mostly came from Tuna (6, 8).

The continuance of the old red polished ware of the IVth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom to the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty has already been mentioned. Characteristic of the latter period of this ware are long jugs with attenuated body and single handle, which, because they have been found with Mycenaean objects in Cyprus, have been considered to be of foreign, probably of Syrian origin. They may, however, be Egyptian. Vases of the same ware in the shape of men and animals are not uncommon (17). Another ware of this period has a highly polished yellow face, sometimes becoming ruddy, and passing off into a pinkish red; in this ware the pilgrim bottles are common. An unpolished, brittle, and thin yellow ware was also used largely for wine-vases. The rougher, commoner red and brown ware at this period became decorated with designs, chiefly of lily wreaths, &c., in paint of various colours (13). This new development hid the ugly colour of the common pottery and was a cheaply obtained imitation of the expensive, polychrome glazed ware of the period (see fig. 8). This painted pottery continued in use until about the time of the XXIInd Dynasty. From this time onwards, till the Ptolemaic period, the commonest pottery was a red ware, usually covered with a white slip. Under the XXVIth Dynasty a finer homogeneous white ware occurs, usually for vases with a rude representation of the face of the god Bes on their bodies.

The XXVIth Dynasty marks a new period of development in the history of Egyptian faience. The old deep blue colour had gradually deteriorated into an ugly green (British Museum, No. 8962), which was replaced by the Saite potters with a new light blue of very delicate tint, imitated, in accordance with the archaistic spirit of the time, from the old light blue of the earliest Dynasties. The glaze itself is very thin and "sugary" in texture. The old decoration of the blue with designs and inscriptions in manganese-black is abandoned; on the _ushabtis_ the inscriptions are now incised. Side by side with this light blue glaze was used an unglazed faience, a sort of composition paste with the colour going right through.[6] It has more variety of colour than the glazed faience, light green and a dark indigo blue being found as well as the Saite light blue. Sometimes it is of a very soft, almost chalky consistency. It was used for vases, but more generally for small figures and scarabs (6). The commonest vase-form of this period is the pilgrim bottle, now made with the neck in the form of a lily flower, and with inscriptions on the sides wishing good luck in the New Year to the possessor. These flasks appear to have been common New Year's gifts.

Under the Sebennyte kings of the XXXth Dynasty a further new development of glaze began, of a more radical character than ever before. The colour deepened, and the glaze itself became much more glassy, and was thickly laid on. The new glaze was partly translucent, and differed very greatly from the old opaque glaze. It first appeared on _ushabtis_ at the end of the Saite period. A curious effect was obtained by glazing the head-dress, the inscription &c., of the _ushabtis_ in dark blue, and then covering the whole with translucent light blue glaze. This method was regularly used during the succeeding Ptolemaic and Roman periods, when the new style of glaze came into general use. A yellowish green effect was obtained by glazing parts of the body of the vases in yellow and covering this with the translucent blue glaze. This method was used to touch up the salient portions of the designs in relief, imitated from foreign originals, a style which now became usual on vases. The usual decoration is mixed Egyptian and classical, the latter generally predominating. A large range of colours was employed; purple, dark blue, blue-green, grass-green, and yellow glazes all being found. The glaze is very thickly laid on, and is often "crazed" (6, 8). A remarkable instance of this Romano-Egyptian faience is the head of the god Bes in the British Museum (No. 35,028). A hard, light blue, opaque glaze like that of the XXVIth Dynasty is occasionally, but rarely, met with in the case of vases (British Museum, Nos. 37,407, 37,408).

We know something of the common wares in use during this period from the study of the _ostraka_, fragments of pottery on which dated tax-receipts, notes, and so forth were written. From the _ostraka_ we see that during the Ptolemaic period the commonest pottery was made of red ware covered with white slip, which has already been mentioned. At the beginning of the Roman period we find at Elephantine a peculiar light pink ware with a brownish pink face, and elsewhere a smooth dark brown ware. About the 3rd century A.D. horizontally ribbed or fluted pots, usually of a coarse brown ware, came into general use. These were often large-sized _amphorae_, with very attenuated necks and long handles (see fig. 9). During the Byzantine (Coptic) period most of the pottery in use was ribbed, and usually pitched inside to hold water, as the ware was loose in texture and porous.

During the Coptic period, a lighter ware was also in use, decorated with designs of various kinds in white, brown or red paint on the dull red or buff body. In Nubia a peculiar development of this ware is characteristic of the later period (Brit. Mus. No. 30,712).

A polished red ware of Roman origin (imitation Arretine or "Samian") was commonly used as well.

The heavily glazed blue faience continued in use until replaced in the early Arab period by the well-known yellow and brown lead-glazed pottery, of which fragments are found in the mounds of Fostat (Old Cairo).

_Western Asia.--Palestine_. The most ancient Palestinian pottery is the rough "Amorite" ware from Lachish (Tel el-Hesi) which sometimes has wavy handles like the prehistoric Egyptian (18). Later we find actual Mycenaean pottery in Philistia (19), an interesting testimony to the truth of the legend which brings the Philistines from Crete; the fourth and fifth cities of Lachish (1200-1000 B.C.) show us the first ordinary Phoenician or Israelite pottery--buff or red lamps and bowls, the latter with the handles sometimes painted in bistre, and vases showing strong Egyptian influence; while pottery from Cyprus and elsewhere is found as in Egypt.

The only remarkable later development of Palestinian pottery is the Phoenician imitation of Egyptian faience of the Saite period, of which the characteristics are well known. Some of this may actually have been made in Egypt.

The course of the potter's art in Mesopotamia and Persia appears to have run on lines of development parallel with the art in Egypt, for the country between the Tigris and the Euphrates is rich in good clays, and, wherever the invention of glass arose, its application to pottery decoration was certainly developed at an early period in Egypt and in Mesopotamia.

Two characteristic uses of clay wares must, however, be pointed out,
though they have nothing to do with vase-making.

1. The Babylonian and Assyrian use of clay shaped into tablets,
cylinders and prisms, to produce an imperishable record of the
literature of the time. The cylinders and prisms were thrown on the
potter's wheel and are consequently hollow; the circular form was then
sliced down, and the surface was impressed with cuneiform
inscriptions, the prism, tablet or cylinder being subsequently dried
and fired.

2. The architectural use of glazed bricks and slabs. While the
Egyptians remained content for the most part with the application of
their brilliant alkaline glazes to small and delicately-finished
objects, the Babylonians and Assyrians developed an architecture
decorated with glazed and coloured brickwork. The bricks were of very
open texture, and the ornamental pattern or figure subjects were
obtained by a strong outline in dark-coloured clay which formed a kind
of _cloison_ or boundary, the shallow cells between being filled in
with coloured clays--yellow, red or white--or with coloured glazes of
turquoise, green or blue, yellow and purplish brown. These glazes are
obviously like the Egyptian, but they are more coarsely prepared and
are always full of bubbles and consequently more or less opaque. Yet
the severe simplicity of the method, the splendid colour effect,
strong yet sumptuous, entitles these productions to a very high rank
among all the world's work in clay and glaze. The "Frieze of the
Archers" now in the Louvre may be mentioned as one of the finest
productions of its kind, and the Louvre and British Museum possess the
finest collections of this early architectural use of glazed and
coloured clay. (See also MURAL DECORATION )

Coming to ordinary pottery we find that in early times well-formed vases made of good clay, unglazed and unpainted, were made. Small figures of deities made of the same clay are often found. It is practically the same terra-cotta as that of the inscribed tablets. None of the forms are particularly distinctive (see fig. 10). The excavations of the French in Persia have brought to light at Moussian in Susiana an extremely interesting painted ware, which belongs to a very early period. The decoration is usually geometrical. The technique seems to be analogous to the Mycenaean-Greek (_Firnismalerei_), and the whole effect is very like that of the Greek, Late Mycenaean or Dipylon pottery. The ware is buff in colour and fine in texture, with a polished surface. The decoration is sometimes in polychrome, but usually in the grey-brown iron-glaze (?) alone. This pottery degenerates later and finally disappears (20).

During the Sargonide period in Assyria (7th century B.C.) we find a polychrome faience (colours usually white and brown) obviously of Egyptian origin. It was used, not for vases, but architectonically for friezes, ornamental bosses, &c. Its origin may be found in Egypt under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Egyptian influence extended to the Tigris, and Babylonia had regular diplomatic relations with Egypt In Asia this polychrome decoration in glazes continued to be used long after it had ceased to be made in the country of its origin; the enamelled brick decoration of Persepolis is the descendant of the glazed inlay decorations of Tel el-Amarna, Tel el-Yahudiya and Kuyunjik. In the Sargonide period blue glazed vases occur (see fig. 11) which are probably of Egyptian origin or are Phoenician imitations of Egyptian faience.

Characteristic of the Parthian period is a coarse green glazed pottery of which the slipper-shaped coffins, of the time were made (British Museum, Nos. 1645-1647) (21). This glaze possibly contains a small amount of lead; in appearance it is not unlike the contemporary translucent blue glaze of Egypt. The Egyptian glaze certainly spread into western Asia, and we find the last specimens of it in the tiles from the destroyed city of Rhagae in Persia, which may be as late as the 13th century A.D. The lead glazes, unknown in Egypt till the late Roman period, may be of Asiatic origin, though this important point is by no means clear.

REFERENCES.--(1) Petrie-Quibell, _Ballas and Nagada_ (date erroneous);
(2) Jacques de Morgan, _L' Âge de la pierre et des métaux_; (3)
Petrie, _Diospolis Parva_, frontispiece (also for "sequence-dates" of
pottery); (4) Garstang, _Mahâsna and Bêt Khallâf_, pls. xxix.--xxxii.;
(5) Petrie, _Illahûn_, pl. xii. (corr. by V. Bissing in (14)); (6) V.
Bissing, _Catalogue générale du musée de Caire, _"Die
Fayencegefässe"; (7) Petrie, _Abydos_, ii., frontispiece; (8) Henry
Wallis, _Egyptian Ceramic Art_ (Macgregor Collection); (9) _Guide to
Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, British Museum_, p. 252 ff.; (10)
Petrie, _Tel-el-Amarna_; (11) _Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian
Rooms_, p. 261; (12) Petrie, _Nagâda_, pl. xxviii.; (13) Petrie,
_Illahûn_, pls. xx., xxi.; (14) V. Bissing, _Strena Helbigiana_, p. 20
ff.; (15) Garstang, _El Arábah_, pls. xviii.-xxi., xxviii., xxix.;
(16) Hall, _Oldest Civilization of Greece_, p. 143 ff. ibid. figs. 29,
30, 69; (17) _Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms_, pl. viii.;
(18) Petrie, _Tell-el-Hesy_, pl. v.; (19) Welch, _Ann. Brit. Sch.
Ath_. vi.; (20) de Morgan, _Délégation en Perse_, viii. (1905); (21)
_Brit. Mus.: Guide to Babylonian and Assyrian Room_. (H. R. H.)

GREEK, ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN

GREEK. _Study of Greek Vases_.--It is not so many years since an account of Greek pottery would naturally have followed chronologically the history of Egyptian pottery with little overlapping; but recent discoveries have reversed all such ideas, and, while up to the end of the 19th century the earliest remains to be traced on Greek soil could be assigned at the furthest to the period 2500-2000 B.C., it is now possible not only to show that at that period technical processes were highly developed, but even to trace a continuous development of Greek pottery from the Neolithic age. This result has been mainly brought about by Dr Arthur Evans's researches at Cnossus in Crete, but traces of similar phenomena are not wanting in other parts of Greece. Whether the race which produced this pottery can strictly be called Greek may be open to question, but at all events the ware is the independent product of a people inhabiting in prehistoric times the region afterwards known as Greece; its connexion with the pottery of the historic period can now be clearly traced, and in its advanced technical character and the genuinely artistic appearance of its decoration even this early ware proclaims itself as inspired by a similar genius.

The study of Greek vases has thus received an additional impetus from the light that it throws on the early civilization of the country, and its value for the student of ethnology. But it has always appealed strongly to the archaeologist and in some degree also to the artist or connoisseur, to the former from its importance as a contribution to the history of Greek art, mythology and antiquities, to the latter from its beauty of form and decoration. Attention was first redirected to the painted vases at the end of the 17th century, though for a long time they served as little more than an adjunct to the cabinet of the amateur or a pleasing souvenir for the traveller; but even during the 18th century it dawned on the minds of students that they were of more than merely artistic importance, and attention was devoted to the elucidation of their subjects, and attempts made to arrive at a chronological classification. Two facts must, however, be borne in mind: firstly, that down to the middle of the 19th century the great majority of painted vases had been found only in Italy; secondly, that these vases were mostly of the later and more florid styles, which, if artistically advanced, are now known to represent a decadent phase of Greek art.

From the former cause arose the notion that these vases were the product not of Greek but of Etruscan artists, and so the term "Etruscan vase" arose and passed into the languages of Europe, surviving even at this day in popular speech in spite of a century of refutation. Meanwhile, the study of the subjects depicted on the vases passed through the successive stages of allegorical, historical and mystical interpretation, until a century and more of painstaking study led to the more rational principles of modern archaeologists.