Pottery

B

Middle America

The earliest domestic Mexican ceramics come from the Formative period (1500-1000 bc) in the Valley of Mexico. On the Gulf coast the Olmec culture produced hollow, naturalistic figurines. During the Classic period, pottery figurines from the east showed lively freedom of expression; those from the west were often grouped in impressionistic scenes of daily life. At Teotihuacán in the central plateau, polychrome three-footed vessels were produced in moulds. In the Post-Classic era the Toltecs occupied the central plateau, producing typical ceramics painted red on cream or orange on buff. Later, the Aztecs first assimilated earlier abstract decoration, then turned to producing red and orange bowls ornamented with birds and other life forms. Farther south, the Zapotecs and Mixtecs resisted Aztec influence. Besides modelled figures of animals, humans, and gods, they made a highly burnished polychrome ware that influenced later Mexican pottery.

Maya ware attained a variety and quality unique in Mesoamerican ceramics. Maya ware of the Classic era includes delicate figurines, polychrome cylindrical vases with scenes and glyphs resembling those in Maya manuscripts, and plaques containing whistles, with moulded and modelled scenes of everyday life.

C

North America

In the Mississippi Valley the Mound Builders of the 1st millennium bc produced painted, modelled, and incised ware. In the Southwest fine pottery was made by the ancestors of the Pueblo peoples—notably the red-on-buff ware (c. ad 600-900) of the Hohokam and the polychrome ware (1300 and later) of the Anasazi, both adorned with human and animal figures; and the delightful, distinctive Mimbres pottery (1000-1200) of the Mogollon culture, with black-on-white geometric designs, birds, bats, frogs, and ceremonial scenes. The ancient tradition has been carried on into modern Pueblo pottery, notably in the work of Maria Martinez, who is widely known for her burnished black ware.

V

Western Pottery

The historical styles of Western pottery include those of the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean as well as those of the medieval Muslim world and medieval and modern Europe.

A

Ancient Middle East

The earliest Middle Eastern pottery yet discovered comes from Çatal Hüyük, in Anatolia, and dates from 6500 bc. In addition to terracotta cult statues and painted clay statuettes, the ware from this site (near modern Çumra, Turkey) includes pieces painted in red ochre on a body covered with cream slip. Other pottery was monochromatic—buff, light grey, beige, or brick red. It was coil built and paddled, then burnished; some pots were incised with simple horizontal lines. The ware was fired either in a bread oven or in a closed kiln with a separate firing chamber. Other Neolithic pottery from the Middle East, primarily from Syria, had impressed designs or was combed with the edge of a cardium shell.

A

1

Persia and Mesopotamia

The earliest painted ceramics of northern Mesopotamia date from just before the 5th millennium bc. At Samarra, stylized human and animal figures were painted with colours ranging from red to brown and black on a buff background. Shortly thereafter, polychrome pottery of higher quality was made at Tell Halaf, where potters had learned more thorough control of their kilns.

At about the same time, Persian potters painted geometric designs on pots covered with light-coloured slip. By the 4th millennium the potter's wheel was in use. People from the north migrated to Persia and introduced red and grey monochromatic pottery. At the height of the Ubaid period (4th millennium bc) a pottery industry around Susa produced many drinking vessels and bowls from refined clay. Coated with a greenish-yellow slip, they were decorated in a free style with painted geometric shapes, plants, birds, other animals, and stick-figure people.

Glazed pottery began to be produced about 1500 bc. The finest Mesopotamian ceramic work was not in domestic pottery, but rather in glazed brickwork used for architectural ornamentation. The tradition began in the 3rd millennium at Erech (Uruk) where columns and niches were covered with a geometric mosaic of coloured nail-like ceramic cones. In Babylonia during the Kassite rule (mid-2nd millennium bc), unglazed terracotta was used to face temples and palaces. Later, at Khorsabad, the capital of the Assyrian monarch Sargon II (reigned 722-705 bc), a temple entrance was decorated with moulded glazed brickwork depicting animals in procession. This tradition reached its climax in Babylon in the 6th century bc. There the famous processional way was lined with glazed bricks on which more than 700 bulls, dragons, and lions were carved and moulded, then glazed in a palette ranging from white to yellow to brownish-black against a blue or greenish-blue ground. The façade of the royal throne room was decorated with lions on walls and with columns crowned and surrounded by stylized palmettes and lotus buds.