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Pottery

Ancient Egypt Painted Pottery at a museum in Paris, France
Relatively plain earthenware for everyday use: pottery found at Çatal Höyük - sixth millennium BC
Obviously an artistic work as well as practical: Greek red-figure vase in the krater shape, between 470 and 460 BC, by the Altamura Painter

Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up potteryware.[1] Major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of a potter or the making of pottery.[2][3] A dictionary definition is simply clay fired in a kiln.[4]

Pottery objects are made from damp clay mixed with other materials. They are then fired in a special oven called a kiln at high temperatures. Firing makes the clay hard. The potter may then apply a glaze to the surface before firing the object again. The fired glaze makes the surface of the pottery shiny, decorative and water-tight.

Some potters make objects which are not useful and are really artistic objects or sculpture. Bare pottery objects without a glaze are called bisque or just earthenware. The finest pottery objects, made of porcelain or bone china are quite strong, yet are translucent.

  1. ↑ Dinsdale, Allen 1986. Pottery science: materials, process and products. Ellis Horwood Ltd.
  2. ↑ "Merriam-Webster.com". Merriam-Webster.com. 2010-08-13. Retrieved 2010-09-04.
  3. ↑ Rado, Paul 1988. An introduction to the technology of pottery. 2nd ed, Institute of Ceramics & Pergamon Press.
  4. ↑ Pottery, meaning 3, mass noun, Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2015.

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