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Results for earthenware:

Buckley earthenware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: C 1720-1775, North Wales, The body of this earthenware is quite coarse because of the combination of two different types of clay in the process. The ware is made of layers of pink-firing and yellow clays. The combination of the two clays served to make the poor clays more workable. The ware is decorated with a black lead-glaze. The exterior fabric color on unglazed portions is purplish-red. The body exteriors are often heavily ribbed. When broken, the fabric interior exhibits the characteristic red and yellow layers.
earthenware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Ceramics fired at temperatures high enough for vitrification to begin.
acoustic vase: SYNONYM: acoustic vessel
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Large earthenware or bronze vases which were used to strengthen actors' voices and were placed in bell towers to help boost the sound of church bells. A church in Westphalia contains fine 9th-century Badorf Wares and larger Relief-Band Amphorae were used in 10th- and 11th-century churches.
acoustic vases: SYNONYM: acoustic vessels
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Large earthenware or bronze vases which were used to strengthen actors' voices and were placed in bell towers to help boost the sound of church bells. A church in Westphalia contains fine 9th-century Badorf Wares and larger Relief-Band Amphorae were used in 10th- and 11th-century churches.
acratophorum: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek and Roman table vessel for holding pure wine, as opposed to the crater which held wine mixed with water. This vessel was often made of earthenware and metal, though some were gold or silver.
amphora: SYNONYM: plural amphorae, amphoras
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Greek or Roman earthenware storage jar, with a narrow neck and mouth and two handles (two-eared"; each called an anem) at the top. The body of the jar is usually oval and long with a pointed bottom. It was used for holding or transporting liquids especially wine or oil and other substances such as resin. Its shape made it easy to handle and ideal for tying onto a mule's or donkey's back. They were often placed side-by-side in upright positions in a sand-floored cellar. Sinking it into the sand or ground kept the contents cool. Amphorae were also made of glass onyx gold stone and brass and some had conventional jar bottoms with a flat surface. The container would be sealed when full and the handle usually carried an amphora stamp impressed before firing giving details such as the source the potter's name the date and the capacity. Amphorae were probably not normally re-used."
askos: SYNONYM: Greek bag""
CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: An assymetric vessel, often squat and duck-shaped, with an off-center mouth, convex top, and single arching handle. It was originally shaped like a leather bottle (uter) for holding water, oil, or wine. Some example have two mouths, one for filling and one for emptying, and others are quite unbalanced and have strange mouths. It later assumed the form of an earthenware pitcher. Askos were popular in the Aegean from the Early Helladic to the Classical period.
brownware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A brown-glazed earthenware; also, pottery that fires to a brown or reddish color.
bucchero: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A fine gray pottery, with a black or gray shiny surface, which was produced principally in Greek-speaking or Etruscan areas between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. Shapes and decoration styles varied greatly -- incised, stamped and applied were employed. This earthenware pottery was common in pre-Roman Italy between the 7th and early 5th century BC. The shiny surface was produced by polishing and the color achieved by firing in an atmosphere charged with carbon monoxide instead of oxygen ('reducing firing'). The light, thin-walled bucchero sottile, considered the finest, was made in the 7th and early 6th centuries and the shapes were derived largely from Oriental models. In the 6th century the Greek influence changed the forms to alabastrums, amphorae, kraters, kylikes with incised, modeled, or applied birds and animals in friezes or geometric schemes appear. Greek black pigment was used and human and animal figures were painted on the surface of bucchero in black, red, and white. Technique and workmanship declined from about the mid-6th century onward, when bucchero sottile was replaced by bucchero pasantë, a heavy, complex thick-walled ware that was decorated with elaborate reliefs.
caccabus: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of Greek or Roman pot or vessel for cooking any kind of food. It was made of bronze, silver, or earthenware, and had a variety of forms. The most common shape was like an egg with an opening at the top that was closed with a lid and the vessel rested on a trivet (tripus).
cadus: CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Greek or Roman earthenware jar, which was a wine jar but also used as a measure for liquids. An ordinary cadus was about 3 feet high and broad enough in the mouth to allow the contents to be baled out.
ceramic: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An artifact made of hard brittle material produced from nonmetallic minerals by firing at high temperatures; a solid made of compounds of metallic elements and inorganic nonmetallic elements: earthenwares, porcelains, stonewares, terracottas, and other materials made of fired clay
Cistercian ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A lead-glazed English earthenware of the 15th-16th centuries. The earthenware is dark red with a black or brown metallic-appearing glaze and was called Cistercian because they were first excavated at Yorkshire Cistercian abbeys. The pottery forms were mainly drinking vessels, tall mugs, trumpet-shaped tygs (with 2, 4, or 8 handles), and tankards. The majority of the ware is undecorated, but some examples are distinguished by horizontal ribbing or by white slip ornamentation consisting of roundels or rosettes. Potteries producing these wares were at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire; Tickford, Derbyshire; and Wrotham, Kent.
Clusium: SYNONYM: Clusius, Chiusi
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Etruscan town on the site of modern Chiusi, in Tuscany, Italy. Clusium enjoyed good agricultural fertility deposits of iron and copper ore, natural hot springs, and a key position on trade routes. Settlement appears to be unbroken and successful from the first Villanovan dwellers onwards. It was founded in the 8th century BC on the site of an older Umbrian town known as Camars. In the early 6th century BC it allied with Arretium (Arezzo) as part of the 12-city Etruscan confederation. At the end of the 6th century BC, Clusium's king, Lars Porsena, attacked Rome and may even have captured the city in an attempt to restore the power of the Tarquins there. In 391 BC, Clusium allied with Rome against invading Gauls. Like other Etruscan cities, Clusium was surrounded by cemeteries and tombs. Excavation of Clusian tombs, mostly cut into the soft tufa rock, has yielded earthenware funerary (canopic) jars, as well as ceramic human figures and Greek and locally made pottery. There is evidence for persistence of the cremation rite, seen in the wide variety of cinerary urns, canopic jars, and the characteristic hollow seated figures made from pietra fetida limestone. Clusium also had a reputation for fine bronze and stone craftsmanship. The decorations on sarcophagi in the tombs are a major source of inscriptions in the Etruscan language.
creamware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Earthenware having a cream-colored glaze.
cruse: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small earthenware container used for liquids.
delftware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The term for tin-glazed earthenware made in Britain from the 16th century, named after the Dutch town of Delft. The main centers for delftware were London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Glasgow, but the factories went out of business with the introduction of creamware.
dolium: SYNONYM: culeus
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Greek or Roman coarse earthenware vessel with a wide mouth and spherical form. It was used to store wine and oil; later smaller vessels were produced.
fabatarium: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Roman earthenware vessel in which bean flour (puls fabacia) was served, boiled with water or broth and forming a kind of polenta.
faience: SYNONYM: faïence, fayence; frit, paste
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A name used for the medieval pottery of Faenza in northern Italy, one of the chief seats of the ceramics industry in the 16th century; it was an early majolica. It is also used for the tin-glazed earthenware made in France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia as distinguished from Faenza majolica, and that made in The Netherlands and England, which is called delft. But most accurately, it is the primitive form of glass developed in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC and then, almost as early, in Egypt; it is sometimes called Egyptian faience. It is a substance composed of a sand and clay mixture baked to a temperature at which the surface begins to fuse to a bluish or greenish glass. It was colored with copper salts to produce a blue-green finish and used especially for beads and figurines, particularly in the second millennium BC. Its main use in the Bronze Age was for beads, seals, figurines, and similar small objects. The glazed material could be comprised of a base of either carved steatite (soapstone) or molded clay with a core of crushed quartz (or quartz and soda-lime) fired so that the surface fuses into a glassy coating. Examples occur also in Bronze Age contexts in Europe, including the Wessex Culture.
flowerpot: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small container, typically with sloping sides and made from plastic or earthenware, used for growing a plant
Great Tombs period: SYNONYM: Kofun
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period in Japanese history, 4th-7th century AD, known for round tombs covered by a mound with a square platform off to the side, making a keyhole shape. Towards end of period, tombs were very large and surrounded by a moat, and earthenware figures and models (Haniwa) were placed in a series of concentric rings around the tomb. Inside was a chamber of stone slabs, probably adopted from cist tomb of northeast Asia. Burial goods included bronze mirrors, Chinese-type swords, magatama (fine polished stone ornaments), and Sue Ware pottery.
Haji: SYNONYM: haji
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An unglazed Japanese earthenware, developed in the Tumulus/Kofun period of the 4th century AD, derived from the Yayoi tradition and influenced by Sue-ware shapes in the 5th century. Early Haji pottery is characterized by the appearance of ceremonial vessels that are homogenous throughout a wide area, along with domestic vessels made in local styles. After the wheel-made, kiln-fired Sue pottery was introduced in the 5th century, only domestic vessels were made in Hajii ware, and from the 8th century onwards Hajii pottery, too, was made on the potter's wheel. A rust-red earthenware, Haji ware is baked in oxidizing fires. Shapes unknown to the Yayoi culture appeared in Haji ware, however, such as small, globular jars and wide-rimmed pots. Although the surfaces of Haji pieces are finely finished, both their form and firing lack the refinement of Yayoi pottery.
Haji / haji: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: An unglazed Japanese earthenware, developed in the Tumulus/Kofun period of the 4th century AD, derived from the Yayoi tradition and influenced by Sue-ware shapes in the 5th century. Early Haji pottery is characterized by the appearance of ceremonial vessels that are homogenous throughout a wide area, along with domestic vessels made in local styles. After the wheel-made, kiln-fired Sue pottery was introduced in the 5th century, only domestic vessels were made in Hajii ware, and from the 8th century onwards Hajii pottery, too, was made on the potter's wheel. A rust-red earthenware, Haji ware is baked in oxidizing fires. Shapes unknown to the Yayoi culture appeared in Haji ware, however, such as small, globular jars and wide-rimmed pots. Although the surfaces of Haji pieces are finely finished, both their form and firing lack the refinement of Yayoi pottery.
haniwa: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Unglazed earthenware funerary sculptures or cylinders of the Kofun period (4th-7th c AD) in Japan. They were erected on, around, or inside mounded tomb surfaces and often had representations of horses, animals, birds, humans, and houses. They are considered to have developed out of the tall stands for Late Yayoi ritual vessels of the 3rd century.
Hispano-Moresque pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A tin-glazed, lustrous, highly decorated earthenware made by Moorish potters in Span in the late medieval period, chiefly at Málaga in the 15th century, and in the region of Manises, near Valencia, in the 16th century. They tend to be plates and jugs with bold semi-abstract designs painted on a creamy background and with a gold luster finish. These wares were much in demand throughout Europe and, judging from finds in northern Europe, they were widely traded. The tin glaze was applied over a design usually traced in cobalt blue; after the first firing, the luster, a metallic pigment, was applied by brush over the tin glaze, and the piece was fired again. Imitation of this pottery in Italy led to the development of Italian maiolica ware.
Kimhae: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Shell midden site of the Proto-Three Kingdoms time on the southern Korean coast and the type site for a category of pottery. Stoneware and/or earthenware were made from the 1st-4th centuries AD.
lagena: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A Greek or Roman earthenware vessel with a globular body, used for holding wine, vegetables, or fruit.
lead glaze: SYNONYM: lead-glazed ware
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of glaze found on European pottery and the soft-fired earthenware of the Han dynasty of China. It was probably invented by the Greeks and/or Romans by the 3rd century BC, involving either dusting the unfired vessel with galena (lead ore) or dipping it into a mixture of lead ore and water. The glaze fuses in one firing. The natural color of lead glaze has a yellowish tinge; after the 13th century copper ore was often added to give a greenish-gray effect. In China it was used for vessels and miniature ceramic sculptures in funerary deposits.
Majolica: SYNONYM: Maiolica; faience; delft
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Tin-glazed earthenware -- a distinctive kind of colorful, decorated earthenware that is tin enameled and glazed -- usually of Italian, Spanish, or Mexican origin. This earthenware was introduced by Moorish potters from the island of Majorca in the 15th century. Distinguishing features of Majolica ware are coarseness of ware, intricacy of pattern, occasionally prismatic glaze. Made of potter's clay mixed with marl and sand, and is soft or hard according to the nature of the composition and the degree of heat under which it is fired in the kiln. Soft wares are either unglazed or lustrous, or glazed, or enameled. The majolica painter's palette was usually restricted to five colors: cobalt blue, antimony yellow, iron red, copper green, and manganese purple; the purple and blue were used, at various periods, mainly for outline. A white tin enamel was used also for highlights or alone on the white tin glaze in what was called bianco sopra bianco, white on white." The Italian lustrous ware is properly Majolica and originated in s Faenza Deruta Urbino Orvieto Gubbio Florence and Savona."
Man-ch'eng: SYNONYM: Mancheng
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Hebei province, China, where two Early Han-dynasty tombs are cut into a rock cliff -- the tombs of Liu Sheng (c 113 BC), Prince of Chung-shan, and his wife Tou Wan. Numerous grave goods, 2800 items, including jade, gold, silver, iron, glass articles; inlaid and gilded vessels, earthenware, lacquer ware, silk fabrics, and fine weapons are in the chambered tombs behind sealed doors. Both tombs were provided with large stores of food and wine and escorts of chariots and horses. The bodies of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan were dressed in shrouds made of jade plaques sewn together with gold thread, the first of some dozen jade shrouds thus recovered from Han tombs.
Morse, Edward Sylvester (1838-1925): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American zoologist who introduced archaeology to Japan by excavating the Omori shell midden. He was the first to use the term Jomon" ('cord mark') for the Neolithic earthenware pottery whose its surface decoration consists of impressions of twisted cords."
ossuary: SYNONYM: ossarium, ossuarium; osteotheke
CATEGORY: structure; artifact
DEFINITION: A charnel house used for multiple, mainly secondary, inhumations. It was also the name for a sarcophagus of earthenware, stone, or marble, in which the vessel containing the cremated ashes of the dead was placed. It may be either a small portable article for a single interment (larnax, pithos, urn) or a cave or built structure to take a number of burials (chamber tomb, tholos).
pearlware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A form of earthenware, developed by Wedgwood (1775-79) as a whiter version of its creamware body. A greater quantity of white clay was used in the body and the transparent lead glaze included traces of cobalt, giving the surface a pearly white appearance. It was soon adopted by other potteries, such as Spode, Leeds, and Swansea.
pithos: SYNONYM: pl. pithoi
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Greek earthenware storage jar with a narrow neck, used for oil, wine, or grain. They were used on occasion for jar-burial in the Aegean area.
porcelain: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Vitrified pottery with a white, fine-grained body that is usually translucent, as distinguished from earthenware, which is porous, opaque, and coarser. Porcelain is a fine form of pottery which is fired to a very high temperature in order to vitrify the clay. The name is derived from Portuguese 'porcellana' (little pigs, name given to cowrie shells by early traders). Porcelain was developed by Chinese from a long tradition of making stoneware in white clay. In the T'ang Dynasty (618-906 AD) came proto-porcelains, followed by true porcelain in the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD). The three main types of porcelain are true, or hard-paste, porcelain; artificial, or soft-paste, porcelain; and bone china.
potsherd: SYNONYM: sherd, shard
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Any pottery fragment -- piece of broken pot or other earthenware item -- that has archaeological significance. Often abbreviated to sherd, potsherds are an invaluable part of the archaeological record because they are well-preserved. The analysis of ceramic changes recorded in potsherds has become one of the primary techniques used by archaeologists in assigning components and phases to times and cultures.
pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: One of the oldest of the decorative arts, consisting of objects made of clay and hardened with heat. The objects are commonly useful. Earthenware is the oldest and simplest form of pottery; stoneware is a pottery compound that is fired at a sufficiently high temperature to cause it to vitrify and become extremely hard; and porcelain, finer than stoneware and generally translucent, is made by adding feldspar to kaolin and then firing at a high temperature. Its raw material is common, shaping and baking it are simple, and it can be given an infinite variety of forms and decorations. Pottery sherds, almost indestructible, are one of the commonest finds and are very important to archaeologists. It is often one of the clearest indicators of cultural differences, relationships, and developments, and its techniques of manufacture can be comparatively easily recovered by ceramic analysis. It can be shown whether it was modeled, coil-built, or wheel-made. The nature of its fabric, ware, or body can be identified, as can any surface treatment such as slip, paint, or burnish. The wide range of methods of decoration can also be studied. As the date of manufacture can usually be fixed, pieces of pottery give clues to archaeologists as to the date of other finds at the site. Petrological analysis of inclusions has been used to trace the source of pot clays and thus reconstruct ancient trade in pottery. Archaeologists usually call fired pot clay the 'fabric' of a piece of pottery. Texture, mineralogy, and color of fabric may be used to describe and classify pottery.
Raqqa: SYNONYM: Ar-Raqqah, Rakka; Ar-Rashid
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in northern Syria on the Euphrates River, founded by the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mansur and reputedly modeled on those of Baghdad. Raqqa is on the site of an ancient Greek city, Nicephorium, and a later Roman fortress and market town, Callinicus. It flourished again in early Arab times when the 'Abbasid caliph Harun ar-Rashid built several palatial residences there and made it his headquarters against the Byzantines. The surviving part of the Baghdad gate shows that it had a four-centered arch surmounted by a band of three-lobed niches resting on engaged colonnettes. The congregational mosque, also attributed to al-Mansur, was a rectangular building with a sanctuary of three arcades. Raqqa ware is 12th- and 13th- century earthenware with painted ornament under thick alkaline glaze.
red-slipped: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Any pottery to which a slip, a thin layer of fine clay, is applied to pottery before firing by dipping the pot into a thick liquid mixture of clay and water. Slip decorates the fabric, often chosen to bake to a color such as red, yellow, or black, and makes the pot more watertight by clogging the pores of the earthenware.
redware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Earthenware pottery made of clay containing considerable iron oxide.
rhyton: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek vessel of earthenware, metal, or stone, and sometimes in the form of an animal head. It was a deep vessel with a single handle intended for the pouring of libations or liquid offerings to gods, spirits of the dead, etc. The mouth at the upper end is often balanced by a hole at the lower end. It is presumed that the covering of this aperture by the celebrant would control the pouring of the libation until the right moment in the ceremony. Rhytons were often made of precious materials and of elaborate form. They are typical of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, and classical Greeks, and of the Achaemenid Persians. It is technically a ritual vessel, found from the Bronze Age onward.
Rustic Ware: SYNONYM: rustic ware
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A pottery type made principally in northern Britain, a technique occasionally used on flower pots today. Barbotine is applied to the ware and a finger put on the wet clay and lifted off, so the clay has finger forms in ridges and then a point. The term also refers to pottery made by Frenchman Bernard Palissy, who from about 1548 produced large earthenware dishes decorated with naturalistic pictures in high relief. The wares were colored with lead glazes and rustic ware was imitated by potters in France, Portugal, and England.
seria: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of earthenware vessel used mainly for holding wine and oil -- larger than the amphora, smaller than dolium.
shard: SYNONYM: sherd; potsherd
CATEGORY: ceramics; artifact
DEFINITION: Any pottery fragment -- piece of broken pot or other earthenware item -- that has archaeological significance. Often abbreviated to sherd, potsherds are an invaluable part of the archaeological record because they are well-preserved. The analysis of ceramic changes recorded in potsherds has become one of the primary techniques used by archaeologists in assigning components and phases to times and cultures.
sherd: SYNONYM: shard, potsherd
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any pottery fragment -- piece of broken pot or other earthenware item -- that has archaeological significance. Often abbreviated to sherd, potsherds are an invaluable part of the archaeological record because they are well-preserved. The analysis of ceramic changes recorded in potsherds has become one of the primary techniques used by archaeologists in assigning components and phases to times and cultures.
slip: SYNONYM: slurry
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A form of surface finishing applied to pottery, a mixture of clay and water applied before firing to improve the pot's smoothness and decrease porosity (it makes it more watertight by clogging the pores of the earthenware). Slip often contains the pigment which imparts, after firing, the ground color of the vessel. The slip, being clay-based, is subject to the same color variation through different firing conditions (oxidizing or reducing) as the clay itself. Hematite slips, intended to be red, occasionally fire to a shiny black finish in a reducing atmosphere. Slips may or may not be polished after drying, and all sorts of decorative techniques may be used to alter this coating. Used as a decoration, slip is applied fairly thickly to form white or tinted patterns; this technique is called slip-painted"."
Wajil: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Unglazed earthenware of the Korean Proto-Three Kingdoms period that was hard-fired and reduced.
White pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Soft white, fairly rare earthenware made only in the Shang period (dates given for the founding of the Shang dynasty vary from about 1760-1520 BC; dates for the dynasty's fall also vary from 1122-1030 BC). Found chiefly at Anyang, China, it was probably made for ritual or mortuary purposes and was decorated with incised geometric patterns. It is made of almost pure kaolin and is very brittle; few pots have survived unbroken.
whiteware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A class of ceramics including porcelain, china, pottery, earthenware, stoneware, and vitreous tile that is usually white and consists typically of clays, feldspar, potter's flint, and whiting.
Winchester ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Late Saxon (Saxo-Norman) style of earthenware pottery typical of the period AD 850 to 1150 and found widely in southern England and occasionally beyond. The ware is wheel-thrown in a hard sandy fabric usually with a yellowish-red or green-colored glaze. The range of vessel types includes spouted pitchers, cups, bowls, jars, tripod pitchers, and bottles. The last-mentioned appear to be skeumorphic copies of leather prototypes. Winchester ware is often decorated with lines, rouletting, stamped osettes, cordons, or applied strips.

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