POTTERY. The word pottery, derived from the French pole/4e, the Latin poteri um, and the Greek poterion, or drinking.ve.ssel, has been applied to all descriptions of dried or baked clay. The worker or manufacturer is styled potter, and the place or establishment where made, pottery ; besides which, the term ceramic, from the Greek word signifying earthenware, and fietile from the Latin, has been applied to objects produced in baked or dried clay. The art of working in clay is of such high antiquity that it appears long prior to the historic period of the human race, and was attributed by all nations to gods or mythical personages. In Egypt, the cradle of the earliest arts and sciences, this art is attributed to god Chntun, and its early invention is proved by the bricks of sun-dried clay, of which some of the oldest pyramids were built [Pratt/an]; the vases of red earthenware found in contemporary aepitlehrea of the 9th or 5th dynasty, and the repre sentation of potters engaged at their occupation on the wall paintings of tombs of the 4th and 12th dynasties. The brick, the oldest of all pottery, called by the Egyptians teb, or "box," and at the earliest period made of sun-dried clay mixed with straw, fragments of red pottery, and other materials, was of the shape of those at present, but of larger proportions, about 5 inches thick, 8 inches wide, and 18 inches long, stamped out of a mould, and impressed, from the commencement of the 18th dynasty, with the names of monarchs, constructions, and other Inscriptions, made by a wooden block on its upper surface. Such bricks were extensively used for pyramids, walls, tombs, and other constructions. The early invention of the wheel, and the manufacture of vases, bricks, and other objects of red earthenware in Egypt, are proved by the remains and wall paintings. The wheel was a small circular table placed horizontally, which the potter turned with his hands, not feet, at the earlier period, and produced vases of dark-red earthenware, either polished or dull, of various and simple shapes, and sometimes of large dimensions, applicable for all purposes, and often gaily painted all over with a coating of clay or lime to imitate valuable atones, or ornamented with zones or wreaths and other plain orna ments, or inscribed with names and other inscriptions. Besides this process the Egyptians moulded vases of red ware in the shape of men and animals, and modelled coffins and other large objects. Under the Roman empire figures of gods and lamps were moulded in Egypt, and fragments of pottery were used for receipts and inscriptions till the 6th or 7th century, A.n. But the most remarkable Egyptian pottery was the porcelain, or rather fayence, the body composed of a white or gray sand, and the surface covered with a siliceous glaze, often Lth of an inch thick, coloured with the oxides of copper, manganese, 4ilver, and tin.
The objects of this material were of small size and generally moulded, and consisted of small tiles, and portions used for inlaying vases, beads, bugles, little figures of deities, and sepulchral figures Plummy], prin cipally in a blue of different shades, but of remarkable beauty. Under the 19th and subsequent dynasties, the blue gave place to a green porcelain of inferior quality. At the earlier period the art of glazing steatite with this glaze was introduced. The Egyptians appear to have invented this porcelain and retained the secret, small objects in these materials having been found in Greece, the Isles of the Archi pelago, and Italy, apparently exported from the ports of Egypt. The manufacture was continued under the Greeks and Romans, but gradu ally disappeared at the beginning of the Empire, a few vases and lamps of it having been found in Italy of Greek form, and with Greek subjects in relief, probably made at Alexandria; it seems to have been superseded by metallic and glass work.
The Assyrians like the Egyptians made extensive use of sun and kiln-dried bricks, especially for the substructure of their edifices, walls, houses, and tombs ; their bricks were of another size, about 14 inches square by 4 inches thick. Like the Egyptian their upper surface is often stamped with the names and titles of their king in Assyrian cuneiform. The Assyrian potter was also extensively engaged in pro ducing in clay histories, title-deeds, religious dedications and other documents on hexagonal prisms, cylindrical rolls, and email square slabs convex on both sides. On these the inscribed letters were im pressed from a small punch. Many of these were impressed with seals, and even seals of baked clay added to deeds. About 10,000 fragments of an ancient terra cotta library were found in the archive room of the palace at Kouytmjik, and the preservation of the history of Sennachorib and his campaign against Judaea, as recorded in the Assyrian annals, is owing to this indestructible method of preserving public records. Like the Egyptians the Assyrians, in the 8th or 9th century, B.C., were acquainted with the art of making a fayence or enamelled ware with metallic oxides and tin and lead fluxes; and the story of Semiramis and her constructions with glazed bricks, repre senting subjects, is by no means fabulous. The vases and other objects of this material differ considerably in their body, which is of a yellow paste, from the Egyptian, and the ware is inferior to it in colour and elegance. The potter's art seems to have been in full activity till the fall of Nineveh, and to have been kept up till a late period in the plains of Assyria.