The Art Of Pottery Depicting The History Of The Egyptian Civilization
One of the first cultures in the history of human civilization to start off with the art of pottery was the Greeks. They started off their livelihood with farming and the more they grew prominence with it, the more they felt the need of the earthen pots that could store the grains that they cultivated. They even needed to store the water that they needed for regular use. Since they were the harbinger of creative art in the entire human civilization, they chose pottery to show their creative intellect and imaginative faculty.
Ahmed Nashaat has got varied interest in life and apart from being a social activist; he has got a keen interest in studying the primitive art forms with the help of excavations. Over the years of his studies he has come up with amazing facts about the Greek pottery. Since they were situated in close proximity with the river Nile, getting clay in abundance was not a major issue at all. Initially they started off with simple designs taking strands of clay and winding it around the circles to make the walls of the clay pots and then smooth the outer portions.
Since the average temperature of Greece is high enough, they used the sun’s heat to bake up the pots and seal their pottery. Much later it was found out through various sources of their studies that they had a pottery wheel which used to rotate with a slow speed and that helped them to use their hands to curve it and make various shapes and designs out of it. Their creative faculty came up when they started designing on their exterior walls with the help of combs and spatulas. To give it the tinge of darkness, they exposed them to smoke and choked them up.
Before the pharaohs existed, they had a simplistic approach towards the art of pottery. They only used to carve out the shapes of the heads of various Gods and Goddesses and used them as their exhibitionary pieces. It was much later when they realized that these pieces of art could be used for a utilitarian purpose in their daily life. With a slow passage of time, the art of pottery got so popular that they started looking for men who had the specialty of manufacturing earthen pots in bulk amounts. Apart from finding them useful in the daily use, they even made pots which could be kept in the tombs as their memorabilia.
As they started learning various techniques, they started making experiments with it, and came up with jugs that had two tops and the rest would put feet at the bottom of the in the shape of human feet. Egyptians found that with any kind of glaze, their pottery was porous and allowed the liquids to seep out along with not sealing the food. Ahmed Nashaat has been studying with all these various hidden facts of pottery amidst which lies the entire history of a civilization. His detailed studies bring out facts which are not just enthralling but depict an entire story about a civilization which is invigorating enough.