The Potter's Wheel 159 



over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and 

 another unto dishonour?" (Romans IX. 20, 21.) In ancient Egypt, 

 the god Phtah fashions the egg of the world on a potter's wheel, setting 

 it in motion with his feet. 1 According to W. Crooke, 2 the potter of 

 India regards the making of his vessels as a semi-religious art. The 

 wheel he worships as a type of the creator of all things; and when he 

 fires his kiln, he makes an offering and a prayer. He also makes the 

 funeral jar, in which the soul of the dead man for a time takes refuge. 

 Hence he is a sort of funeral priest, and in some parts of the country 

 receives regular fees. It was a current notion in ancient China that 

 the evolution of Heaven creates the beings in the same manner as the 

 potter turns his objects of clay on the wheel. The potter's wheel was a 

 symbol of the creative power of nature. In the ancient writers in whose 

 works this conception looms up it appears as a purely philosophical 

 abstraction; but it is obvious that the latter goes back to a genuine 

 mythological idea, which, like everything mythical in China, is lost, — 

 the naive conception of the creator as a potter and thrower (as in the 

 Old Testament). The potter's wheel was used also as a simile with 

 reference to the activity of the sovereign. Yen Shi-ku, in his commen- 

 tary on the Han Annals, quotes a saying that "the holy rulers by virtue 

 of their regulations managed the empire in the same manner as a potter 

 turns the wheel." It is therefore not impossible that religious specula- 

 tions, centring around the cart-wheel and the fashioning of clay vessels 

 and figures, might have had a prominent share in associating the wheel 

 with the potter's activity, and given the first impetus to "throwing." 

 If it can be maintained that the ancient Egyptians were the first to employ 

 the potter's wheel, it may well be that the invention is due to the circle 

 of the priests. Be this germ idea as it may, the culture-historical posi- 

 tion of the potter's wheel is well ascertained. In view of the vast periods 

 of human prehistory, it is a comparatively late invention, following in 

 time the construction of the wheeled cart, being based on the cart-wheel, 

 and made by man (presumably first by priests in illustration of a myth 

 for religious worship) during the stage of fully- developed agriculture. 



In the stage of hoe-culture or gardening, the occupation of woman, 

 the potter's wheel is absent. Wherever it appears, it is correlated with 

 man's activity in agriculture, based on the employment of the ox and 

 plough. This feature is illustrated by both ancient China and India. 

 The Emperor, or more correctly culture-hero, Shun (alleged 2258-2206 

 B.C.), in his youth, before he assumed charge of the administration of 



1 E. A. W. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, p. 500, with colored plate. 

 * Things Indian, p. 389. 



