POT STILL 



6296 



POTTERY 



Potsherd of Egyptian glazed ware, 

 c. 1600-1300 B.C. 



or Tudor. The largest heap known 

 is Monte Testaccio, in Rome, 1,000 

 paces round by 115 ft. high, com- 

 prising fragments of imported jars, 

 and proving an extensive trade 

 with Spain and Africa. Potsherds 

 sometimes illustrate decorative 

 styles otherwise unknown, and in 

 Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt were 

 largely used for business memor- 

 anda. In Anglo-Saxon graves they 

 were intentionally thrown upon 

 the body, a superstition mentioned 

 in Hamlet. See Ostraca ; Pottery. 

 Pot Still. Early and simple form 

 of still used in distillation. In it 

 the heat of the fire is applied di- 



Pot Still ot common type. See text 



rectly to the pot containing the 

 mixture. It is chiefly used to-day 

 for distilling illicit whisky, either 

 from grain or malt. The diagram 

 illustrates a common form of still. 

 The still, A, encased in brickwork, 

 B, is directly over the fire. The 

 head of the still, C, is attached to 

 the condenser, D, which enters the 

 tub, E. There the vapour is con- 

 densed and is drawn away into a 

 receiver at F. See Distilling; 

 Poteen ; Still ; Whisky. 



Potter, PAUL (1625-54). Dutch 

 painter. Born at Enkhuysen, he 

 was a pupil of his father, Pieter, at 

 Amsterdam, 

 and of Jakob 

 de Wit at 

 Haarlem. He 

 painted land- 

 scapes with 

 horses or cat- 

 tle, generally 

 on rather a 

 small scale; 

 Paul Potter, but his famous 



' Dutch painter Bull> now at 



AfltrB.tand* Btl.t the MaurftS- 



huis, at The Hague, is nearly life- 

 size. He passed his life in Holland 

 and died at Amsterdam. One of 

 his most typical paintings, Man 



the Hunted, was in the Hermitage 

 Museum, Petrograd. 



Potteries, THE. District in N. 

 Staffordshire, England, including 

 the towns of Stoke-upon-Trent, 

 Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Long- 

 ton, Fenton, etc., all of which were 

 united, March 31, 1910, to form 

 the county bor. of Stoke-upon- 

 Trent. The Potteries is the princi- 

 pal centre in the kingdom for the 

 manufacture of earthenware, china, 

 etc., and measures 9 m. in length 

 by 3 m. in breadth. Here is the 



N. Staffs, coalfield. See Stoke- 

 upon-Trent ; Tunstall, etc. 



Potter's Bar. Eccles. parish 

 and village of Middlesex, England. 

 Situated on the Great North Road, 

 13 m. from London and 3 m. N. of 

 Barnet (q.v. ), on the G.N.R., it is 

 under the control of the South 

 Mimms rural district council. The 

 parish church of S. John was built 

 in 1835. Here, on Oct. 1, 1916, a 

 Zeppelin was attacked and brought 

 down in flames by Lieut. W. J. 

 Tempest, D.S.O., of the R.F.C. 



POTTERY: FOR USE AND ORNAMENT 



H. Barnard, of J. Wedgwood & Sons, and E. G. Harmer 

 This Encyclopedia contains shorter articles on all the main forms 

 of ware, e.g. Coalport ; Crown Derby ; Worcester, etc. See also 



Greek Art ; Rome: Art; China; Jug, etc. 



In its widest sense pottery em- corpse or its ashes. During several 

 braces all earthenware fabrics, 



vessels and building materials, 

 human and animal figures, imple- 

 ments such as spindle-whorls, 

 and personal ornaments. Fash- 

 ioned out of the moist plastic 

 earths called clays, with or with- 

 out other materials, it is .hardened 

 by air-drying or by firing. Fired 

 pottery becomes stone-like, and 

 furnishes some of the most im- 

 perishable relics of early culture. 



Whether pottery was known to 

 palaeolithic man or not, its 

 presence in Danish kitchen- mid- 

 dens apparently dates the inven- 

 tion back to the beginnings of 

 neolithic Europe. But its cradle- 

 land more probably lies E. of the 

 Caspian, whence it spread to the 

 Persian Gulf and, according to 

 British Museum excavations in 

 1919, to pre-Sumerian Eridu and 

 Ur. Modern primitive practice 

 suggests that closely plaited bas- 

 ketware, caulked with clay inside 

 or out, may through accidental 

 contact with hearth-fires have 

 brought about the discovery that 

 watertight vessels are producible 

 by firing clay. Some early ex- 

 amples were modelled on basket 

 forms, and the decorated styles 

 called banded pottery show incised 

 lines simulating suspension cords 

 and bands. 



These primeval fabrics were 

 fired ,on the open hearth by the 

 women of the homestead, who were 

 their sole makers and users. Most 

 of the utilitarian hand-made pot- 

 tery of the world has been, and is, 

 produced by them ; their crude, 

 undecorated jars are still fired on 

 the hearth in the outer Hebrides. 



In process of time the forms of 

 vessels became more and more 

 specialised, according to their use 

 for storing foodstuffs and beverages 

 as well as household and toilet 

 articles, both for the living and the 

 dead, for cooking and serving food,' 

 and still later for interring the 



millenniums prehistoric Egypt de- 

 vised hundreds of forms, ranging 

 from shallow bowls to complex 

 flasks equipped with spouts, han- 

 dles, and pedestalled feet. The 

 fabrics were moulded, modelled, or 

 built up with the free hand by 

 adding consecutive pieces or rib- 

 bons of clay. The fashioning of 

 vessels on rounded pebbles or 

 pivoted disks, enabled the potters 

 to turn the fabrics towards them 

 as they proceeded. This culminated 

 in the potter's wheel, perhaps in 

 early dynastic Egypt, where also 

 the open hearth was replaced by 

 the pot-oven or kiln. 



Simple methods of decoration, 

 by finger-marks, incised lines, and 

 smears of ochre, were followed by 

 the admixture of sand, powdered 

 sherds, and other materials, to avert 

 cracking. The roughened surfaces 

 encouraged the use of slip, thin 

 fluid clay applied before baking. 

 This in later agps was supplemen- 

 ted by various processes of burn- 

 ishing, varnishing, enamelling, and 

 glazing. 



Some authorities hold that the 

 uniform methods of primitive 

 potters are best explained by re- 

 garding the art as the invention of 

 one people, carried by cultural 

 drift round the world. This ac- 

 counts for the lack of pottery in 

 remote regions such as Tasmania 

 and Fuegia, peopled by early mi- 

 grations, and the ignorance of the 

 wheel in other regions, including 

 all pre-Columbian America N. of 

 Tierra del Fuego, which were 

 peopled after Old World pottery 

 began, but before the wheel was 

 devised. One of these migrations 

 apparently reached Alaska from 

 Siberia, and spread thence over 

 arctic America. Another reached 

 middle America, perhaps from S.E. 

 Asia, as suggested by tripod pots 

 and other forms which attained a 

 high development in ancient Mex- 

 ico and the Mississippi mound 



