A Brief History of Potters Wheels
With the change from hunting-gathering to agriculture after the last ice age ended twelve thousand years ago and the need to store and boil seeds for food, pottery-making soon evolved into a specialized craft.
Originally pottery was made by building up coils of clay and forming the succeeding layers of the coils into an even wall.
This type of coiling requires turning the pot slowly as the work proceeds, so early potters would begin the coiling on a flat plate which they could rotate by hand.
This technique is still being used by some primitive potters in African and Asian villages, who then fire their finished ware after drying by piling it on brushwood and burning it in a bonfire.
Potters wheels were invented in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) about 4000 BCE, when the Sumerians - the first town- and city-based civilization on earth, arose and flourished.
The Sumerians were the first civilization to use wheels to construct carts (previously heavy loads were dragged on sledges, or over rolling logs) and chariots.
They also were the first to invent turntables for making pottery, although these early potters wheels were not free-running like modern wheels - they merely permitted faster and more efficient coiling.
Paintings in Egyptian tombs dated 3000 BCE show potters working with turntables made from stone or wood.
The development of pottery wheels or turntables rapidly increased pottery production, and the process came to be dominated by male potters who specialized in the craft rather than females working at the task in free moments.
The invention of fast free-turning wheels around 1000 BCE in the Mediterranean area allowed for what we would now consider wheel throwing (rather than coiling) techniques to evolve.
With this new type of wheel the potter kicks a heavy flywheel until it is rotating quite fast; and then molds a lump of soft clay to shape it (rather than the firm clay used in the coiling technique).
A soft ball of clay is centered on the wheel and opened out as the wheel turns.
Since friction eventually causes the wheel to slow down, the wheel must be kicked to bring it up to fast speed again.
The pots are lubricated with slurry rather than water (as in the coiling technique).
In the Far East the potters wheel took a different form than in the Mediterranean area: the throwing table itself was often the heavy flywheel and in Japan and China potters normally sat on or near the ground rather than on a raised seat (and an assistant might control the speed of the wheel).
In the Far East potters wheels usually rotate clockwise, whereas in the West potters wheels rotate counter-clockwise.
Early wheels were made mostly of wood with greased leather strips for upper bearings, and a metal point in a stone socket at the bottom.
In the eighteenth century mechanical powered potters wheels were developed and by the nineteenth century potters wheels were made with rods and bearings of iron or steel.
These wheels run very smoothly and are almost frictionless.
Some modern potters still prefer this type of silent momentum kick-wheel to the variable speed electric wheels available today.
Originally pottery was made by building up coils of clay and forming the succeeding layers of the coils into an even wall.
This type of coiling requires turning the pot slowly as the work proceeds, so early potters would begin the coiling on a flat plate which they could rotate by hand.
This technique is still being used by some primitive potters in African and Asian villages, who then fire their finished ware after drying by piling it on brushwood and burning it in a bonfire.
Potters wheels were invented in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) about 4000 BCE, when the Sumerians - the first town- and city-based civilization on earth, arose and flourished.
The Sumerians were the first civilization to use wheels to construct carts (previously heavy loads were dragged on sledges, or over rolling logs) and chariots.
They also were the first to invent turntables for making pottery, although these early potters wheels were not free-running like modern wheels - they merely permitted faster and more efficient coiling.
Paintings in Egyptian tombs dated 3000 BCE show potters working with turntables made from stone or wood.
The development of pottery wheels or turntables rapidly increased pottery production, and the process came to be dominated by male potters who specialized in the craft rather than females working at the task in free moments.
The invention of fast free-turning wheels around 1000 BCE in the Mediterranean area allowed for what we would now consider wheel throwing (rather than coiling) techniques to evolve.
With this new type of wheel the potter kicks a heavy flywheel until it is rotating quite fast; and then molds a lump of soft clay to shape it (rather than the firm clay used in the coiling technique).
A soft ball of clay is centered on the wheel and opened out as the wheel turns.
Since friction eventually causes the wheel to slow down, the wheel must be kicked to bring it up to fast speed again.
The pots are lubricated with slurry rather than water (as in the coiling technique).
In the Far East the potters wheel took a different form than in the Mediterranean area: the throwing table itself was often the heavy flywheel and in Japan and China potters normally sat on or near the ground rather than on a raised seat (and an assistant might control the speed of the wheel).
In the Far East potters wheels usually rotate clockwise, whereas in the West potters wheels rotate counter-clockwise.
Early wheels were made mostly of wood with greased leather strips for upper bearings, and a metal point in a stone socket at the bottom.
In the eighteenth century mechanical powered potters wheels were developed and by the nineteenth century potters wheels were made with rods and bearings of iron or steel.
These wheels run very smoothly and are almost frictionless.
Some modern potters still prefer this type of silent momentum kick-wheel to the variable speed electric wheels available today.
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