Bowl Made in Ancient Egypt, Around 4500 Years Ago
The first pots were made by smoothing layers of clay together. Potters learned to make this process easier by using a wheel. This Egyptian dish was made on a potter's wheel. This involves throwing clay onto a spinning wheel and shaping it with your hands. The wheel for making pots is thought to have been invented at the same time as the normal wheel. This was 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia (Iraq). Egyptians then used this technique for thousands of years. This is a round bottomed bowl from Qau el-kebir, around 2500 BC. It is terracotta coloured and has some blackening from firing in the kiln. This dish is a reddish colour that is very common on Egyptian pottery. This is because of the reddish clay found near the River Nile. Many Egyptian pots that have survived were placed in graves, containing foods as offerings for the after-life. When a coil pot is made up by hand it is impossible to make it perfectly round. The solution to this problem was the wheel. It is a crucial invention in the history of ceramics. The wheel probably developed gradually from a platform which the potter turned the pot before shaping another side. The technique was at first just a faster method of coiling. Village potters still use this method in some parts of the world. Improvements increased the speed and power of the wheel. Eventually it become possible for a potter's wheel to be used for "throwing" a pot. Qau el-Kabir is on the east bank of the Nile, between Asyut and Akhmim in Northern Upper Egypt. Its ancient name was Tjebu and it was also known as Antaeoplois in Graeco-Roman times. Qau el-kebir was once the capital of an area known as the 12th Upper Egypt Nome. It is an historically important area because it was the centre of early Egyptian Christianity.
