Academic literature on the topic 'Pottery Pottery Decoration and ornament. Glazing (Ceramics)'

The article considers the results of multidisciplinary analysis of the Nabil archaeological culture pottery identified in 2005 by results of the archaeological researches in North Sakhalin. The Nabil archaeological culture includes the ceramics complex consisted of pointed shape pottery decorated by comb stamps. The sources of the study are the archaeological studies of the settlements (the collections and reports) organized by the research team of Sakhalin Archaeological and Ethnography Laboratory of IAET SB RAS and SakhGU in 2004–2015 and additional archaeological material from other collections. According to absolute dating of the Nabil archaeological complexes, the material was clustered into three chronological periods: early – 3065–2781 cal BP, middle – 2754–2342 cal BP, late – 2334–2009 cal BP. The study used technical methods like X-ray Diffraction analysis, Petrographic analysis of pottery, Optical Binocular Microscopy, method of sherds’ laboratory re-firing, statistic-and-classification method. Most part of the pottery was identified as the remains of the everyday utensils, the lowest rate of the others were used like celebratory vessels. Recipes of the moulding compounds are almost homogeneous. Their raw material includes meagre clay with a lot of dust-like natural sand. As a thinning agent for the moulding composition added sand temper in pottery paste and sometimes chamotte. The vessels were made by the wall only “seedbody”. The walls of the vessels formed by the linear-ring building method. The pottery was roasted with bonfire firing, the later period with oven devices for pottery firing. The vessel's shapes are asymmetry. The contour of the vessel shape of the Nabil’s type is oval-shaped with either concave or straight or ill-defined neck. The upper part of the vessel surface was decorated. The basic type of ornamentation is the comb stamps. The elements of the pottery ornamentation are both continuous and discrete horizontal lines, curved ornament, short, long, diagonal, and vertical lines as well as individual impressions. The pattern of the pottery decoration consists of either horizontal continuous lines or discrete ones with either series diagonal or vertical short stamping. It is widespread. Stylistically the composition of the pottery decoration evokes associations with the row of the beads and pendants. In conjunction with nipple-shaped thickened of the vessel to the bottom it creates a stylistic image of the female breast. There was the infiltration of foreign cultural elements in the Nabil archaeological culture in the late period.

The paper is devoted to the poorly studied final period of the existence of Early Neolithic Sperrings culture. There are few settlements of this period - Voynavolok XX, Sandermoha II, Pindushi and Sulgu Va, they are presented in mixed complexes with proscenium stone tools and the absence of radiocarbon dates. No transitional complexes between the developed and final stages of the sperrings culture have been identified. The ceramics of the final stage has a number of differences from the classic sperrings. This lack of ornamentation imprints fish vertebra and the retreating lines. At the same time there are imprints of the corded stamps and oval (rhomboid) pits, round-conical pits marked on the main pattern - characteristic features of the advanced stage of the sperrings culture. The main ornament is horizontal zones inclined right and left with a short-cut or corded stamps, comb stamp or oval (rhomboid) pits that form a vertical zigzag lines coated on top of horizontal belts of round-conical pits, sometimes arranged in a staggered manner. Such a change of pottery decoration hasnt been noted by experts studying early Neolithic ceramics of Karelia due to a small number of vessels and their presence in mixed complexes. Therefore, the development of the sperrings culture is likely to have been continued in some areas of South Karelia, but it is poorly recorded due to the refusal of the ancient population to use a fish vertebra as ornamentation as well as the transition to comb stamps.

Medieval glazed ceramics, dated to the early 15th century, excavated at the Belgrade Fortress, Serbia, were investigated by combining optical microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), micro-Raman spectroscopy and multivariate statistical analysis. The decoration and style of the investigated ceramics were characteristic of workshops from different areas of the medieval Serbian State: Ras, Krusevac and Belgrade/Smederevo. Comparison was made with ceramic samples from the same period excavated at the Studenica Monastery, the hitherto earliest workshop discovered, which were used as reference material for the Ras area. Ceramics from the Belgrade Fortress were covered with a transparent, lead-based glaze. The majority of the glazes were produced by application of mixture of lead oxide and quartz to the clay body, whereas only two samples were glazed by application of lead oxide by itself. The brown colours of the glaze originated from Fe-based spinel, whereas copper and iron were responsible for the colouring of the green and yellow glazes. The obtained results revealed glazing technology taken from Byzantine tradition.

Pottery of Uch-Bash settlement (the end of the 12th — beginning of the 7th century BC) has a variety of decors. Ornamentation on ceramics is represented by different methods of decoration — channeled, cut or pressedlines, stripes formed by various shaped stamps, as well as a variety of appliques. Most of the «negatives» and «positives» are part of the compositions that form the motif of the ornament. But there are a number of images that do not fit into these compositions existing separately even on ornamented vessels. There are traditional solar symbols — crosses, swastikas, anthropomorphous, as well as several images in the form of an inverted crescent moon with a shoot in the middle or a bird’s paw. The paper deals with one of the signs on a ceramic ware found on the fortified settlement of Uch-Bash in South-West Crimea. This is the image of inverted crescent moon or a three-edged symbol generally referring to anthropomorphic images. Chronologically the artefacts are divided into two groups: the early (Ithaca, Troy) and the late (Sborianovo, Sergen-Yurt, Uch-Bash, Kyzyl-Koba, Bulakhivka, Bystrica). The early group generally dates to the final of the Late Helladic period, the later one dates since the 10th till the 8th century BC. Cumulatively the early artefacts in their region (Mediterranean basin) as the late ones in their (the Black Sea basin) coincide with the change of epochs — transition to the iron production and use. The presence of pottery with a three-edged symbol in the necropolises with innovations in custom such as in Sborianovo and Ferigele (Bystrica) testifies to certain changes in the ideology of the population linked with these sites. According to the researchers numerous finds of items with anthropomorphic features are found on the sites where pottery with the three-edged symbol have been found and the three-edged symbol itself is an anthropomorph. Given the fact that such sign on artefacts is not combined with solar symbols, and in the structure of ornamentation the oddness (unlike the parity in the previous horizons) prevails, we can assume that the process of disseminating knowledge and skills in the manufacture of iron and use of iron objects was underway with certain innovations in ideology. However, the fact of such ideological transformations cannot be overlooked because just the Iron Age was the time which eventually formed the main monotheistic concepts and world religions. Absolutely spontaneously this conclusion coincided with the concept of «Axial Age» (Gem. — Achsenzeit) by the German existentialist philosopher K. Jaspers. He defined the beginning of the Iron Age (as a historical era) as the so-called axial time which was marked by the change of outlook that led to the formation of a new ideology of the modern world. In general, the conceptualisation of existential searches is directed at the humanitarian, anthropocentric definition of social order, so, the object and subject of these searches is a human. Considering the absolute difference between the methods and sources used by archaeologists and philosophers we anyway note the quite not coincidental coincidence of the philosophical concept and the conclusion made on the basis of the analysis of the sign system — the most abstract source that has come to us since that time.