Pottery

From Almeopedia

Pottery (Ver. čanát [tʃa ˈnat]) is a technology whose revolutionary impact is disguished by its antiquity and commonness.

Very likely Almean humans discovered very early that soft, malleable clay would be baked to a hard lump if left in a fire. However, it was not till people had setted down-- and thus didn't need to drag their creations around-- that they began to exploit this observation. The first known pottery vessels come from the Wede:i, around -3000.

Experimenting, the Wede:i found that the best results required very high temperatures, beyond those produced by an open flame. They began to use charcoal as a fuel and to bake their pots in kilns. After the wheel was invented (c. -1100), the potter's wheel was quickly developed.

The simple pot made boiling things much more convenient. This in turn allowed greater exploitation of food resources, such as leafy plants and shellfish. Boiled food was easier to feed to babies or the very old. Just as important was the use of jars as cheap, durable, watertight containers.

Kilns provided experience with high heat, and there was great interest in materials that could be used to decorate or strengthen pottery; the kilns were the theoretical laboratories that led to metallurgy. One of the earliest heat-formed decorative materials was soda quartz frit, formed from sand, soda ash, and copper oxides. Simpler methods were also used, such as the use of different clays or slips. The black in the pictured Meťaiun vase is simply a soot-based paint.

True glazes seem to have been developed around -300 in Munkhâsh, which had more metallurgical experience since it did not use elcari as miners. Within a few centuries it had spread to other civilizations. Glazing allowed spectacular coloration, and more importantly, made the pot more waterproof. Glazes are often based on feldspar, or naturally occurring glass.

The flaids proved particularly gifted at pottery, and around 2300 developed porcelain-- called ledli in Verdurian after the city of Ledley in Flora. This depends on a key mineral, kaolin, called simply mell jag 'good clay' in Flaidish; Ledley is located near a large deposit. Kaolin is present to some extent in all clays, but mell jag is a particularly pure form; the exceptional hardness and translucency of porcelain is also due to high proportions of feldspar, as well as extremely high firing temperatures. The other northern countries have learned how to make porcelain-- Ismahi makes a very fine variety-- but the best porcelain is still considered to be that of Ledley.