down and mixed in the medium to produce a blue pigment,
copper could be added for green, and antimony produced yel-
low. In the city of Uruk clay was also used to manufacture
writing tablets. To keep records, pictographs (fi gures used in
a kind of picture writing) were pressed into the still-wet clay
with a cylinder seal or a pointed stick.
Pottery of the Jemdet Nasr era originated around 3200
b.c.e. Jemdet Nasr jars are thick and painted in black or dark
red. During this period clay seals also came into use through-
out Mesopotamia (though archaeologists have discovered
seal impressions from as early as the Halaf Period). Seals
are small, engraved, cylindrical objects, one to two inches in
length; they were also made of silver, bone, ivory, or semipre-
cious stone. Th e seals had a variety of designs and were rolled
over tablets or bricks while the clay was still wet. Th ey left
a permanent, rectangular image in the clay. Engraved with
images of the gods, symbols of offi ce, or simple geometric de-
signs, they served to authenticate records, agreements, and
offi cial documents. Later cylinder seals became items of jew-
elry, acting as talismans and amulets that provided the wear-
ers with protection and good luck.
At this time clay tablets came into widespread usage for
cuneiform writing, a wedge-shaped script. Th e tablets were
incised with a reed or stick (cuneus in Latin) while still wet
and then baked and used to keep records for trade or govern-
ment functions related to the storage and movement of grain,
weapons, and money. During the Uruk Period the need for
record keeping arose as cities were built and people gathered
under a central authority. Pictographic symbols represented
commodities, while simpler designs indicated numbers.
In the second millennium b.c.e. ceramic art developed
further in the Mesopotamian kingdoms. Drinking vessels
were delicately shaped into abstract and animal forms that
were provided with shiny glazes in a variety of colors. Painted
pottery and ceramic animal fi gurines were everyday objects
in the home. Bulls symbolized masculinity; rams and stags
were given elaborate sets of horns. Female fi gures showed
wide and rounded hips and hands held to the breasts, a sym-
bol of fertility. Statuettes of gods and spirits were also shaped
from clay and used as votive fi gures, guardians of the hearth
and home.
By the time of the Assyrian Empire (1813–609 b.c.e.),
pottery was a large-scale industry throughout Mesopotamia.
Potters set up large workshops, fi red their wares in massive
stone kilns, and incised their work with distinctive marks
and stamps. Th ere was a wide variety of standard shapes for
bowls, jugs, beakers, and plates; a distinctive blue glaze was
applied that became the hallmark of Assyrian ceramics.
Th e fall of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, in 612 b.c.e.,
brought the rise of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in Mes-
opotamia. Under the Achaemenids and the later Parthian
and Sassanid empires, pottery artisans achieved a very high
level of skill in shaping and painting clay. Vessels appeared
in all manner of abstract, animal, and human forms, some
very complex and others downright whimsical. As models,
the ancient Persian artisans favored horned mountain goats
and deer, domestic livestock such as cattle and sheep, cam-
els (symbolizing wealth), and horses (symbolizing speed and
power). Graceful handles appeared on drinking cups and
jugs; spouts emerged from unlikely places, oft en along the
side or even at the base. Historians speculate that the many
twin-spouted drinking vessels found in ancient Persian cities
may have been used in wedding ceremonies or in rituals that
sealed treaties and agreements by drinking from a common
vessel. Ceramic workshops also produced sarcophagi and fu-
nerary urns in which to bury the dead and, for the living,
monumental sculptures designed for the walls of palaces and
religious shrines.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Th e oldest-known ceramics in Asia are found on the island of
Kyushu in Japan, where pottery discovered in a cave has been
carbon-dated to 12,000 b.c.e., an era in the grip of an ice age
that lowered sea levels enough to connect Kyushu by dry land
to Korea. Th e era from 13,000 to 300 b.c.e. is the Jomon Pe-
riod, during which the primary way to make ceramic vessels,
whether small cups or burial urns large enough for a human
corpse, was to wind ropes of clay in a circle, one atop another.
Th e ancient ceramics were elaborately decorated with designs
impressed into the clay or created by adding ridges of clay to
the side of the pottery, making images of trees, animals, and
supernatural fi gures as well as abstract designs. Painting pots
and other ceramic objects probably did not begin until late in
the Jomon Period, when potters depicted images of everyday
life on their creations.
During the Yayoi Period (300 b.c.e.–300 c.e.) numer-
ous haniwa fi gures were made. Haniwa were representations
of people and animals that surrounded graves and burial
mounds, warding off evil spirits who might disturb the dead.
Some of these fi gures may have been used as toys. Although
they were quickly made, with sometimes hundreds being used
for one burial, they nevertheless tended to be expressive, with
the human fi gures showing emotions such as anger or hap-
piness. It was also during the Yayoi Period that the potter’s
wheel was introduced to Japan. During the 400s c.e. many
Korean artisans moved to the islands of Kyūshū and Honshu,
bringing with them new skills. Korean potters introduced a
kiln to Japan that became very popular, sometimes scores of
them covering whole mountainsides. Th e kiln was erected on
a slope, a long, brick tube pointing upward; pots were placed
in it and a fi re lit at the bottom end, while the heated air
fl owed up through the kiln’s tube. Potters learned the special
quirks of individual kilns and just where to place a particular
ceramic object to fi re it the way they wanted it to be fi red.
Ceramics appeared in the Harappan culture in the In-
dus River region in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent
about 2300 b.c.e. Harappans used potter’s wheels to produce
large jars that they painted with elaborate designs of animalsceramics and pottery: Asia and the Pacific 179