to create another vessel. Th ousands of such vessels were fi red
at once in massive kilns shared by several related workshops.
Most of the potters at the large terra sigillata factories in Italy
(and, later, in France) were slaves.
By the fi rst century c.e. Italian terra sigillata was widely
exported to the large urban centers of the Roman provinces as
well as the military garrisons on the frontiers, where standard
table services, including cups, bowls, and plates, were issued
to army units. Terra sigillata vessels were so popular that they
were widely emulated in other regions of the empire. In the
course of the second and third centuries c.e. production cen-
ters in Turkey, Syria, the Levant, and North Africa produced
vessels of such beauty and high quality that they rapidly su-
perseded the Italian products in popularity. Less elaborately
decorated or plain tableware was also widely produced for lo-
cal markets; each province of the Roman Empire had its own
distinctive tableware suite refl ecting local taste.
THE AMERICAS
BY RONALD YOUNG AND MICHAEL J. O’NEAL
Ceramics and pottery played an important role throughout
the ancient American world. While all major civilizations in
the Western Hemisphere produced ceramics in some form,
the most advanced examples technically and artistically were
produced by the great civilizations of Mesoamerica and the
Andean region. Two principal characteristics marked ceram-
ics and pottery throughout the hemisphere. First, American
cultures built ceramic works by hand, for the potter’s wheel
was unknown in the Americas. Second, all ancient Ameri-
cans decorated their ceramics with pigment or with slip, or
clay thinned with water to a liquid consistency and used as a
coating to produce a fi ner fi nish.
In North America, Native American groups in what is
now the eastern United States produced ceramics extensive-
ly. Historians refer to these tribes collectively as the Eastern
Woodlands, or sometimes just Woodlands, tribes. Included
among them are such well-known tribes as the Iroquois and
the Chippewa, along with a large number of smaller tribes that
lived sedentary lives in the forested regions east of the Mis-
sissippi River. Some of the earliest pottery in North America
may have been produced in the region around modern-day
Georgia and South Carolina beginning in about 2500 b.c.e.
From there it spread to the north, west, and south, so that
by about 1200 b.c.e., the Woodlands tribes throughout the
southeastern United States were making storage and cooking
vessels out of fi red clay.
Th e development of fi red vessels and pottery was a major
innovation, oft en referred to by historians as the “container
revolution.” Until the development of clay pottery, Native
Americans had stored seeds, grains, and other food products
in woven baskets and gourds, where they remained suscep-
tible to spoilage by moisture. Such pottery as the people were
able to produce, usua lly made from soapstone, was easily bro-
ken during transportation. But with the development of stur-
dier, more durable fi red pottery that was glazed and therefore
waterproof, people were able to store materials much more
effi ciently over longer periods of time. Th ey could store not
only agricultural products but also such foodstuff s as shal-
low-water seafood, giving their diets much greater variety.
Further, the ability to store seeds contributed to the devel-
opment of horticulture, which in turn gave rise to crop ma-
nipulation. All of these developments played a major role in
the transition from earlier hunting and gathering to a more
settled agricultural way of life.
Pottery was used for purposes other than cooking and
food storage. Th e Hopewell culture, referring to the peoples
who lived along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers (200 b.c.e.–
400 c.e.), also used fi red pottery for burial purposes. Th e pot-
tery of the Hopewell peoples was elaborately decorated and
made use of the so-called coiled pottery technique. In making
a coiled pot, the potter rolled and squeezed wet clay into coils,
or long segments roughly the thickness of a pencil. Th e clay
was then wound into circles and the coils stacked one atop the
other and pressed into a smooth container on the inside.Feline-head ceramic bottle from Peru, ninth to fi ft h century b.c.e.
(Copyright the Metropolitan Museum of Art)ceramics and pottery: The Americas 185