Crushed Pottery Temper Ceramics

Ang 6930 archaeological ceramics k.

Crushed pottery temper ceramics. In north america the use of crushed mussel shell as temper first began millennia ago but increased dramatically at ca. Adding temper to the clay the clay must then be washed to remove any debris and kneaded repeatedly to achieve the proper consistency and quality removing any air bubbles before shaping a pot. Pure kaolin clay does not require tempering. Aboriginal pottery tempered with bone has been found at many prehistoric protohistoric and historic sites in south and central texas.

Some clays used to make pottery do not require the addition of tempers. Temper can be bought found or made of many different possible materials. Foreign material sand plant fibers grit shell crushed rock broken pottery added to clay for potterymaking to improve its firing qualities and prevent a vessel from cracking during the drying process. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine or more rarely marine shell tempering agents in the clay paste shell tempering is one of the hallmarks of mississippian cultural practices.

Peacock 1968 declared that group a malvernian rock fabric was a tempered one. Substance in clay that modifies its properties when wet or dry as well as during and after firing rice 1987 407 mixing of additives including other clays with clay to produce a body for pottery making rye 1976 109. Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the mississippian culture 800 to 1600 ce found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the american midwest and southeast. I have made temper from aquarium gravel that i crushed down to an appropriate size crushed shells old broken pottery that i have pulverized down into little pieces sometimes even coarse sand.

Knight marsden and carney 2003 have also demonstrated that the granodiorite found in some iron age pottery made in leicestershire was crushed and added as temper. Grog or crushed potsherd temper variable pottery series cross section of grog tempered sherd thin section of grog tempered sherd width of image 2 5mm. Some clays are self tempered that is naturally contain enough mica sand or sponge spicules that they do not require additional tempering. Although most texas archaeologists have correctly identified the crushed white inclusions found in these ceramics as bone positive identification of the temper through the use of histology has not been attempted.

Because clay was secured in large amounts and often stored in a pit it would dry out and then had to be broken apart and crushed before it could be.