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The potter's wheel, also known as the potter's lathe, is a machine used in the shaping of round ceramic wares. Use of the potter's wheel allows clay on a revolving circular platform to be rapidly manipulated to a required form. Highly standardised forms may be produced by the use of shaped profiles (known as jiggers) applied to the surface of the rotating clay. The wheel may also be used for trimming excess clay from air-dried wares and for applying incised decoration or rings of colour.
See also the Misplaced Pages article on Pottery for background information on forming of ceramic wares.
History
The earliest ceramics were hand-built using a simple coiling technique in which clay was rolled into long threads that were then pinched and beaten together to form the body of a vessel. In the coiling method of construction, all of the energy required to form the body of a piece is supplied directly by the hands of the potter. This changed with the introduction of the fast-wheel, early forms of which utilised energy stored in the rotating mass of the heavy stone wheel itself. The wheel was wound-up and charged with energy by pushing it round with a stick, an arrangement that permitted the energy stored in the wheel to be finely directed to where it was required, at the point where the hands of the potter come into contact with the clay. Unlike hand-building, in wheel-throwing the bulk of the energy used does not come directly from the hands of the potter. The introduction of the fast-wheel brought benefits in the form of speed and a job that might have taken hours, or even days, to complete was reduced to one that could be done in minutes.
Early ceramic wares built by coiling were often placed on mats or large leaves to allow them to be worked more conveniently. This arrangement allowed the potter to turn the vessel under construction, rather than walk around it to add threads of clay and it has been proposed that the earliest forms of the potter's wheel were developed as an extension to this procedure. The earliest versions of the wheel were probably turned slowly by hand or by foot while coiling a pot, but later developments allowed energy stored in a flywheel to be used to speed up the process of throwing.
It is not known when the potter's wheel first came into use, but dates between about 6,000 BC to about 2,400 BC have been suggested. Many modern scholars suggest that it was first developed in Mesopotamia, although Egypt and China have also been claimed as possible places of origin. A stone potter's wheel found at the Mesopotamian city of Ur in modern-day Iraq has been dated to about 3,000 BC, but fragments of wheel-thrown pottery of an even earlier date have been recovered in the same area. By the time of the early civilizations of the bronze age the use of the potter's wheel had become widespread.
In the iron age the potter's wheel in common use had a turning platform about a meter above the floor, connected by a long axle to a heavy flywheel at ground level. This arrangement allowed the potter to keep the turning-wheel rotating by kicking the flywheel with the foot, leaving both hands free for manipulating the vessel under construction.
Use of the the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World, but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World, where pottery was hand-made by methods that included coiling and beating.
The use of the motor-driven potter's wheel has become common in modern times, although human-powered ones are still in use and are much preferred by some potters.
The potter's wheel in myth and legend
In Ancient Egyptian mythology, the god Chnum was said to have formed the first humans on a potter's wheel.
The potter's wheel in literature
The way in which clay is shaped on a potter's wheel seems, even today, to have a magical quality to it; the clay has the appearance of being a living thing that is being created or shaped by the potter. The potter and his clay have long served as a metaphor for creation, and for the relationship of God to humankind:
- But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
- —Isaiah 64:8
The "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" make sustained use of this metaphor. In FitzGerald's translation, a number of quatrains are collected into a Book of Pots, in which the pots engage in theological speculation:
And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried—
“Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”
Another said—“Why, ne'er a peevish Boy,
“Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
“Shall He that made the vessel in pure Love
“And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy?”
None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
“They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
“What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”
Crankshaft
The simplest way to spin the potter's wheel by foot is to sweep the foot from side to side against the spinning hub. From an ergonomic standpoint, this is rather awkward.
Another solution which was invented at an unknown time was to have a crankshaft with a lever, that converts up and down motion into rotary motion. Sewing machines such as those pioneered by the Singer Corporation have manual models operated by this method.
External links
- The Origins of the Potter's Wheel multi-page article on Ceramics Today site