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Potter Research Paper

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production proved impossible for the women to do with their considerable commitments to child rearing and food preparation. Although one person can make pots more quickly with a wheel, still more full-time labour is needed to decorate, finish and fire this increasing amount of pottery. Clearly, in all communities many people now became full-time potters from the third millennium BC. onwards. (Briant)
The strength needed to operate the wheel helped to transform the role of potter from that predominantly dominated by women to primarily men. This shift to men potters also was possible because men were no longer needed as hunters.
The earliest records of potter's using a wheel is in 2500 BC in Egypt (“Pottery, Materials and Working Techniques”). Most of the time people used low speed wheels. While the pottery wheel was made before 3000 BCE, Egyptian tomb paintings during the next 2,000 years of war show that potter's …show more content…

Before the 16th Century, potters would spin the wheel with their hands up to the desired speed. During the 1500’s, a shaft connects the wheel to a heavier disc below where one would use their foot to spin it up to a desired speed. The first versions the early kick wheels were made out of wood and the spinning mechanisms were mainly made from greased leather (History of Ceramics). This type of wheel throwing technique is referred to as momentum pottery, because of the spinning momentum of the wheel. As the momentum pottery wheel became more popular it needed to become more reliable. And so the materials they were constructed from soon upgraded. In the 19th century, pottery wheels started to be made from metal. The spinning mechanisms were mainly made from glass or even the modern roller bearings, similar to ones we have today (19th Century Pottery

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