That thing people call "pottery" that isn't actually fired

I keep seeing folks on here and in museum displays calling sun-dried clay shards "pottery." Real pottery has to be fired at least 800 degrees to turn the clay into ceramic, otherwise it just dissolves back into mud when it gets wet. I spent three summers working on a dig in Arizona where we found thousands of these unfired pieces from a Hohokam village, and our crew chief would correct anyone who used the wrong word. Does it bug anyone else when terms get used sloppy like that in official reports or exhibits?

2 comments

2 Comments

karenm491mo ago

Oh, that brings back a memory. I was at a folk art fair in Vermont a few years back and saw a table labeled "Handmade Pottery" with all these little pinch pots that were clearly just air-dried clay. I asked the woman running the booth if she had a kiln, and she said no, she just let them sit in the sun for a week. I didn't want to be rude but I couldn't help mentioning that real pottery needs to be fired. She gave me this blank look and said "well, they hold dried flowers just fine." So I guess it depends on what you're using it for. But yeah, in a museum display especially, you'd think they'd want to get the terminology right.

reed.eva1mo ago

Oh man, that reminds me of this time I went to a craft show in Ohio and this guy was selling "wood carved owls" that were clearly just glued-together pine cones with googly eyes. He had like 50 of them on a table and was dead serious about it. I didn't say anything but I couldn't stop staring lol. I guess at the end of the day if someone buys it and likes it, it doesn't really matter what you call it. But museums should definitely know better than to call air-dried clay "pottery" in a display case. That's like calling a stick a sculpture.