Manufacturing of Pottery Vessels

The Manufacturing of vessels from clay is one of the most ancient handicrafts in history. It is particularly famous in Jordan since the ideal type of soils for manufacturing ceramic vessels is available in Jordan. This handicraft is mostly practiced by women.
The women use the white soil (Mi’lijeh), goat’s hair, igneous rock, pieces of ancient pottery to manufacture their ceramic vessels. They crush all these ingredients together until they become fine. They mix them with water to get a paste which will be left for two days to get fermented. Then, they shape the clay with hands to get the desired form. A hole filled with the jalleh (animal’s dung ) is used to bake the vessels. The vessels are completely buried with the dung and left for two days to be ready for use. This handicraft is transferred from one generation to another.
This handicraft evolved from the handmade pottery dried in the sun or baked on open fire into using pottery-wheels and firing them in high temperatures. When using the wheel, the vessel has to be wet in order to be formed easily. The vessels need from two to three days to be dried completely. Different kinds of motifs like trees, animals and other things are drawn after drying process. Sometimes syringe is used to form drawings like mosaics. Vessels baked in oven for a period from ten to fifteen hours. In order to produce glazed pottery, potters add glossy material, bake the vessel again in the oven for a period from eight to ten hours. These glazed vessels are normally used to decorate houses.