Fort Ancient Pot Reproductions

 

 

Modern Bowl Replicas

 

 During the Spring semester at Northern Kentucky University 1974 there was a class project to see if students could construct, dry and then successfully fire pottery using local clay. The clay was prepared by grinding it with a mano and metate to get impurities out and then crushed Ohio River Unio (fresh water clam) shells were added and mixed with the clay as temper to stop cracks during drying and firing. Then wet clay was rolled into long cylinders by rolling it between our hands. Then they were used to make the pot by making a large spiral, then pinched together to make the pot wall. Finally using a wood paddle and cobble stone anvil the wall was thinned and shaped. Evidently this paddling made the coils bond together and the pot stronger. At this time the outside of the bowl was decorated by taking a small twig and drawing (incising) a design, wrapping a paddle with string (cord) and then striking the outer wall creating a cord marked design or placing the bowl in a net and then lightly paddling the pot to leave an impression of the net on the bowl. Next the pot was placed upside down so that it would dry evenly and left to dry about six weeks. At this time the leather hard pot was rubbed with a smooth cobble on the inside until a very smooth (polished) surface was achieved. Finally the pots were placed around a campfire built in a small shallow pit (about one foot deep)  where hey were slowly dried further by turning the pots until they turned a bright pink. At this time larger logs were placed on the fire and the pots placed upside down on these logs and finally more logs were placed around the pots to form a box slightly higher then the largest pot and finally more logs were tented over this box. The fire became extremely smoky at this point since the log box and tent tended to choke off the air the fire needed to burn. During this time evidently extreme heat was building up around the pots.  When flash point was reached  all of the logs burst into roaring flames and were completely consumed in less than five minutes (top picture). At this flash point rock salt was thrown onto the fire creating a green flame resulting in pots that were light purple in color. Leaving glowing pots in a bed of hot coals which took about three hours to cool leaving pots with colors ranging from rust red (oxidized) to purple (salt coloring) to black (reduced) . The cooled pots (bottom picture) were the equivalent of a Basque firing and would hold water or other liquids and were completely functional as cooking or eating bowls as the "Fort Ancient" pots used in pre-historic times.

 

Back