Jōmon pottery
Jōmon pottery is pottery, that was made in the first japanese period, the Jōmon period (14 000 - 300 BCE). It was made completely by hand, by building up from the bottom coils of soft clay, mixed with other materials such as fibres or crushed shells. Afterwards the pottery was smoothed out by tools and decorated by pressing shells and cords or by rolling a carved stick into the clay before it hardened. This decorating style is also called cord marking. After decoration it was fired in an outdoor bonfire.
Pottery was the main form of visual expression. Of course, the style and complexity of Jōmon pottery differed by times it was made. We divide the Jōmon period into, Incipient (Initial), Early, Middle, Late and Final Jōmon. Now we will talk about each period and how the pottery improved in style and usage.
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In the Incipient Jōmon, pottery was used for cooking. It had bullet-shaped pots and the tapered bases were designed to stabilize the vessels in soft soil and ash at the centre of a fire pit. Even in this times the pottery had basic decorative schemes, like markings.
The vessels generally continued to have a cone shape, narrow at the foot and gradually widening to the rim or mouth, in the Early Jōmon. Biggest improvement was, that they started to have flat bottoms. Shallow bowls and narrow-necked bottles were also introduced, as well as pottery used for storage.
The Middle Jōmon witnessed a boom in pottery usage. It was no longer used only for cooking or storage, but also for clay lamps, drum shells and figurines. Religious figurines but also female figurines with exaggerated breasts and hips. Vessles began to take on heavy decorative schemes employing applied clay.
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Tomorrow we'll talk about vessel types and pottery that was made in the Late and Final Jōmon.
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