Full PDF Fayoum Pottery: Ceramic Arts and Crafts in an Egyptian Oasis

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Fayoum Pottery: Ceramic Arts and Crafts in an Egyptian
Oasis
Sinopsis :
NAMED A BEST NEW POTTERY BOOK TO READ IN 2022
BY THE BOOK AUTHORITYLavishly illustrated with over 250
full-color photographs of unique designs and rare methods,
providing an in-depth look at the pottery produced in the
FayoumThe Fayoum, a broad, fertile depression in
Egypt&#8217Western Desert, known for its great salt lake, its
rich green fields, and its unique pharaonic and Greco-Roman
remains, is also home to three very different centers of pottery
production. The potters of Kom Oshim specialize in decorated
garden pots and other utilitarian ware, and guard the special
secret of how to make the largest clay vessels in Egypt, up to
an extraordinary two and a half meters tall. At al-Nazla, ancient
traditions are kept alive, as members of a single extended
family continue to use millennia-old techniques passed down
from generation to generation, hand-forming among other
things their distinctive spherical water jars with amazing

dexterity and speed. In the small village of Tunis, the
establishment of a pottery school by a Swiss couple in 1990
led to a complete transformation, and the village now hosts
more than twenty-five pottery workshops and showrooms,
whose products are sold in Cairo, London, and New York.In
this lively insight into a varied and vital craft, the author reveals
the stories of the three villages and the skilled potters who
make their living there, looking at how they learned their trade
and how they work, from the preparation of the clay to the
formation of the pots on the wheel or by hand, to the
decoration, the glazing, and the firing, and finally to the display
or distribution and sale of the finished product.For past and
future travelers to Egypt, lovers of the craft of pottery,
practitioners, and collectors, this beautifully illustrated
exploration of the ceramics of the Fayoum will inspire and
enchant.