Developments in Ceramic Materials Research

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Dimitris Skarlatos, Tilemachos Zakinthinos and Ioanis Koumanoudis
G.M.Harris, P.Bruel and others. The studies of R. Floriot, J.M. Fontaine, Y. Loerinck, V.
Papathanasopoulos and other researchers on the sound vases of European churches are very
significant [34].
Greek researchers have based their opinions on tradition and have interpreted the
presence of the sound vases “for the improvement of acoustics, or for acoustic reasons, or for
sound amplification, or as an acoustic tradition, and at the same time for lightening purposes,
etc.” Unfortunately, none of them has dealt extensively with it, because they referred to the
matter only after the discovery of some new findings (sound vases), and never made any
retrospective research of them with other countries in order to compare.
The matter was never examined spherically, because the known examples were sporadic
and random.
A limited number of them believe that the sound vases are a continuation of the (nonexistent)
sound vases of Vitruvius, others believe that they come vaguely from the East or
Byzantium or both – two or three of them believe that the sound vases originated from
Denmark or Scandinavia, i.e. their home countries, perhaps due to lack of information.
3.1. Shapes of Sound Vessels
3. SOUND VESSELS IN WORSHIP PLACES
In Europe the vases used were either specially manufactured or else vases of ordinary
domestic type, greatly varying in shape. Most of them were between 20 cm and 30 cm in
length and 13 -15 cm wide at the mouth [27] In Anatolia the vases found in Mosques
designed by Sinan (Ottoman architecture) had smaller openings. In the dome of Blue Mosque,
for example, two groups of terracotta vases were found. The first group had small openings
with a radius of 1.5 cm and the second group wider openings with a radius of 6 cm. Their
length, including the neck, was about 50 cm [9].
The vases found in Greek churches can be listed into 3 different categories: a) Spherical
(approximately), the number of which is 909, making up 93.9%, b) tube-like, with or without
bottom, which are 22 and making up 23% and c) the various shapes of cavities, numbering 38
and making up 3.8% of the total of sound vases [5, 6].
All vases found in Greece, regardless of shape are made entirely of clay, usually of a red
mass with a visible mixture of a sandy material. Sometimes the clay has the colour of ash. On
the inner surface of the walls of the vessels, the fingerprints of the potter are evident. We can
also discern evidence of the successive circles imprinted on the walls of the vases, vertical to
the main axis of them, proving that these had been manufactured with the traditional method
of the potter’s wheel. The firing and tempering of the clay varies from vase to vase, since the
glazing of the interior is generally absent. A coloured glazing decoration was observed on the
outside wall of certain vases, e.g. Aegina (figure 4a) or Arta along with an engraving on the
perimeter with decorative patterns. This observation proves that the engraving of the patterns
was made on damp clay followed by the colouring. Figure 4 shows the shapes of vases found
in Greek churches in island of Aegina (a, b) in Viotia (c) in Attica (d) and on the island of
Salamis. Figure 5 shows some of the vases found in European countries: in France (a) [35], in
England (b) [36], in Denmark (c) [37] and in Switzerland (d) [38].