After I wrote the previous post about my Salamanca pitcher, I started doing a little research on Andean pottery. And what I found was very interesting - the techniques of firing, and working with the clay, were identical to what we know today.
The Incas used natural clay to make pottery, but they added materials such as mica (mica), sand, crushed rock and shell powder in order to prevent cracks from forming during the firing process.
No sign of any kind of wheels were founded in the ancient Americas, so it is customary to believe that the tools were made by hand, first they created a base and then placed a clay snake around it and on top of each such snake another snake was added, until the tool reached the required size. In the next step, the sides were smoothed using a flat stone. Smaller and medium vessels were made using clay molds. Before firing, the potters added a slip and the vessel was painted, engraved on the vessel (sometimes using stamps), or added reliefs to it. The vessel is then burned in kilns, pits or open fires, using oxidation (adding oxygen to the flames), to create red, yellow and cream colored pottery, or, using the reduction method (limiting the supply of oxygen) to produce black vessels.
Ceramic vessels were created for a wide variety of uses, so the shapes were, above all, useful.
The most common form was the urpu, a balloon-shaped corn storage vessel with a long neck, a wider rim, two small handles low on the vessel, and a pointed base. The pointed part at the base is pressed into the soil and will stabilize the pot while pouring corn into it. There were standard urpu sizes based on the volume of their contents. They were decorated with abstract plant motifs and geometric designs, often zigzags and dots. Examples from Cusco are more elegant than those from other regions and are painted black on red.
Other types of ceramics are flat and large serving vessels with animal-like handles, bowls, tall qeros cups (made in pairs and also made of wood), and the pacha - a hollow tube in the shape of a plow tooth, usually decorated with three-dimensional additions such as corn cobs and orfo. The pacha (meaning 'waterfall') was placed in the ground so that corn beer could be ritually poured into it in ceremonies to ask the gods to bless the village with a good harvest.
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