Crushed Pottery Temper Ceramics

Aboriginal pottery tempered with bone has been found at many prehistoric protohistoric and historic sites in south and central texas.

Crushed pottery temper ceramics.

1000c e when the material became the dominant temper in ceramics over much. Substance in clay that modifies its properties when wet or dry as well as during and after firing rice 1987 407 mixing of additives including other clays with clay to produce a body for pottery making rye 1976 109. Peacock 1968 declared that group a malvernian rock fabric was a tempered one. Foreign material sand plant fibers grit shell crushed rock broken pottery added to clay for potterymaking to improve its firing qualities and prevent a vessel from cracking during the drying process.

Adding temper to the clay the clay must then be washed to remove any debris and kneaded repeatedly to achieve the proper consistency and quality removing any air bubbles before shaping a pot. Knight marsden and carney 2003 have also demonstrated that the granodiorite found in some iron age pottery made in leicestershire was crushed and added as temper. Grog or crushed potsherd temper variable pottery series cross section of grog tempered sherd thin section of grog tempered sherd width of image 2 5mm. Some clays used to make pottery do not require the addition of tempers.

All signs point to this being absolutely correct. Temper reduces plasticity which would cause shrinkage or cracking upon drying and firing. Although most texas archaeologists have correctly identified the crushed white inclusions found in these ceramics as bone positive identification of the temper through the use of histology has not been attempted. Ang 6930 archaeological ceramics k.

Some clays are self tempered that is naturally contain enough mica sand or sponge spicules that they do not require additional tempering. In north america the use of crushed mussel shell as temper first began millennia ago but increased dramatically at ca. Because clay was secured in large amounts and often stored in a pit it would dry out and then had to be broken apart and crushed before it could be. I have made temper from aquarium gravel that i crushed down to an appropriate size crushed shells old broken pottery that i have pulverized down into little pieces sometimes even coarse sand.

Pure kaolin clay does not require tempering.