Ethnology 

The availability of clay, its natural characteristics (plasticity, formability, low melting strength) and the simpli-city of manufacturing techniques made it possible to satisfy domestic household needs for ceramic ware. For Komi-Zyryan peoples, pottery production from the second half of the 19th to the first half of the 20th centuries was characterised by the coexistence of two traditions: stucco and use of the potter's wheel. The moulded technique is characterised by building up from the base using two methods of joining the separately-made base and vessel walls. Archaic techniques of pottery manufacture survive in the method of shaping the bottom and walls of a vessel using a form-model and firing a pot in a fire. Pottery production was concentrated in the hands of women and was defined as a home industry. The use of a hand pottery wheel, which appeared at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, did not change the technique of manufacturing the vessel; it was used only to impart aesthetic characteristics. The appearance of the potter's foot circle in the 1930s led to the appearance of an exhaust method for modelling a pot, which was not widely used in home production. This new technology using the foot pottery wheel is defined as a male craft. Both technologies were characterised by firing in the Russian kiln; much less often, master craftsmen equipped special kilns for firing. When «hardening» the moulded vessel, a flour solution was used, which gave it a black colour. Instead of scalding while firing in a special kiln, pottery artisans used a lead slip. The range of pottery is represented by two large groups (cupped and pot-shaped), categorised by the ratio of the height of the pot to its diameter. Cup-shaped vessels are represented by pitchers and bowls, and pot-shaped vessels by cans with a cylindrical body and pots with a rounded body.

Key words: Komi (Zyryan), sculpted method of making pottery, handicraft production of pottery.

DOI: 10.20874/2071-0437-2019-44-1-089-097

T.I. Chudova

Syktyvkar State University of Pitirim Sorokin, October av., 55, Syktyvkar, 167001, Russian Federation

E-mail: [email protected]