Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1893-06-14
ANCIENT POTTERY.

When DR.. Schliemsn excavated the
ancient city of Troy, he made many
wonderful discoveries that should be
of as great. interest to the amateur
china painter as to the student.
Among the wonderful remains of pot
tery which u buried for SO many CEN
turies. va 49,. articles of utility that
the present century has no conception
of. The good housewife of the pres
ent age furnishes her kitchen with
great variety of tin wares that are of
comparati1~sr abort duration, whereas
the purveyCI Of an ancient Traian or
Greek kitchen invested n utensils that
not only outlasted the generation, but
after thousands of years are in exist
ence, to show the domestic customs
and usages of that ancient nation.
Our bread IN cities is kept fresh in
tin boxes, japanued, an elaborstely
embellished with faring letters and
fiourishes in cheap gold paint. The
wholesome country-made bread Is in
stone lars, of which the housewife has
a goodly store, perhaps inherited from
her mother or grandmother. They
never rust nor wear out, and will he
as valuable for the same purpose a
hundred or a thousand years hence as
they are to-day. There are many ways
in which productions of the potter's
art we're made useful in ancient times
which are entirely unknown in the
present age; for instance, the cellars
to the houses we're enormous jars seven
feet or more high, as wide in proper
ton. and used for the storage OF pro-
visions as are our cellars OF to-day. OF
such great weight were these iars-it
Jars they NAV be calied-thst 1t re-
Quired the united strength of fourteen
strong labOrers an entire day to trans
port one the distance OF tive hundred
feet. Two working-meu utilized a
similar jar as a lodging house during
the process of excavation. Weapons
and articles of warfare were kept in
earthenware receptacles of great pro-
portions. The houses were sometimes
composed of terra-cotta blocks, the
interior of the finest rooms were dec
GRATED with encsustic tiles. On the
tables of the emperors and the peas
ants we're examples of the earthenwRre
of that period, elaborate or simple, ac-
cording to the conditions. The cook
ing utensils we're all Of earthenware;
handles to a great variety of articles of
utility and clothes-pins for use in
hanging out clothes were of the same
material. The fishers sank their nets
with weights of terra-cOtta, and from
the cradle to the grave the people of
ancient Troy were familiar with the
potter's art. When at last life ended,
provision had been made to secure
eternal peace to the ashes of the de-
parted by enclosing them in an earth
enware Tor terra-cottaJ urn. So much
for the esteem in which this most
wonderful of all the arts was helG by
the most highly civilized nation in the
history of the world.
Still more wonderful, to the student
of ceramic history, is the relation that
exits between the tictile productions of
the various nations, whose precise date
of existence arch@oloGIsts undertake to
fix. We are shown jug or vase with
certain lines of decoration, and are as
sured that il was discovered in the
ruins of Ru ancient city, dating back
two thousand years, and we know that
on our own continent-In the ancient
Aztec and Toltec ruins-simllar shapes
in earthenware form, with precisely
the same decorations, have been found,
IgnRtIus DonallY, in his most interest
ing work, entitled atlantis, or the
AntedIluviRn World" writes in a very
interesting manner on this subject,
and students of porcelains will do we'll
to purchase this book as one of refer
ence, his observations on this subject
are undoubtedly accurate.
A discovery, termed most curious"
is that of the unearthing of thousands
OF disc-like forms in terra Gotta, called
tUhOr5s. Why they are so designated
Is not explained. Some eighteen
thousand we're found in the ancient
cities, and, no doubt, as many more
we're overlooked. They were Thought
to be yotive offerings by their discov-
erers, but it is far more probable,
Judging from their size, shape and
decoration, that they we're used as
coin for simple purchases, or given In
change when those of metal were not
available. They are Of different col
ors: Red, black, yellow and gray, and
are generally perforated The "dec-
orations' are rude drawings in the
most primitive style, simple lines
crossing each other, or radiating from
"a SClbAGs A-OlLClALhGH, Out ulEcerQS
forms that may be interpreted as rep-
reservations of animals extinct at that
period, or symbols of the religious
rites then in vogue, as altar fires, idol
worshiping, ETC., and as such they are
given to history, but it is far more
probable that they were in use for
trade and barter. True, the nations
in that period we're rich in gold and
silver, and the city of Troy was called
the "City of Gold"
"1lion famed of old,
For brass erhaustless, and for mines of gold"
But the poor We have always with MS.
and it is not probable that the poor of
the city of Troy used coin of either
gold or silver. Whorls have also been
in Sicily, of similar form
and precisely the same decoration
The same decoration has been found
on vases of ancient origin, from the
ruins of Mycene, Athenian, and Cor
inthIsn cities. On the prehistoric
pottery of many nations the same ideas
are expressed. In Palestine, on the
1berian coins of Aside, on vases and
terra cottss of Hungary and Germany
In Milan they are used in ecclesiasti.
cal decorations, and times without
number the same designs appe.r in
the Cstacombs of Rome, which. no
do doubt, served as sepulohres for
PRQRna lonG hafora tho Thr;..: