Formed of Clay: (a short novel of ancient Egypt)

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However, this would not always remain the case. While many minor shifts occurred along the way, some time periods proved to be watershed eras in the movement along the continuum towards textual primacy. One such era was the reign of Hezekiah c.

It was during his day that Assyria systematically attacked both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. As refugees fled from both nations, they gathered to Jerusalem for safety. Both textual and archaeological evidence attest that Jerusalem grew rapidly during this time, nearly tripling in size. Writing became part of the urban bureaucracy as well as a political extension of growing royal power. These changes would be the catalyst for the collecting and composing of biblical literature. Yet it would be simplistic to assume that because there had been writing since the time of Adam, the books of the Bible had been written and collected with focus on creating a canonized compilation.

The substance of the Bible itself suggests a fundamental shift hinging on this time period. Before this time, the biblical tradition knows of great prophets such as Elijah only from later records. A good share of the Bible as we now have it was written or collected at the time of Hezekiah and later. The textual revolution that began at this time was not the genesis of all biblical books, but it was truly the dawn of the concept of biblical literature that would guide Israel for years to come.

Even the existing books were probably gathered and rewritten or redacted during this phase. Undoubtedly the rise of urbanization, and its demand for a literate bureaucracy, is not the sole factor behind the paradigm shift that Israel went through, but it is certainly a major factor. The trend seems to have climbed steeply upward during the reign of Josiah c. During this time, we find evidence of a sharp increase in literacy in Judah. While we have insufficient data to arrive at a quantitative assessment of the literacy rate, we can easily ascertain that relative to previous levels, the ability to read and write skyrocketed in Judah.

Seal impressions the marks imprinted in damp clay or wax in order to both seal something and identify it [28] and official inscriptions attest to growth in official use of writing. Ubiquitous graffiti and ostraca demonstrate a more widespread ability to read and write. Yet an increase in literacy created a more widespread use of texts, making them a more pervasive part of life. We can see evidence of this movement in the book of Jeremiah.

His is the first prophetic work which self-referentially describes the creation of the text. Jeremiah was commanded by the Lord to take a roll of a book and record all the words that had been spoken to him see Jeremiah Jeremiah employed a scribe, Baruch, who not only wrote these words but had them read to the king, who burned them. Jeremiah again recited them to Baruch, who rewrote the scroll from its description of being cut and burned, this was probably a papyrus roll; see Jeremiah Another example of the importance placed on sacred texts comes from just before the time of Jeremiah.

Everyone present covenanted to obey that which was written in the book. Here we see Judah turning to a text to know how to keep the law and as a focus of the covenant. Lehi was likely a youth when this book was found and read. He and his descendants seem to reflect this view of the importance of sacred texts as the source of authority on the law and the covenant. The literacy of Lehi and his children also reflects the growing importance of literacy in their generation. It was shortly after Josiah and Lehi that Jerusalem was destroyed and its inhabitants carried away by the Babylonians c.

The Jews were greatly affected by the Exile in many ways.

The loss of their promised land and their captivity in Babylon incontrovertibly created a desire to preserve tradition, and part of the process of preserving tradition was to freeze that tradition in a text. The desire to create, compile, and preserve sacred texts, then, was greatly enhanced by the Exile. In many ways the captive Jews were merely mirroring the Mediterranean world. This axial age was a time of textual turning in many civilizations. It is the age of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, writers who convey a focus on texts.

Egypt also experienced a resurgence of placing primacy on the written text at this time. Evidence for this is seen in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah c. The later invention of the genizah, a place where sacred books could be respectfully buried because nothing so sacred could be destroyed in good conscience, indicates the status the sacred text had assumed. We also find an architectural expression of this shift in attitude. While early synagogues did not have a Torah shrine, they eventually adopted this structural proclamation of the importance of text.

Whether one was personally literate or not, all would hear in the synagogue not just the spoken word of God but also the written word of God. The public reading of scriptural texts as part of worship services is also a practice that manifests the textuality of Christianity, regardless of the literacy of the individuals in the congregation. Under the Hellenistic influence as experienced by Jews both in Ptolemaic Egypt and in Judea under Ptolemaic control, this movement pressed further forward.

Papyrus achieved an apex of availability. The Ptolemies created the great library of Alexandria as part of their push toward literary supremacy. While Jews, and the ancient world in general, were becoming much more textually oriented, the importance of the spoken word had not disappeared.

Oral teachings and traditions continued, and the written and spoken word would jockey for prime position for millennia to come. Even though papyrus became generally more accessible during the Hellenistic era, Jewish scribes began to turn to an alternative writing medium. This may have been driven by the sporadic availability of papyrus, which hinged on an ever-changing status as to which great power controlled the Holy Land.

When the Ptolemies lost control of the area to the Seleucid Empire, which was often intermittently from c. Whether this is the case or not, the Jews began writing their sacred texts on parchment. Parchment is specially prepared animal skin made suitable for writing. While parchment enjoyed an advantage over papyrus in that animal skins could be obtained anywhere, it was at a disadvantage in that the preparation of parchment was more time consuming, and the papyrus industry was thousands of years old and held a position of cultural prestige.

Still, parchment rolls became somewhat common by the third century BC. While parchment was used for sacred texts, it could only be created by coming into contact with dead animals, which made a person ritually unclean. Hence the tanner, someone absolutely necessary for parchment creation, was looked down upon. Happy is he whose trade is perfume making, and woe to him who is a tanner. But because of their special nature, sacred texts were only to be written on parchment made from clean beasts. Thus, parchment intended for sacred texts could be purchased only from specifically designated, reliable tanners.

As long as sacred texts were written on scrolls of papyrus or parchment, the modern notion of a canon was not completely able to gel. Scroll library decisions regarding which texts were sacred could remain somewhat fluid; changes in views of authoritativeness could easily be accommodated by moving a roll from one shelf or room to another.

Scrolls were stacked in jars or on shelves, sometimes labeled and sometimes not. As Latter-day Saints, we are aware of a rare exception to the use of scrolls: However, variations between the books of the brass plates and the Old Testament such as the books of Zenock and Zenos , and the variations between readings of texts that the two hold in common, as well as the same set of variations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, clearly indicate that there was neither a set canon nor a standard text.

Additionally, New Testament writers made reference to texts that they apparently considered authoritative but which did not make it into the canon see Jude 1: Undoubtedly there was some consensus on which texts were authoritative, but these were not yet fully fixed. Scroll collections do not lend themselves to the creation of a Bible. Another technological innovation had to come about to foster the worldview that allowed such a collection.

As early as the fourteenth century BC, Mesopotamia and Egypt sporadically used wooden tablets hinged together with cords. Wooden writing tablets were meant only for temporary writing and thus never became a preferred medium for writings intended for perpetuity. As late as AD 50, Pliny the Elder was using waxed wooden tablets as notebooks for ideas, which were then expounded upon and fully written on papyrus rolls. Afterward the notebooks were erased and used again in brainstorming for the next section of his extensive works. Just before the close of the first century, the codex had become more than a tablet but was not yet a book.

While the technology necessary for making books soon followed, cultural concepts regarding the scroll as the proper place for writing serious works yielded less quickly.

Clay tablet

When examining Greek literary texts, the use of the codex seems to have shifted toward the end of the third century AD. In the mid-third century, only about 4. However, by the end of the third century, Of the eleven Christian documents which seem to be from the second century AD, all are in codex form. Eventually the parchment codex would become the standard textual format. We should also understand that early Christians looked to written texts as their source of authority.

This was not necessarily a forgone conclusion.

The backdrop of Christianity was both the Greco-Roman world and Judaism. Greco-Roman religions are largely nontextual. John the Beloved conveys a mixed message regarding textualization. Here John implies that no written text could suffice in comparison with that which the Word did and which those who were with Him were able to teach.

In short, while John had just written a text, he closed it by indicating that the text is a poor substitute for all that he really could tell were he not so restricted by the medium of written communication. Yet not only does John write a sacred document, but texts are an integral part of his great Revelation. Here he was given a book scroll by an angel and was commanded to eat it see Revelation Other writers conveyed more uniformly positive views of textuality. Paul extols the virtues of knowing the scriptures see 2 Timothy 3: Scriptural books and writings were often referred to by New Testament authors, indicating a high degree of reliance upon texts.

Whatever the cause, clearly the Christians turned to the codex as they compiled sacred texts.

Whereas even long scrolls could only contain one large text—the great Isaiah scroll is about twenty-eight feet long—codices could be expanded to hold a number of texts. Undoubtedly the idea of choosing some texts as sacred and authoritative had been in place long before this time. However, during the early Christian era, Jewish debates centered on exactly which books were sacred. The codex allowed Christians to carry their sacred texts in one convenient place. The portability and ensuing availability of scriptures was revolutionized by the codex.

The incredibly rapid spread of Christian literature attests to the textuality of Christianity. The very concept of scripture was greatly affected by the codex; if one is to put sacred texts in one convenient place, one must choose which texts should be included and the order in which they would be arranged.

The medium of the codex has a greater ability to freeze the form of sacred texts.

Much has been made of this, with some reaching the conclusion that few of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Bible were actually His, because He focused on oral teachings and His words were not written down as He spoke them. At the same time, we can readily affirm that He pronounced divine teachings and that He did so in an age when respect was concurrently given to the spoken word and written texts.

A cultural willingness to freeze the sacred in textual form existed in his day, and the technical ability to easily create written texts was also present. This form would demand a defined set of texts and a specified order to those texts. Hence we find both the written and spoken teachings of the Lord and His chosen representatives eventually arriving in the Christian canon we revere today. Penguin, , 31— Smelik, Writings from Ancient Israel: Westminster John Knox, , 2.

Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: Cambridge University Press, , 2, 10— Clarendon, , See also Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction New York: Cambridge University Press, , 12— Scholars Press, , xxii. Hendrickson, , University of Illinois Press, , 87— These first pots were fired at low temperatures and were thus fragile and porous.

Ancient potters partially solved this by burnishing the surfaces with a rock or hard wood before firing. These low-temperature fired pots were blackened by these fires. Decoration was generally the result of incisions or insertions of tools into soft clay. Early potters created objects that could be used for practical purposes, as well as objects that represented their fertility gods. The civilizations of ancient Egypt and the Middle East utilized clay for building and domestic use as early a B.

They utilized finer clays and fired the pieces at much higher temperatures in early kilns that removed the pots from the direct fire so they were not blackened from the fire. Bricks from clay were used as building material as well. The ancient Chinese produced black pottery by B. Closer to B. Their pottery was often included in funeral ceremonies.

In the first millennium B.

History of Ceramics

Pre-Colombians, ancient Iberians, the ancient Romans who molded pottery with raised decoration , and the ancient Japanese all created beautiful pottery for domestic use as well as for religious purposes. Until the mid-eighteenth century, European potters generally sold small quantities of completed wares at a market or through merchants. If they wanted to sell more, they took more wares to market.

However, British production potters experimented with new body types, perfected glazes, and took orders for products made in factories rather than taking finished goods to the consumer. By the later eighteenth century, many fellow potters followed suit, experimenting with all kinds of new bodies and glazes. Molds were used to make mass quantities of consistent product so that the consumer could be assured of the look of this piece.

There are two types of clays, primary and secondary. Primary clay is found in the same place as the rock from which it is derived—it has not been transported by water or glacier and thus has not mixed with other forms of sediment. Primary clay is heavy, dense, and pure. Secondary or sedimentary clay is formed of lighter sediment that is carried farther in water and deposited. This secondary clay, a mixture of sediment, is finer and lighter than primary clay. Varying additives give the clay different characteristics.

Clay comes to a production potter in one of two forms—as a powder to which water must be added, or with water already added. Large factories purchase the clays in huge quantities as dry materials, making up the clay batch as needed each day. A stoneware teapot mode by Jonah Wedgwood and Co. This lovely, stout stoneware teapot is the work of Josiah Wedgwood and Co. Teapots and associated cups became very popular about the mids because of the development importance of the "tea" and its ceremony.

Thus, a mainstay of porters in the eighteenth century was the teapot and cup sets.

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Josiah Wedgwood was not content to simply supply pottery rather haphazardly. He knew there was a large market for high-quality, attractive pottery and he certainly would do his best to regularize the product and develop some new products people just had to have. He was one of the first potters to sell his wares in advance through orders, thus creating a sample or "stock" product. Since his products had to be uniform, he developed glazes that would give consistent results and divided the work process into many different steps so that one worker would not have a tremendous impact on the finished product.

Particularly important to Wedgwood was the work of the modeller and the artist, who made the prototype shapes and designs for Wedgwood. Wedgwood discovered that these artists could provide designs for new pottery that looked antique, and these neo-classicol pieces were the mainstay of his business for many years. Glazes are made up of materials that fuse during the firing process making the pot vitreous or impervious to liquids. Ceramics engineers define vitreous as a pot that has a water absorption rate of less than 0. Glazes must have three elements: Color is derived by adding a metallic oxide, including antimony yellows , copper green, turquoise, or red , cobalt black , chrome greens , iron, nickel, vanadium, etc.

Glazes are generally purchased in dry form by production potters. The glazes are weighed and put into a ball mill with water. The glaze is mixed within the ball mill and grinds the glaze to reduce the size of the natural particles within the glaze. The cake mixture is formed into plugs and ready for forming.

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