STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Clay for today
MICHAL BONCZA recommends some striking work by contemporary female potters and ceramicists
FIRED UP: (Left to right) Magdalene Odundo, Early Vessel; Alison Britton, White Pot, 1991 and Ladi Kwali, Water Jar, c1960s
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
Pioneering Women
Oxford Ceramics Gallery
PRODUCING utilitarian ceramic vessels is one the most ancient and well-documented human activities. Archaeologists digging at any site anywhere in the world prioritise, above all else, locating pottery as a trusted source of information.
The word ceramic derives from the Greek “keramos” meaning pottery, or a potter, and its Sanskrit root used to mean “burnt stuff.” Hence ceramic describes objects which have been formed with clay, hardened by firing and decorated or glazed.
A kitchen dating back 20,000 years was unearthed in a cave in China in the early 2000s, with a wealth of pottery fragments and a similar find in Britain — the Windmill Hill “cooking” pot — dates back to the Neolithic period of 4,000 BC. Today’s meat-and-lentil stew recipes can be traced to that era.
Similar stories
KEN COCKBURN assesses the art of Ian Hamilton Finlay for the experience of warfare it incited and represents
STEPHAN BLUM presents the evidence that wine was enjoyed by common folk, independent of upper-class celebrations and religious rituals
DUNCAN GARROW introduces a remarkable Iron Age discovery in Yorkshire that reveals ancient Britons’ connections with Europe
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century