History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray c15.s1.75

c15.s1.75

The greater part of the pottery is local and, with a few exceptions, wheel-turned. The exceptions include a class of portable ovens, large troughs and storage jars. The normal degraissants are sand and grit, but mica and straw or husk are occasionally used for this purpose. The fabric was usually a porous clay containing a fair amount of sand which burned pink or greyish red to light red under oxidizing conditions of firing and dull grey to greyish black under reducing conditions in the kiln. For a special class of grey or greyish-pink wares a superior quality of clay, free from grit and remarkably fine-grained, was employed. Slips are fairly common and a fair percentage of the pottery was either salt-glazed or treated with a burnished slip. The vast majority of the types are plain and utilitarian in character. Decorated types are rare and decoration is generally simple and primitive in character, the commonest being finger-tip ornament.