Features of Production of Clay Ware Dishes in Komi-Zyryan Culture, North West Siberia From the End of the 19th to the First Half of the 20th Century

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

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