Clay : a human history / Jennifer Lucy Allan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allan, Jennifer Lucy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Clay.

Human beings--History.

Human beings.

Potters--History.

Potters.

Ceramics--History.

Ceramics.

clay.

Clay--History.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

307 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

illustration

Edition:

First Pegasus Books cloth edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Pegasus Books, 2025.

Summary:

"A human history told through clay--and how it has shaped us from ancient times to the present day. This book is a love letter to clay, the material that is at the beginning, middle and end of all of our lives; that contains within it the eternal, the elemental, and the everyday. People have been taking handfuls of earth and forming them into their own image since human history began. Human forms are found everywhere there was a ceramic tradition, and there is a ceramic tradition everywhere there was human activity. The clay these figures are made from was formed in deep geological time. It is the material that God, cast as the potter, uses to form Adam in Genesis. Tomb paintings in Egypt show the god Khnum at a potter's wheel, throwing a human. Humans first recorded our own history on clay tablets, the shape of the characters influenced by the clay itself. The first love poem was inscribed in a clay tablet, from a Sumerian bride to her king more than 4,000 years ago. Born out of a desire to know and understand the mysteries of this material, the spiritual and practical applications of clay in both its micro and macro histories, Clay: A Human History is a book of wonder and insight, a hybrid of archaeology, history, and Allan's lived experience as an amateur potter."--Jacket.

Contents:

Mud

Fire

Figures

Hands

Wheels

Food

Words

Colour

Sound

Shape

Walls

Cities

Space

Death

Repair.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-305).

ISBN:

9781639368334

1639368337

OCLC:

1478438117

Publisher Number:

CIPO000328716