Ceramic technology in Upper Egypt: A study of pottery firing

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Abstract
Firing is the most crucial stage in the manufacture of pottery, since at any earlier stage the raw material can be reprocessed: yet it is also one of the least well recorded ethnographically. By recording firings in the field, both in terms of temperature and the actions of the potters it was hoped to obtain data which would help refine laboratory techniques of temperature determination on ancient ceramics. One of these techniques, thermal shrinkage, is examined in the light of this ethnographic study and the variation in firing temperatures within individual kilns highlighted.