Tricky Potters

Pots with secrets









I'm intrigued by traditional pottery forms that have hidden functional features.

Here are examples from three different cultures:

1- The Lekythos is a common flask form of Classical Greek pottery. It held oils for various purposes, especially funerary rites. Where the use was symbolic, there was often a false bottom below the neck, so the Lekythos would appear full of precious oil when it was really mostly empty. These Attic white-ground lekythoi are from about 470 BC.

      


2- The whistling vessel appeared in a wide variety of forms in pre-Columbian South America, its function unknown. Many are in the form of two connected pots- one having a spout and the other incorporating an animal or human figure. 

The pots communicate where they join, so filling the spout side fills them both. If the pot is then tipped with the spout side up, liquid rushing to the other side forces trapped air out through a vent in the figure. A clay whistle has been built into the figure, so it appears to whistle. There is evidence that sometimes the whistles were formed to make a sound to match the figure. This example (from the Chimu culture, Peru 1100-1370 AD) is not identified as a whistler, but I'm quite sure it is, especially as the figure is playing the ocarina. You can hear two whistling pots here. recorded at the Peabody Museum, Harvard. 

       



3- Since at least the 15th century, English potters have made a novelty item called a puzzle jug. It looks like a traditional tavern jug, except the upper part of the piece is decorated with pierced work. This makes it impossible to drink normally from the jug. Often the jug is inscribed with a poem challenging the drinker, such as: 

"Here gentlemen come try your skill,

I'll hold a wager if you will,

That you don't drink this liquor all,

Without you spill or let some fall. "

The trick is that the handle has a hollow passage which connects to the lower part of the jug. At the top, it communicates with a hollow rim, which opens to one or more spouts, disguised as a decorative elements. Sometimes there are multiple hidden vents that the (presumably inebriated) victim must be discover and block before the "straw" will function. 

Another example of a "drinking straw" handle appears here


   


Do you know any other good examples of pots that manipulate fluids in a hidden way?


Photo Sources:

Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pre-Columbian art: Marine Animal Forms

Techniques of the World's Great Masters of Pottery and Ceramics


Click the images below to enlarge


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