Technical Ceramics from the Pottery Workshop at Sarai-Al-Jedid – Tsarevskoye Settlement

Abstract

Technical ceramics – special devices for firing glazed ware – is a necessary component of highly technological pottery production. Analysis of the wares in the context of all the materials of the complex let the authors establish the specialization of the workshop and solve the issues of the craft reconstruction, identifying the origins of the technological tradition and organization of the workshop. All these possibilities of technical ceramics are of particular importance in the study of the rapidly emerged pottery of the Golden Horde, which reached a high level of development in a short period of time (not full the 14th century). The article is the first to present a set of devices for firing glazed ware from a pottery workshop III in the south-eastern suburb of the second capital of the Golden Horde, Sarai-al-Jedid, known as Tsarevskoye settlement as well. In addition to the furnace supply, the technical ceramics include the “kalyps”– matrix forms and clay stamps for applying relief decoration on the surface of vessels.