History and Importance of Jomon Pottery and Reflection on Building a Jomon Pot

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History and Importance of Jomon Pottery and Reflection on Building a Jomon Pot

History of Jomon Pottery

Jomon potteries are prehistoric ceramic artworks made during the Jomon period by the Jomons. As Taylor (2020) unveils, the Jomon pottery was made by the Jomon potters using their hands, and thus wheels were not involved in the making of the pottery. Made between 10,500 to 300 BC, the Jomon potteries comprised soft clay, although, in some instances, the potters mixed clay with various adhesive materials such as crushed shells, lead, mica and fibres. Upon formation, the potters smoothened both the interior and outer surface of the Jomon pottery vessel(s), which in turn made the vessel(s) attractive.

Although all the Jomon potteries were made of soft clay, the potteries existed in different forms, such as Fukabachi and Sara. Other than the two mentioned, other types of Jomon pottery include Hachi, Chuko, Tsubo as well as Asabachi. Each of these identified types of Jomon pottery had certain unique and distinguishing characteristics. For instance, the Asabachi were shallow clay pots, with the Hachi being the Jomon pottery vessels that had a more moderate depth(Smith, 2017). The Sara, on the other hand, was shallow pottery that had a shape close to or resembling a plate. However, the chuko were the spouted Jomon pottery vessel(s), while the Tsubo were the vessels with narrow mouths and long necks. Unlike the Tsubo, the Fukabachi had contracted necks and wide mouths, and they were the most common type of Jomon pottery, which included jars and deep bowls.  

 Other than being the oldest in the world, the Jomon pottery and its vessels have several general key characteristics. For instance, the Jomon pottery vessels have a rope-like decoration and impression(Ichikawa et al., 2020). Also, most of the Jomon pottery vessels were round and had pointed bottoms, although the earliest vessels, especially those from northeastern Japan, had flat bottoms. Some vessels were cylindrical and resembled the Chinese mainland styles. However, the characteristics of the Jomon pottery, especially the physical appearance of the vessels, changed with time, and this led to the existence of vessels that had varying physical appearance features. A good example is where the late Jomon pottery vessels were made of numerous styles based on whether the vessels were ceremonial or ritualistic. The later Jomon pottery vessels also introduced shallow bowls with rope-cord flourishing patterns.

Importance of Jomon Pottery

 The Jomon pottery is important in various ways, from educating on the ancient pottery vessel(s) to enlightening on the Jomon culture. Mainly, the Jomon pottery provided deep pottery cooking containers for the Jomon community. The pottery also unveiled the exact activities of the Jomon society during the Jomon period. For instance, the Jomon pottery revealed the Jomons as potters who concentrated on pottery of ceramics without the use of any wheel or machine. In addition, the Jomon pottery educates about different ancient pottery vessels, such as the Hachi, Chuko, Tsubo, Fukabachi, Asabachi and Sara(Taylor, 2020). Altogether, the Jomon pottery enlightens the Jomon culture by unveiling the pre-historical artworks of the Jomons between 10,500 and 300 BC and the transformation in the features and formation of the respective Jomon pottery vessels.

Reflection

The journey and thought of building a Jomon pot were triggered by my recent online encounter with...