History Of Cretan Pottery

The 20Th Century Cretan Potters

POTTERS

Four Pottery Centres were established in Crete at the beginning of the second millennium, one in each prefecture. The reasons for this distribution and choice of location are not known, as there are rich sources of clay everywhere in Crete.

The Pottery Centres were villages where only part of the population was involved in ceramics, while the profession did not necessarily pass exclusively from father to son. Potters and Cretans in general considered it to be one of the worst crafts to exercise, due to the constant exposure to mud and the low income.

Potters were divided into specialist pithos makers or pitharades and those who produced smaller shapes. Their indispensable assistants were the clay digger (homatas), who recognised and excavated the layers of clay, and the kiln minder (kaminiaris) who regulated the kiln heat during the firing of the pots. His was a great responsibility, as traditional kilns had no thermometers or heat gauges and any mistake during the 10-12 hours of firing meant that the whole batch would be ruined.

In the two larger Pottery Centres the potters formed guilds, small groups of six known as a takimi who scattered across the whole island from April to September. Each group would work for the whole period in a specific countryside location with a source of clay, water and a kiln, away from any villages. The seasonal migration of the guild group was called the vendema (Italian for vintage or harvest), because each year the potters chose an area where there would be a good olive harvest (vendema) and therefore the growers would need pithoi, the most lucrative type of ceramic to make.

Operation Of The Migratory Potters’ Guild Group

The group was composed of six people, each with a specific skill. The leader of the group was the mastoras (master craftsman), who made pithoi and other large objects, The sottomastoras (under-master) only made the smaller vessels such as plates, jugs, cups, bowls, pitchers etc. The homatas (clay digger) extracted and prepared the clay. The kaminiaris (kiln minder) gathered the firewood to stoke the kiln and controlled the fire in the kiln. The troharis (wheel turner) worked the small hand-driven potter’s wheel, the trohi , on which the vessel was thrown. Finally the kouvalitis (carrier) with his donkey carried the clay and firewood and took the new vessels to sell in the nearby villages.

The location of a suitable worksite for the group each year was undertaken by the mastoras in the winter. He would travel to different areas of Crete looking for places where there would be a good olive harvest the following autumn, bearing in mind that olive trees bear fruit every two years.

Once a suitable spot was found, he had to rent a kiln from its owner. There was a special tradition for this in Crete. Let’s say that a group has found a suitable site but there is no kiln. The mastoras chooses a spot near a clay deposit, a water source and on ground suitable to build a kiln, which is usually quite large. He negotiates permission to build the kiln with the owner of the land, and comes back with his group in the early spring to construct it, in two to three weeks. The kiln then becomes the property of the farmer on whose land it is. He rents it to the group who built it or other potters each year. Thus the kilns of the migratory groups belong to the owners of the land rather than the potters. Over the years, many kilns were built across Crete and the guild groups had little difficulty in finding and using this essential structure.

Trohos

The potters arrived at their worksite in the spring with their basic tools, the wheel (trohos ) for small vessels and five or six trohia for pithoi, as well as other equipment loaded on two or three donkeys. They then had to organise the workplace, which might not have been used for a year or more. The men did not use tents but slept outdoors wherever it suited them. They cooked once a day. Their staple diet was dry pounded broad beans. Working hours were from dawn to dusk. The two potters worked continuously at their wheels with the assistance of the troharis. The homatas and the kaminiaris carried clay and firewood to the kiln area, as well as water from a nearby well or spring, using their one or two donkeys.

The newly-thrown pots were placed in rows to dry for two or three days and then fired in the kiln. Prospective buyers came to the workplace and bought the pots they needed, paying in cash or more often in kind, providing the potters with their basic requirements such as wheat, barley and legumes.

The procedure for pithoi was different. The customer had to order these vessels by the pair. The potter and the kouvalitis took them to the customer’s village, where he checked that the pots were properly fired and free of any flaws such as cracks, in the potter’s presence so any disagreements could be sorted out on the spot. At the end of the summer period, any vessels large and small left over were loaded on the donkeys in batches and the men took them from village to village, or to local fairs, to sell them directly to the local community.

The Vendemiarides returned to their village with the first damp nights and autumn rains. The profits from the sales made over the summer period were divided into six and each man took a share according to his speciality and responsibility: the mastoras and the kaminiaris took 1¼ shares each, the sottomastoras, the homatas and the troharis one share each, and the kouvalitis half a share.

Permanent Potter’S Workshops

In the potters’ villages of Kendri and Nohia , each potter had his own workshop area in the village. This included:

* A rough workshop building containing the wheel and other tools, which was also used as a storage space for fired pots.

* A medium-sized kiln for small pots.

* An outdoor area for clay processing.

There were also, exceptionally, a few isolated potters with organised workshops in other villages in Crete.

These potters did not make pithoi.

The pithos-makers’ villages, Thrapsano and Margarites, also contained a few permanent workshops where elderly potters produced small pots. After the 1960s, when the seasonal migrations ended, permanent potters’ workshops were established in these villages, with large kilns and spacious outdoor areas for preparing the raw material and storing the finished products.