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Clay

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Fifty Materials That Make the World
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Abstract

Clay seems mundane, but it provided essentials for life for our Ancestors in the form of shelter and as food storage containers, see Fig. 7.1. It’s use led to the advancement of civilization by providing a medium to record data, which eventually evolved into writing, and for artistic expression. The use of clay by early humans to make containers, cooking pots, counting tokens, musical instruments, bricks and figurines of gods or goddesses occurred throughout the World.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/earthscienceandengineering/rocklibrary/viewminrecord.php?mineral=smectite

  2. 2.

    https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1771-what-is-clay

  3. 3.

    https://www.thoughtco.com/yuchanyan-cave-hunan-province-china-173074

  4. 4.

    http://jomon-japan.jp/en/jomon-sites/odai-yamamoto/

  5. 5.

    http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab33

  6. 6.

    http://www.ancient.eu/writing/

  7. 7.

    http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html

  8. 8.

    http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wrtg/hd_wrtg.htm

  9. 9.

    http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14_u-472_t-1285_c-4932/VIC/8/Government/Ancient-Sumer-Part-A/Ancient-Sumer/History/

  10. 10.

    https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gilgamesh

  11. 11.

    https://www.bibleodyssey.org/places/related-articles/gilgamesh-and-the-bible.aspx

  12. 12.

    http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/tscrnhas.html

  13. 13.

    https://www.britannica.com/art/arcanist#ref167625

  14. 14.

    http://www.skd.museum/en/museums-institutions/zwinger-with-semperbau/porzellansammlung/history-of-the-collection/

  15. 15.

    http://www.visitstoke.co.uk/potteries/

  16. 16.

    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread819706/pg1

  17. 17.

    http://arthistorysummerize.info/ArtHistory/glazed-bricks/

  18. 18.

    https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=100689862

  19. 19.

    http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Bradley_and_Craven

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Baker, I. (2018). Clay. In: Fifty Materials That Make the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78766-4_7

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