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POTTERY OF THE ISLAMIC PERIOD ON THE
KARAK PLATEAU The Emergence of
Handmade Pottery in the Middle Islamic Period
 One of the most important changes of the Middle Islamic period
is the widespread adoption of handmade pottery over much of the
Middle East. Although this new type of pottery is most common on
rural sites, it also appears in the excavations of urban
settlements. The numbers per site vary, but the J. Maxwell
Miller Survey of the Karak plateau found that on rural sites
dating between the twelfth and the nineteenth century, handmade
sherds comprised between 90 and 100% of the total ceramic
assemblage (the remainder being composed of unglazed wheel
thrown, relief-molded unglazed, and glazed wheel thrown
pottery). This type of handmade pottery usually takes the form
of small or medium-sized jugs and jars. Bowls and cups are found
in smaller numbers. Some handmade pottery of this period is
undecorated, but the best known type has geometric designs
painted on the surface in a variety of colored slip paints. It has been suggested that the designs painted on
these pots may derive from patterns found in weaving and basket
making. The reasons behind this shift in the dominant technology
used to manufacture ceramics are still little understood, but it
is possible to trace the chronology of this phenomenon.
 In the Early Islamic period the vast majority of pottery vessels
were made using a conventional kick wheel. The only ceramic
objects that were made without a wheel tended to be large
storage vessels and objects such as clay ovens for cooking food
(Arabic: tābūn). A skilled potter could use a kick
wheel to produce large numbers of vessels of consistent size and
shape. In order to do this, the potter required clay to be
prepared to a high specification. After being thrown and dried
the pots themselves had to be fired in a carefully-regulated
kiln. This method of production is efficient but requires
organization of man-power and materials. Kilns were usually
located in urban areas and might trade their products over a
large area. We know from excavations that urban workshops
continued to produce wheel thrown, relief-molded and glazed
pottery into the Middle Islamic period. Middle Islamic handmade
pottery could be made in a very different environment, however.
The clays were collected locally and given little preliminary
preparation (clays might have sand, straw or dung added as a
temper). Vessels were formed by hand and often burnished or
decorated with painted designs. Handmade vessels were usually
baked by placing them in an open or covered fire. These
technical factors make it easy to distinguish handmade and wheel
thrown pottery; the former usually exhibits brittle, poorly
fired clays, uneven shapes, and variable surface coloration.
Handmade pottery with the characteristic painted geometric
patterns first appears in the Karak plateau and other parts of
southern Jordan in the latter part of the twelfth century.
During the thirteenth century this style of pottery had spread
all over Syria and as far as southern Anatolia. Recent
archaeological research at sites such as Gharandal and $Aqaba in
southern Jordan have suggested that similar handmade vessels,
either unpainted or with much more simple slip painting, were
being produced in the eleventh and the early twelfth century.
Thus, it seems likely that this new style originated in the
south of Jordan and spread to rural areas in later periods.
What is more difficult to understand is why the occupants of
villages should have chosen to give up wheel thrown pottery in
favor of handmade vessels that were less durable. Traditionally,
it has been assumed that the reversion to a less sophisticated
method of manufacture (as is the case with move from wheel
thrown to handmade pottery production) can be taken as evidence
that society in general was going through a period of economic
decline. We know from archaeological and historical sources that
this was not the case; the period from the twelfth to the
fourteenth century appears to have been a prosperous one for the
inhabitants of the Karak plateau. Another explanation looks at the
technological aspects of pottery production. What is clear is
that handmade pottery employed locally-available materials and
required little or no specialized equipment. It was easy to
learn the techniques and cheap to make. Ethnographic studies of
handmade pottery production in the north of Jordan in the 1970s
found that the pots were made by village women for use in the
home. Thus, Middle Islamic handmade pottery might too have been
made in villages by women for domestic use. If villages could
make their own pottery then they became less reliant upon the
more expensive wheel thrown and glazed ceramics produced in the
towns.
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