Ceramic and stone tools for manufacturing surfaces of clay vessels

The author analyzes different tools made from fragments of pottery and stones, which were used for manufactur­ing surfaces of clay vessels: smoothing, floating, compaction, polishing, coloring. Ceramic palette knives and talc polishers were the most widespread tools used during long period since the late Stone Age to the early Iron Age. Talk polishers were usually used for glossing of joints, smoothing, compaction and floating of vessel's surface, removing cracks and other defects. Sometimes polishers were made of soft pyrophillite schist or even chalcopyrite. Plicate stamps also could be used as palette knives. Talk polishers were used for compacting vessel's surface, which led to its watertightness. Polishing was performed on dry or dewatered surface and resulted in smooth and shiny surface. The biggest and the most varied collection of tools for processing surfaces of clay vessels was found in cultic places of the Shaitan Lake. During the Bronze Age the South Ural people began to use gravels to polish vessels. Such grav­els have strongly erased edge surface on which there were clear line traces parallel to each other and perpendicular to longitudinal axes of the gravels. Comet-shaped form of line traces shows the direction of movement. Pieces of ocher with obliterated surface were used for coloring vessels.