New Data on Traditional Pottery in India (Pune, Maharashtra)

Purpose. A brief survey of the pottery community in the Mundhwa area was conducted in March 2019 and February 2020 as part of the Russian-Indian anthropological expedition organized by the Paleoethnology Research Center, State Museum of Biology (Moscow, Russia) and Savitribai Phule Pune University (Pune, India). The purpose of the study was to provide an initial insight into how traditional pottery functions in these urbanized environments. Results. Various forms of pottery production have been identified. The most widespread was men’s pottery using a potter’s wheel. Only men are engaged in the manufacture of pottery here – Hinduism forbids women from working on a potter’s wheel. All craftsmen work almost all year round, reducing production during the rainy season. With the rapid urbanization and concentration of the population, the demand for pottery has increased. Potters buy practically all raw materials. The clay is brought by peasants from villages within a radius of 80 km by trucks several times a year. The preparation of raw materials, as well as kneading the clay paste, is carried out by most potters by hand. All potters use an electric potter’s wheel to create the vessels. The surface treatment of products by potters is carried out by smoothing using fingers or scrapers while the wheel is rotating. Firing is carried out in square ovens made of bricks. The firing of products begins in the evening, active combustion lasts two to three hours, after which the oven is left to cool until the morning, when the finished vessels are removed. One firing requires about 150 kg of wood. Potters who migrated here from Uttar Pradesh use open firing for their vessels. Conclusion. The authors found that: the traditional nature of the craft is preserved in the community: knowledge and skills are passed down through the family line, the potters use traditional raw materials, building techniques and firing devices; resettled potters demonstrate mixed skills in different levels of pottery production, for example using a mixture of different natural clays; under the pressure of economic conditions, the electric pottery wheel is spreading, the way firing is organized has slightly changed.