The Iranian plateau with its climatic diversity is probably one of the most important origins of the emergence and expansion of the pottery industry in West Asia. The growing trend of pottery for thousands of years has not been in any region of West Asia like Iran. The turning points of this trend have undoubtedly been reflected in the emergence of pottery around the eighth millennium BC in the Central Zagros region and the emergence of pottery wheels and the interaction of pottery kilns in the fourth millennium BC. Pottery. According to dictionaries, this term generally means objects made of baked clay, such as bowls, jars, etc. Also, pottery is called pottery. Pottery also includes a variety of objects made from pottery. The European term “ceramic” also has the meaning of pottery in Persian, which is derived from the Greek word (Keramikos) which itself is derived from (Keramon) meaning clay. Therefore, pottery also refers to the art or industry of making pottery and baked objects. Products are usually called porcelain if they are unglazed and porcelain if they are glazed according to the flowers and glazes used in them. Pottery is in fact the first artistic and industrial product of early people and the product of human need and consciousness, in the use of natural factors, and since its raw materials include: soil, water, and fire were found in the lands of human habitation, signs We see its production in all parts of human habitation. The oldest pottery objects obtained from Iranian archeological excavations are related to Ganj Darreh in Kermanshah province; Its history dates back to the eighth millennium BC. Pottery is an art that has traditionally maintained its valuable technical principles for thousands of years. In addition to artistic values, by carefully examining these works, it is possible to know the professions, industries and material works of human tribes and societies in the realms of different cultures. According to what has been said, pottery should be valued as a manifestation of the activity of the mind and creativity and artistic invention of past human beings. Because pottery is a universal art that shows us not only creative tastes, but also certain signs of social life and period of life and its material and spiritual characteristics, and is a direct means of identifying the civilization of different cities, ethnicities and eras. Because each nation has used its own symbols, shapes and ornaments to decorate its pottery. To provide archaeologists with the art of drawing and precise techniques, archaeologists try to bring to life the various pieces and objects found in ancient sites, and by depicting all the motifs used in the pottery, determine the mystery of the period. They discover art and many unknowns of life at that time. Pottery: The art of pottery has a special value among archaeologists, because these small pieces of pottery that seem insignificant, bring us to the time and life of the people of that time. The technique of pottery in Iran has continued from the beginning of civilization to the present day and during this period has undergone various changes. According to Girshman, about ten thousand years ago, people in the Bakhtiari mountains, while hunting and preparing food, were also engaged in making pottery. The theory that most archaeologists consider the beginning of the pottery industry in Iran is noteworthy. According to Professor Pope in his book on the study of Iranian art, “recent evidence strongly supports the hypothesis of recent years that agriculture and perhaps related industries, namely: pottery and the pottery and weaving industry, began on the Iranian plateau.” . The evolution of pottery in the ancient hills soon made the early inhabitants realize that they could meet their needs through pottery. Pottery is the best work left from the early societies, especially in the civilizations of the Iranian plateau, different stages of civilization have been identified by the name of these pottery: northern civilizations “gray pottery” and western civilizations “chickpea pottery” and Ilam civilization period “pottery منقوش ». At first, importance was given to the inside of the vessel, but later, in patterned pottery, decorations were applied to the outer wall of the vessel. Most of these utensils are in the form of bowls, base jars, glasses and utensils resembling animal sculptures. The invention of the potter’s wheel in the fourth millennium in Iran brought about a great change in the pottery industry. Pottery artifacts discovered from silk and ancient sites south of Susa, Chaghamish and Talbakun in Persepolis indicate the making of pottery with wheels. During the same period, there was a change in the drawing of patterns: first, the body of dishes was decorated with geometric and decorative patterns, and after a while, the role of animals became common, and later artists used a special subject to express beliefs and sometimes the environment and life. , Most of the characteristics of life, including religious, moral and artistic, were painted on pottery. From the discoveries of Silk Hill, Hesar Hill, Gian Hill in Nahavand and other ancient hills, it appears that from the fifth millennium BC, the inhabitants of these areas began to make painted pottery.
Prehistoric pottery artist writes poetry as if by painting on pottery. Using simple visual elements, the painter depicts objects, animals, and humans, for example, parallel wavy lines inside a circle and rectangle represent water, and a triangle whose surface is square represents a mountain or square with horizontal and vertical lines. The division and the wavy lines drawn in it are probably a sign of agricultural land. Animals painted on dishes are mainly: goats, rams, deer, cows, birds and so on. But unlike the cave paintings, the real form of the animal is not considered here, but its concise and exaggerated design is discussed. Because the arrangement of pottery is more important in the work of the potter: he arbitrarily transforms the natural form into an abstract form in order to fulfill his decorative purposes. During this period, the pottery body became soft and shiny, and more or less these stages have been completed in all the hills and ancient villages. It can be said that these stages depended on the period of civilization. For example, when the pottery was rough and uneven, people’s houses were also made of mud and stratification, but at the stage when the pottery became thin and polished, the houses were also made of clay and brick. Among the pottery of the Achaemenid period there are a number of pottery sculptures; These sculptures are imitations of gold sculptures, which are mostly in the shape of a lion. This type of pottery is called Rayton utensils. During the Parthian period, due to special attention to gold and silver vessels, the production of pottery decreased. One of the characteristics of pottery of this time is the glazing of dishes. The color of these glazes was light green to turquoise blue. Remaining objects from this period include large jars for storing food, earthenware coffins with human figures, vase-shaped vessels, and glazed thermoses. During the Sassanid period, although art, industry and architecture were perfected, the pottery industry did not develop much. Perhaps such simple decorations of unglazed dishes became the basis for the creation of dishes with added role (barbutin) in the early Islamic period. Glass: Perhaps the first stage of glassmaking in Iran can be attributed to the Elamite period. In the excavations of the Choghaznabil temple, a large number of hollow glass tubes were found, which were placed diagonally next to each other inside the temple window frames. In addition to these works, pieces of glass glaze for decoration in glazed tiles, porcelain beads, some of which were made of glass glaze, were obtained here. The presence of imitation porcelain beads and glazed tiles and glass beads from different ancient sites of Iran such as Susa, Zivieh, Hasanlu and… shows that the construction of such objects in the Achaemenid period has continued and developed. With the beginning of the Achaemenid rule in the middle of the first millennium (550 BC), the art of making glass objects entered a new stage in terms of design and role. Apparently, with the beginning of the Parthian kingdom in Iran and the conflicts of this dynasty with the Seleucid government, the art of glassmaking stagnated. The presence of a number of glass vessels from the ancient sites of Parthia, especially in “Nessa”, the first Parthian capital, indicates the continuation of this industry in the Parthian period. The Sassanid period can be considered the peak of the art of glassmaking in pre-Islamic Iran, the discovery of many glass objects in various forms and various uses of ancient sites is evidence of this claim. The most important type of decoration of dishes in this period is lathe in various forms, especially honeycomb lathe, which has been widely used on hemispherical cups and other utensils. Seal: With the advancement of civilization in cases such as house building, domestication of animals, agricultural activities, pottery industry, pottery, preparation of stone and mud spindles for spinning and weaving and making various tools, even decorative accessories and arrangement of various stones, construction Seals also became popular for the expansion of trade relations between tribes and nations. It was necessary to guarantee and take care of the contents of a jar or a batch of goods so that the goods could be delivered intact at the destination. Stamps were used to identify ownership. It was marked on clay buns and placed in the mouth of the jar or tied with a rope. Before the invention of calligraphy, from the middle of the fourth millennium BC, man understood his purpose by engraving images on the seal. After the invention of calligraphy, these messages, including images and calligraphy, were engraved on seals. The earliest seals were baked mud, gypsum, iron ore, marble, ivory and bone, glass, metal, and possibly scallops. Early beads usually had a hole that was used as a pendant on a necklace or bracelet, and most likely also as a spell. One of the most beautiful seals has been cylindrical or cylindrical seals. The use of cylindrical seals is the same as the use of flat and ordinary seals that were used to record commercial transactions and financial orders and documents, signatures and religious aspects and mythology in the form of spells for seals and so on. Gradually, designs, like other arts and sciences, evolved and reached a degree of perfection. The importance of technical design has been considered by scientists and researchers for a century in archeology, which is responsible for discovering objective historical documents and interpreting these documents. Archaeologists hand over the discovered pieces and objects to the pottery design team, who use the art and technique of precision design and techniques to depict all the details, decorations and motifs used in the pottery. Pottery is one of the oldest man-made compositions that has been used throughout his life since ancient times. For this reason, prehistoric portraiture plays an important role. Making pottery over time in proportion to changing cultures
Prehistoric and experiential human races have undergone significant changes in terms of gender, form, color and role. These determinants of determinants in the classification of prehistoric and later types of pottery have led to differing views on how man-made the first pottery. Some people know the roots of pottery in the basket weaving industry and believe that for the first time, the flowers lining the bottom of plant baskets, after drying or being on fire and burning the wood of the basket, inspired pottery. Whatever the origin of the pottery industry, there is no doubt that the earliest hand-made and rough pottery and its adhesive material were crushed sand and plants. They had started and started the food production period.
They settled in the plains as early agricultural communities, creating a civilization characterized by the production of delicate and beautiful pea and red pottery. This civilization, along with its other features, flourished in this region and gradually spread over a wide area in the prehistoric world. Traces and remains of this type of pottery from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley have been discovered in archaeological excavations in ancient areas. One of the distinct traditions of Iranian plateau pottery is red painted pottery, which was made during the sixth and fifth millennia BC. It was formed and became common on the edge of the desert on the central plateau of Iran. These pottery are handmade and red in color and have a mixed paste with sand powder or chopped plants. This type of pottery has been identified during archeological excavations from the ancient sites of Cheshmeh Ali, Qara Tappeh Shahriyar, Ismail Abad, Zagheh Hill, Silk and Hesar. The most important tolerance in the pottery industry that completely transformed this industry is the invention of the potter’s wheel, which was made in the fourth millennium BC. What happened is that the potters first used slow-moving or slow-moving cycles and then achieved the high-speed and fast-moving cycles that are still used in traditional pottery workshops today. From the beginning of the third millennium BC. Another type of pottery penetrates into the plateau from the northern regions of the Iranian plateau, which is known as gray pottery. This type of pottery is wheel-making and has been influenced by contemporary metal utensils in terms of construction style and decorations. High-tech gray pottery is baked in a special kiln in which the potter has controlled the temperature and the rate of active oxidation. Gray pottery culture from the beginning of the third millennium BC. In the ancient areas of Yanik, Ardabil hill, Turang, Gorgan hill, Hesar Damghan hill have been identified. Shiny gray pottery during the Iron Age, ie from the middle of the second millennium BC. Later it spread to most parts of the Iranian plateau and in the same period reached the peak of beauty, elegance and technical progress in construction, cooking and decoration. From the first half of the millennium BC. With the prosperity of metalworking, the pottery industry is declining, so that in the historical period, the pottery made is mostly very rough and without role, and there is no news about the delicacy of prehistoric pottery. The peak of civilization and pottery art in Iran dates back to the Seljuk period. The shadow of this period is known as one of the unique works of art in the world. So far, samples of pottery from before 800 ancient sites of Iran, in prehistoric, historical and Islamic cultural periods of the Iranian plateau have been stored in the Pottery Bank of Iran. The highest number is related to the north-central and northwestern regions of Iran. At present, the information resources of the Pottery Bank of Iran are used to teach archeology students at the University of Tehran. It should be noted that interested researchers in other educational and research institutions of the country can also use the information of this bank.