th striking similarity of
result. In fact, the knowledge of the methods and practices of the
primitive potters of our own time furnishes the best possible guide to
the methods of fabrication and ornamentation of the ancient specimens
that are dug up from barrows, grave mounds, and tumuli. It is only
natural that the materials and methods of such pottery are always of the
simplest. The clay is used with very little preparation, and it is no
unusual thing to find bits of stone, gravel, &c., embedded in the paste
of such wares, though at a later stage of development they would have
been removed. It must be remarked, however, that no race of potters
practised the art for long without discovering that their vessels were
not so liable to crack in drying, or lose their shape in firing, if fine
sand or pounded "potsherds" were mixed with the clay; and when we are
dealing with the work of races that have passed beyond the Stone Age and
have learned the use of metals we find this custom universal.

There are three methods of shaping which seem to be common to almost
every primitive race:--

1. The scooping out of a vessel from a ball of clay.

2. The building up of a form, often on a piece of basket-work or
matting, gradually raising the walls higher by applying and smoothing
down successive layers of clay.

3. Coiling; in which the clay is rolled out into thin ropes, and these
are coiled round and round upon each other and smoothed down with the
hands and with simple tools of bone, wood or metal.

The use of the potter's wheel is unknown, while it is remarkable how
beautifully true and finely-fashioned much primitive pottery is. The
primitive red and black vases discovered by Flinders Petrie in Egypt,
and the somewhat similar vessels of prehistoric date from Spain, are
remarkable instances of this. Some primitive races leave their pottery
without decoration, especially when they have a fine red-burning clay to
work in, but, generally speaking, primitive pottery of every race and
time is elaborately decorated, but only with the simplest patterns. Such
decorations consist of lines, dots or lunette-shaped depressions
arranged in crosses, chevrons, zigzags or all-over repeated pattern. All
this ornament is scratched or impressed into the clay before it is
fired. Simplest of all is, perhaps, the pattern which has so obviously
been produced by pressing a twisted thong round the neck or bowl of a
vase; though the tho