Pioneering Women  
Oxford Ceramics Gallery

PRODUCING utilitarian ceramic vessels is one the most ancient and well-documented human activities. Archaeologists digging at any site anywhere in the world prioritise, above all else, locating pottery as a trusted source of information.

The word ceramic derives from the Greek “keramos” meaning pottery, or a potter, and its Sanskrit root used to mean “burnt stuff.” Hence ceramic describes objects which have been formed with clay, hardened by firing and decorated or glazed.

A kitchen dating back 20,000 years was unearthed in a cave in China in the early 2000s, with a wealth of pottery fragments and a  similar find in Britain — the Windmill Hill “cooking” pot — dates back to the Neolithic period of 4,000 BC. Today’s meat-and-lentil stew recipes can be traced to that era.