Pottery and earthenware

Abstract

Generations come and go, and on going are forgotten forever, unless they leave behind some vestige of their presence, some evidence of their efforts for survival in a particular community, in a particular habitat. What we know about our predecessors comes either from written records of the past, or from the study of remains left behind, forming a material link with the reality of life. Archaeologists have relied to a great extent on the earthenware which had formed such an integral part of the daily life of early man, but which has proved resistent to decay, remaining, very often, the only proof of an early culture, and from which one could interpret the artistic and other capabilities of their makers. For the present observations the writer is taking a random selection of items still largely and actively integrated in the daily life of the Maltese, up to the 1920's and 1930's, when new materials eliminated the old in the usual cycle of progress.