As depicted on vases and elsewhere, the ancient furnaces seem to have been of simple construction, tall conical ovens fed by fires from beneath, into which the vases were placed with a long shovel resembling a baker’s peel. The kilns were heated with charcoal or wood fuel, and in some of the representations of them we see men holding long instruments with which they are about to poke or rake the fires (Fig. [68]). They had two doors, one for the insertion of the vases and one for the potter to watch the progress of the baking. For vases of great size, like the huge πίθοι, special ovens must have been necessary; and we have a representation on a Corinthian pinax[[783]] of such an oven, the roof of which resembles the upper part of a large pithos surrounded by flames.
FIG. 68. SEILENOS AS POTTER.
On the lamp from Pozzuoli in the British Museum, referred to on p. [209], there is a curious subject in relief, representing a potter about to place a vase in an oven with a tall chimney; and on a hydria at Munich[[784]] (Fig. [67] b) a man is about to place an amphora in a kiln, while other jars (painted white) stand ready to be baked. But for our purposes the Corinthian pinakes are even more valuable for the information they afford. There are several representing the exterior of the conical furnace, with men standing by watching the fires and tending them with rakes[[785]]; in another we have a bird’s-eye view in horizontal section of the interior of an oven, filled with jugs of various forms (Fig. [69]). Flames are usually indicated rising from underneath the ovens.[[786]]
FIG. 69. INTERIOR OF FURNACE (FROM CORINTHIAN PINAX)
The Munich hydria (Fig. [67]b) reproduces the interior of a potter’s workshop with such detail that a full description of the scene may be permissible.[[787]] On the left of the picture a seated man seems to be examining an amphora, which has just been finished (it is painted black) and is brought up for his approval. Next is seen an amphora on the potter’s wheel, painted white to indicate its imperfect state; one man places his arm inside to shape the interior, while another turns the wheel for him. On their right another white amphora is being carried out, just fresh from the wheel, but without handles or mouth, to be dried in the open or at the furnace; next is another standing on the ground to dry. On the right of the scene stands the foreman or master of the pottery, before whom a nude man carries what has been thought to be a sack of coals for the furnace, which is seen on the extreme right.
Even more vivid and instructive, in spite of its careless execution, is the painting on a kotyle found at Exarchos or Abae in Lokris, and now in the Athens Museum (Fig. [70]).[[788]] The style is that of the imitation B.F. vases found in the temple of the Kabeiri at Thebes, late in the fifth century. We see represented the interior of a potter’s workshop, in which the master of the business sits holding up a kylix in one hand, while with the other he threatens a slave, who runs off with three kotylae ready for the furnace; three similar kotylae stand by the master’s feet, and behind him are two more vases on a shelf. On the right of the scene a workman sits at a table on which is a pot full of paint, with a brush in it; he holds up a newly-painted kotyle, admiring his workmanship. The picture is completed by a realistic representation of an unfortunate slave suspended by cords to the ceiling as a punishment for some offence, while another belabours him with a leather thong.
FIG. 70. INTERIOR OF POTTERY.