From the archive record
Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up potterywares,of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery. The definition of pottery used by ASTM is "all fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products." Some archaeologists use a different understanding of this definition by excluding ceramic objects such as figurines which are made by similar processes, materials and the same people but are not vessels. Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln which removes all the water