The discovery of pottery, glass and metallurgy made it possible to expand and diversify the production of increasingly varied and efficient tools and utensils: containers for cooking and storing food and tools for cultivation, hunting, fishing and other activities designed to transform nature. Technological knowledge facilitated the incorporation of decorative elements of great aesthetic and symbolic value into some of these objects of daily life, turning them into items of prestige, of social differentiation, small treasures that archaeology has allowed us to rediscover.
Vessels, more than simple containers, are an essential testament to cultural evolution. With technological ability and knowledge of new materials, they were fashioned and perfected to achieve aesthetically refined forms more akin to their function. Behind all of them lies an action and an instant in which they were crafted and used. An instant of life.
Containers, especially those made of pottery, have always been one of the most useful study tools for archaeologists, due to their abundance and variety in the archaeological record. From the very beginning they formed the basis of chronological sequences. Today, with new research techniques, they inform us of details of everyday life that are fundamental to our understanding of the communities that manufactured and used them.
