The Pottery of Fayoum
by Shahinda Abdalla
When we think of the pottery of Fayoum, almost immediately the village of Tunis jumps to the forefront of our minds with its colorful plates decorated with drawings of rural life. Certainly Tunis has been paramount in popularizing the pottery of the region not just locally but internationally as well. But before there was Tunis, there were two other villages in Fayoum — Kom Oshim and al-Nazla— where the craft of pottery dates back millennia and retains the traditional processes and tools, which are extremely rare to find in today’s modern world. The pottery village of Kom Oshim dates back to the Pharaonic era. Located near the ancient city of Karanis, which was a major administrative center during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, the potters of Kom Oshim inherited their craft from their ancestors who made pottery for the temples and tombs of Karanis. They use local clay from the nearby hills, which has a redish-brown color and a coarse texture, and they still use traditional wood-fired kilns just like their grandfathers before them did. Today, the potters of Kom Oshim specialize in making huge terracotta planters that are popular in hotels and resorts across the country. How they make such large clay vessels reaching up to 2.5 meters tall remains a well-kept secret, only known to the potters themselves and passed down through families as a secret of the craft.
Al-Nazla, on the other hand, is the only village in Egypt where potters still use a hammer-and-anvil technique to hand-form spherical water jars called bukla. This technique dates back to pre-historic times and was passed down through generations of one single family. They mix chopped straw or ash with the clay to make it porous, so the water inside can be cooled by evaporation.
An Egyptian potter, carries river-clay with traditional shapes of pottery at El Nazla village in Fayoum, southwest of Cairo, Egypt. (REUTERS) (Image Source)
Tunis, the last of these pottery villages to make an appearance, was founded in the 1960s by two Egyptian poets whose names are nowhere to be found. In the 1980s, a Swiss potter named Evelyne Porret married Egyptian poet and songwriter Sayed Hegab, and the couple moved to the village and bought a plot of land where they lived and set up the famous pottery school, Ptah Association for Training Urban and Rural Children in Ceramic Works. Many credit the school and Porret with making Tunis what it is today. The school has taught a countless number of locals passing along not only an art but a source of income and livelihood not only for individuals but for the village as a whole, drawing in tourists both local and foreign to the village. Tunis has not only become a popular destination on the tourist trail, but the pottery made there finds its way to galleries and homes all over the world. The colorful, glazed earthenware is unlike any other with its beautifully painted images of Fayoum rural life, from the palms to the birds and the people of Fayoum, all is recorded on these beautiful clay creations that carry the story of Fayoum far not just into the world but into history. A mug or plate from Fayoum marries more than just form and function — it brings identity into the mix, not just the identity of an individual but of a whole region whose artistry remains an expression of all that has changed in Fayoum but also all that remains the same.
For a deep-dive into the pottery of Fayoum, Neil Hewison’s beautifully illustrated book ‘Fayoum Pottery: Ceramic Arts and Crafts in an Egyptian Oasis’ is a great source.