A 4,000-year-old Craft In Cappadocia Preserves The Legacy Of An Ancient Empire.
In Avanos’ town centre stands a clay sculpture of a craftsman at a potter’s wheel—a hat tip to the earthenware crafts that define the region’s past and present. Avanos is a tiny town of around 12,000 people in the Turkish region of Cappadocia. A majority of its inhabitants are engaged in the art of pottery. The abundance of ceramic stores I see—facades adorned with lush glazed plates—are testament to this fact.
Today, ceramics are a major industry in these parts, but clay pottery dates back thousands of years and is part of Cappadocia’s ancient heritage. What began as an age-old household enterprise to create essential earthenware has produced generations of craftsmen, skilled in the art of traditional pottery.
“Every family used to have a pottery workshop attached to their home,” says Ali Gençtürk, a third-generation master potter at his family-owned Kapadokya Seramik. I visited the pottery workshop and store, one among a clutch of family-run ceramic establishments, in June 2018.
“All the sons would learn how to make pots using the kick-wheel. If a man did not know pottery, he could not find a wife,” Ali continues.
Just a few kilometres away from the store flows the Red River, or Kizihrmak—Avanos’ lifeline and the prime source of the unique red clay used in the region’s pottery.
This story is from the December 2018 edition of National Geographic Traveller India.
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This story is from the December 2018 edition of National Geographic Traveller India.
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