Pottery has been an essential part of many cultures due to the many functions it serves within the community - especially relating to food.
Most locations where pots and pottery items are made are where there is good access to quality clay.
Over the last 100 years, pottery in Africa has shifted from everyday necessity to art and commerce due to the influence of colonialism and the rise in use of alternatives such as metals and plastic. Although the local take up of traditional wares remains significantly diminished, the internet has created an avenue for greater visibility for the diaspora and foreign individuals.
Referring to tribes and ethnic groups -especially in western sub-Saharan Africa are spread horizontally whilst European demarcations are horizontal - distorts the way in which we can explain patterns and trends in anthropology. Food, rituals, art, architecture and even religion - tend to have more similarity horizontally than vertically on the continent.
When looking at pottery, we see the same - with similar techniques, influence and customs in pottery-making being used amongst various tribes and ethnic groups along the same horizontal terrain. So we will start off referencing countries and shift to tribes as it makes sense to the discussion.
Moroccan ceramic art has one of the most broad and traceable cultural influences. Berber, Arab, Persian, French, Egyptian, Moorish and even Andalusian influence -each with its own layer of development in what we now call Moroccan ceramics.
Key pottery areas include Fez (like the cap), Safi, Wadilan and Rabat. Bleu de Fez is the distinctive blue that has become synonymous with pottery from the area. The Berbers applied similar techniques of complex geometric design based on the existing Roman techniques.
In Tunisia, Nabeul and Gualala Island are the home of pottery-making. There are over 300 kilns in Gualala Island - many of which produce ceramics with a dark indigo finish. You will see similar Islamic influence to the work in Morocco and there is the same diverse mix of cultures from the Berber, Arab, African and Romans.
One major difference in the north African nations is how strong Greek influence is seen in Egyptian pottery than elsewhere. The ancient Greeks introduced glazing to the Egyptians who have since refined the process, incorporating Coptic and Islamic sacred text into ceramicware. Today, there are several pottery centres around Cairo, with Aswan clay remaining very popular for its rich pink colour.
Further east, pottery and ceramic-making takes on a mystical aura. In Eithiopia, pottery-making in the past was associated with withcraft as the process of glazing and firing was not explainable using methods available to natives at the time.
In Central Africa, the Unewe civilisation dating back to 500BC- 800AD were located around the great lakes and display early Iron Age pottery traditions of west and central Africa. Their influence can be seen from southern Cameroon, through Congo and all the way to Tanzania.
Although the methods used by the Unewe civilisation were undocumented, the existence of iron artefacts close to pottery sites gives us insight into early pottery with incised decorations and dimples. From these distinctive ancient pottery methods, archaeologists have been able to track migratory patterns of the tribes across western and southern Africa.
Across the continent, various customs and methods are used in pottery-making. In some areas, there used to be a lot of mystery surrounding the process - to the extent that potters are sometimes associated with witchcraft. In other areas the activity is dominated by women, in other areas, men perform these functions and these come with additional rituals such as women not participating during their menstrual cycle, men not being intimate with women and many other customs.