Finally spotted why my pottery kept cracking after 3 years of frustration

I was digging at a site in southern Utah last spring and found a piece of ancient coil pottery that was perfectly intact. That got me thinking about my own pots back home which always crack along the seams. Turns out I was scoring the clay way too shallow and not using enough slip to bond the coils together. The ancient piece I found had deep crosshatch marks on every join. Has anyone else had a simple technique breakthrough from looking at old artifacts?

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verac408d agoTop Commenter

Oh man, this hits close to home. I spent a whole summer making pots that looked like they went through a divorce right in the kiln. Turns out I was basically just patting the coils together like they were old friends instead of really forcing them to bond. I guess learning from ancient pottery is great and all, but it's a bit embarrassing when a 1,000 year old pot has better construction skills than me. At least now my cracks are from accidents instead of bad technique, which is progress I suppose.