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Adding An Artist's Touch A potter created designs at Simpson's Field by first carving them into a wood paddle. She might etch rows of straight lines, or carve rectangles, chevrons, or squares. Depending on how she pressed a paddle with a square pattern into wet clay, whether she held the paddle straight up or at an angle, determined whether the decorations looked like squares or diamonds. Potters also carved curved lines, teardrops, concentric circles, and ovals, and occasionally filled in the ovals and teardrops with lines resembling ladders. Potters also made different types of containers. All bowls had flat bottoms, but there were some with fairly straight sides and others with sides curving inward at the rims. There were also jars, which were taller than bowls. Many jars had straight sides perpendicular to the ground; others had sides that bulged outward, forming shoulders. Wet clay tops of jars and bowls were often folded downward, usually outward, to thicken the rims. But not all rims were folded and thickened; some were flared to one side. Centuries later, by using measuring rings of different diameters, experts were able to learn, by examining only clay fragments, how wide pots once were. Some sherds came from big bowls with openings at the top as wide as 16 inches, while a few sherds were from much smaller containers. Several clay bottles were less than four inches across the top. The majority of fragments, however, represented jars and bowls that were generally of one or two sizes. The smaller containers' openings averaged between six and eight inches across, while the bigger ones had opening between 12 and 14 inches wide. The smaller vessels were possibly used to cook for individuals and to serve food prepared in the bigger pots. The largest pots were likely to cook for groups and for storage.
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