With their skillful fingers the potters of Bahla in Oman can magically transform clay into living objects of beauty that trace the cultural heritage of a people,
PRAVASISAMWAD.COM
Say the word ‘Bahla’ and in a flash two things pop up in your mind’s eye – the potters of Bahla and the beautiful pottery that they’ve been making down the ages and of course the Bahla Fort, an iconic landmark and a UNESCO heritage site; a silent sentinel to the passage of time and history since pre-Islamic times. While the fort will ever remain a magnificent facet of Oman’s rich and colourful history, it has this element of being something that is static and unchangeable. A significant fact about the fort is the fact that it has been made entirely of clay.
Pottery, on the other hand, has this element of life itself, throbbing, pulsing ever-changing. If you watch the potter at his wheel, you will come to realise what magic there is in his skilful fingers that can transform soft, wet formless clay into a living piece of art that has form and grace.
And somewhere in the course of this entire process, the potter also transfers for posterity, the legacy of his cultural heritage, so that the magic of his endearing craft can live on forever.
Although the sleepy town of Bahla abounds with potters together with fine examples of their craftsmanship, for first-timers visiting the place, trying to locate either or both can be tough. The heat and dust of the desert doesn’t make things any easier. Finally, after three or four false starts, a place is found, tucked away at the far end of a long and winding road that seems to go on endlessly. This might seem contrary to the reality because the truth is that in every second or third house, you can find potters working at the wheel.
Omar Mohammed Shakshi at the Abdullah Bin Hamdan Al Adawi Factory is a pleasant chap, all too eager to welcome visitors to his workplace and cheerfully demonstrate his skills and the intricacies of his craft without any fuss. In a minute, he is behind his wheel, and his fingers deftly begin to turn a large blob of greyish brown clay. As though by magic, the shapeless mass of mud begins to assume a definite and recognisable form. Down the ages, The Creator has been likened to a Potter who fashions men out of clay. A potter working at his wheel is oddly like creation itself.
Omar says he has been working at the wheel and turning out pottery for the last over 40 years. So when you ask him how he learnt the craft and who was his teacher, the master potter smiles, a trifle amused at the question. We don’t have to learn the craft. It runs in our blood. The pottery-making craft has been in my family since several generations. There are five women potters too in our family”.
You can’t help wondering how old the man is, although it must be said that the years rest lightly on his slight frame. There is a merry twinkle in his eyes. The only tell-tale signs of the passing years upon his countenance is his white, neatly trimmed beard.
When you ask him about his output and capacity, Omar says that he can make as many as 30 pots, jars and urns of all shapes and sizes in one working day. Once the pots are done they are moved to another area where Zayeed, another potter, does the finishing of the vessel. After that, the pottery items are left to dry in the sun for a couple of days before they’re fired in the kiln.
Over the years, kilns have changed significantly in Bahla from the original small dome-shaped oven that was a little more than a metre wide to huge multi-level structures that, while still very traditional, are stacked and only sealed and fired up when they have dozens of pieces inside.
Omar says the clay they use for their pottery-making is obtained by mixing two different kinds of clay. One is the creamish coloured and very soft and smooth kind of clay that can be found almost everywhere in Bahla. “The other is a dark greyish and slightly granular kind of clay that is excavated from the surrounding mountains of Jebel al Hamra.
Elaborating further about the various processes the clay has to go through before it is ready to sit on the potter wheel, Omar says: “We first soak both clays in a shallow well for about 2-3 days. Then the clay is taken out, and all the excess water is drained. After this, the mixed clay is churned and mixed in a kind of of big mixer to ensure that it acquires the right degree of smoothness and consistency and that the moisture balance is just right.
“If the moisture is more, the clay will lose its firmness and not respond to the potter’s touch. In other words, the clay will not hold its shape. On the other hand, less moisture means the consistency isn’t as smooth as it should be and the clay mixture will develop cracks”.
Omar says they are making both glazed and unglazed pottery. “Unglazed pottery is more popular with visiting tourists. The marketing of the finished goods is done from Nizwa, and Fanja which are nearby. The Public Authority for Crafts and Industries (PACI) is also playing a big role in the marketing, sales and promotion of Bahla pottery items.
A PACI spokesperson says that the organisation has also taken several initiatives to improve the working conditions for potters in order to ensure that while this cottage industry thrives and flourishes with its traditional flavour, potters are given a chance to try their hand at modern methods of pottery making.
Down the ages, The Creator has been likened to a Potter who fashions men out of clay. A potter working at his wheel is oddly like creation itself. . A significant fact about the Bahla fort is the fact that it has been made entirely of clay.
Bahla has literally hundreds of potters and the region has always been considered a market leader when it comes to the cottage industry. However, as fine workmanship became more widely known, demand increased, and many industries have gone from simple backyard businesses to thriving industries.
In fact, the elaborate kilns that dot the lovely landscape flatly show that the pottery pursuit for many has surpassed the ‘cottage’ cliché. The most contemporary type of kiln is large and square, with four posts at each corner acting as chimneys. It is easy to not realise what these edifices are until to you get too close to one in action. The heat can be felt from several metres away.
At some places, where the potters cannot afford mechanical mixers, men trample upon the clay to make it pliable enough to be worked on the wheel. It is a time-honoured way to soften the clay before it is worked and reworked into a thing of beauty.
It’s a mesmerising vision so don’t be surprised to suddenly realise an hour has passed just watching the potters’ hypnotic performance. After this ritual of creation, the objects are packed carefully into a huge kiln to be fired.
The end result is a seemingly endless source of incense burners, bowls, water holders and storage urns. The current factory has been operating since 1993 but its earlier life as a backyard business is evident when you observe the different styles of architecture as buildings have been added on.
At the entrance to Bahla is a small pottery works that was developed by the government with some help from Chinese experts. In fact, Beijing has donated a lot of equipment and provided some technology to help further establish Bahla as a pottery capital. Shards of brightly coloured Chinese pottery have recently been excavated on Omani sites.