Pottery

• Japanese: 陶器 (touki), 焼物 (yakimono)

Kyushu yields the oldest pottery in the world - dated at approximately 10-11,000 BCE. As one moves from West to East along the archipelago, the disparity of dates of the pottery and our own time becomes less and less.

Seto wares were the dominant form in the late medieval period, up until the late 16th century, when Mino wares gained in commercial strength. Oda Nobunaga took steps to protect Seto potters by requiring Seto wares to be made in Seto - in other words, potters elsewhere in the archipelago were forbidden from copying Seto potters' techniques.

Sources

Delmer M. Brown (editor). The Cambridge History of Japan Volume One: Ancient Japan