Diy | Giving
What is Terracotta?
The term Terra-cotta comes from the Italian dictionary meaning “Baked-earth,” ceramic Pottery. It is made out of a fairly coarse, porous type of clay that is high in iron oxides. Terracotta clay is easy to sculpt into various products such as vases, kitchen utensils, tile, planters, sculptures, bricks, etc. Once shaped, the dry clay is baked in a kiln or atop combustible material in a pit at a typical firing temperature of around 1,000 °C (1,830 °F), though in historical and archaeological cases, it may be as low as 600 °C (1,112 °F). After the baking part, the glaze has been applied to the product by which it gets its red color, although the actual raw clay can be brown, maroon, green, or red. Such clay can be easily found near the pounds, and generally, when these pounds get dry, the artisan collects this clay.