While plastic and metal bowls can be found in many African kitchens, the handmade ceramic pot remains a common household good. Its technology has stood the test of time, as evidenced by 10,000-year-old pot shards uncovered in the Sahara Desert.

Today, most pots are still made by women who cooperatively dig the clay, fire, and sell their pots. They use local resources to produce pots that serve life’s essentials: cooking, storage, and transport of food and drink.

Pots—with their bellies and necks—are frequently compared to the female body. A pot’s decorations often evoke scarification marks that adorn the body. Making and firing pots can be likened to fertility and birth, as women transform the raw materials of the earth into fully formed pots.