Talk:Anagama kiln

anagama/noborigama/waritake/jagama terminology
The third paragraph is mixing in information about kilns which aren't precisely anagama kilns. I'll start a waritake and jagama page, and edit the third paragraph here. Odinm 18:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Chinese term
Technique is called Kaito in Chinese. One reference was found equating this term to reduction firing only, another to firing in the tunnel kiln with the wood fuel causing reduction. May actually mean the same things. Will investigate further. WBardwin 08:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, since the first climbing kilns were probably Chinese it would be nice to have the Chinese names. David R. Ingham 16:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Paragraph regarding Noborigama
"The term Noborigama is used to describe a climbing kiln, with the chamber pierced at intervals with stacking ports, and built on a steeper slope so that a better updraft can be achieved."

I think this sentence is a bit unclear. To me it sounds like the description of a "jagama" (snake kiln): a very long single chambered tube kiln with side stoking ports. The interior is partitioned during the loading process by stacking a dense wall of pottery on the chimney side of each side stoke port. I guess my issue is mostly here: "the chamber pierced at intervals" -- and with "the" in particular, i.e., "one chamber pierced at intervals".

A Noborigama is a multichambered kiln, not a single chambered kiln. The chambers are connected with each succeeding chamber built higher than the one before it -- connected yes, but still not a single chamber. Also, the roof shape of noborigama chambers is typically depicted as being an arc parallel to the line of the kiln. This orientation is different from tube kilns (e.g. anagama) where the roof arc is perpendicular to the line of the kiln -- e.g., it's the difference between looking down a pipe, and looking down holes drilled through side-by-side sections of pipe.

It might be nice to add something about waritake kilns. According to Furutani Michio, the waritake kiln appeared in Japan between the anagamas and noborigamas. Like an anagama, the waritake kiln is tube shaped. Unlike a classic anagama, it had partition walls built at intervals through the length of the kiln and was stoked through side ports. The tube-shape roof is a major difference between the noborigama style and waritake kilns. Hmmmm ... hard to describe. Think of a washboard. If water runs over each ridge of a washboard, it slows (leaves energy behind). If it runs straight down the channels, it keeps much of its energy. The fire in a noborigama is like water running over the ridges of a washboard, each roof arc forces the fire down into the kiln and forces it to impart some extra energy to the pottery as it travels through the kiln. The fire in a anagama is much more likely to follow the peak of the ceiling and rush out the chimney without leaving as much energy behind. The noborigama style ceiling probably lends much to the higher efficiency of noborigamas as compared to anagamas.

I guess I'd like to see the distinction between multi and mono chambered kiln types expressed more clearly, and perhaps more info about the anagama style itself as opposed to how anagamas are different from noborigamas. The anagama entry feels like half an entry for noborigama kilns -- but then I have an anagama bias. ;-)

Odinm 19:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Historical roots of anagama
The first sentence indicates that the anagama was invented in China in the 5th century ("The Anagama kiln is an ancient type of pottery kiln discovered by the Chinese in approximately the 5th century."). This is probably incorrect. Anagama technology arrived in Japan in the 4th century from Korea (recent finds have pushed the date of introduction back from the 5th to the 4th century but aside from google cache, I can't get a stable citation: here's Google Cache). Obviously, this technology was well developed by the 5th century. It may be that the technology was developed independently in China at about this time, or spread to China from Korea, or spread to Korea from China at a much earlier date. It would be very interesting to find the deepest historical roots for anagama kilns, and it would be completely unsurprising to find those roots in China given its historically advanced understanding of cermic science. However, the first sentence is not correct as written, so I am editing it. Odinm 19:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The book on kilns I read said the multi-chambered climbing kilns were first in China and the single chamered ones were a Korean variant. It discussed that perhaps the first were sloping tunnels. David R. Ingham 05:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Deforestation
The line: "Regions producing ceramics in wood-fired kilns, throughout history and in all areas of the world, have often seen periods of deforestation due to the use of wood for fuel." bugs me. Certainly wood fueled kilns would contribute to deforestation, but so would cooking food by a large population if the fuel source was wood. I think it is unfair to blame pottery for deforestation. So I am editing the sentence. Odinm 19:16, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

At first I was going to edit the sentence, but instead, I deleted it. It seems out of place here -- would an electric kiln entry include such such criticism? That it was the cause of pollution from coal burning, fish extinction from dams, radioactive waste/destruction from nuclear reactors, bird kills from windmills, or mining devestation to produce materials for solar panels? Odinm 19:24, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The serious problems began when potters, and everyone else, found coal so cheap that they often no longer bothered to be so efficient. See my edit. David R. Ingham 05:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

My additions
These are somewhat technical and may not interest all readers. To me, if I thought the only advantage of this type of design were that it makes the chimney shorter, the central idea would be missing. The design would seem merely odd rather than ingenious and there would be no way to see its role in the history of ceramics. (For example why dished are called "china".)

Another motivation is that, if reducing world energy consumption is as important as I think it is, it is worthwhile to be able to recognize useful and general methods such as counter-flow. David R. Ingham 22:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

To see the counter-flow in the Oriental types, it helps to follow the hottest part up the hill. Then the ware and kiln (and Earth) appear to move down hill, while the air and hot gas still move up hill.

Using a portable fan, one could build a circular "climbing" kiln. One side would be re-loaded while the other was fired. (The power going to the fan helps to pre-heat the air.) David R. Ingham 23:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)