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Traditional Crafts: fun facts and quiz
The essentials in 7 ideas, with fun facts, an illustrated story and a quiz to see how much you know.
The essentials
Pottery
Pottery is one of humanity’s oldest crafts. Pieces from a cave in China are about 20,000 years old. The potter’s wheel came much later, around 3500 BC.
Key fact
Broken pottery helps archaeologists date ancient sites.
Origami
Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes without cutting or glue. Legend says folding a thousand paper cranes grants a wish.
Key fact
Origami folds have inspired space telescopes and solar panels.
Glassblowing
Glassblowing was invented around 2,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1291, Venice moved its glassmakers to the island of Murano.
Key fact
Murano’s glassmakers were long forbidden to leave with their secrets.
Carpets
Persian carpets are tied by hand, knot by knot, and a large one can take months or years. Flat-woven kilims use no knots at all.
Key fact
Fine rugs can have hundreds of thousands of knots per square metre.
Kintsugi
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold. Instead of hiding cracks, it makes them part of the object’s story.
Key fact
Kintsugi means “golden joinery”.
The Blacksmith
Blacksmiths heat iron in a forge and hammer it into tools, horseshoes and blades. Japanese swordsmiths folded steel many times to make katanas.
Key fact
Smith is one of the most common English surnames.
Living Crafts
Crafts are kept alive by masters teaching apprentices. Some, like Mexico’s alebrijes, are young: Pedro Linares invented these colourful creatures in the 1930s.
Key fact
Linares said alebrijes came to him in a fever dream.
Fun facts
Clay shrinks as it dries and fires, often by around a tenth, so potters make their pots bigger at first.
Sadako Sasaki, a girl made ill by the Hiroshima bomb, folded paper cranes. Her statue stands in Hiroshima’s Peace Park.
Glassblowing made cups and bottles cheap enough for everyday Roman homes, not just the rich.
The Ardabil Carpet, made in Iran in 1539–40, is one of the oldest dated carpets in the world.
One story says kintsugi began when a shogun sent a cracked tea bowl to China for repair and it came back crudely stapled.
The Eiffel Tower was built from wrought iron, the same workable metal blacksmiths hammered for centuries.
UNESCO keeps a list of crafts in urgent need of safeguarding.
Story: Mended With Gold
Mended With Gold
Japan, 1400s, so the story goes. The shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa breaks a favourite Chinese tea bowl and sends it to China to be mended.
It comes back held together with ugly metal staples. Japanese craftsmen set out to find a more beautiful way to repair it.
Their answer was lacquer dusted with gold, turning every crack into a golden line. Kintsugi treats damage as part of an object’s story.
True or false?
Tap your answer to see if you got it, and why.
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Question 1 of 10
Pottery is older than the potter’s wheel.
Show the answer
True. Early pots were shaped by hand.
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Question 2 of 10
Traditional origami avoids cutting and glue.
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True. Only folds, from a single sheet.
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Question 3 of 10
Murano’s glassmakers were long forbidden to leave.
Show the answer
True. To guard their secrets.
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Question 4 of 10
Persian carpets are knotted by hand.
Show the answer
True. Knot by knot.
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Question 5 of 10
Kintsugi celebrates cracks instead of hiding them.
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True. With gold seams.
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Question 6 of 10
Many people named Smith had blacksmith ancestors.
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True. Surnames often came from jobs.
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Question 7 of 10
Pedro Linares said alebrijes came to him in a fever dream.
Show the answer
True. Then he made them from papier-mâché.
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Question 8 of 10
Broken pottery is useless to archaeologists.
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False. It helps them date ancient sites.
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Question 9 of 10
Origami is a type of pottery.
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False. It’s paper folding.
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Question 10 of 10
Glass is blown through solid metal bars.
Show the answer
False. Through a hollow blowpipe.
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KnowSoda learns what you know and brings back what you’re about to forget. Traditional Crafts has 6 more ideas at the Advanced and Expert levels.
Sources
- Wu et al. (2012), 20,000-year-old pottery from Xianrendong Cave, Science 336
- UNESCO — Intangible Cultural Heritage and traditional craftsmanship
- Corning Museum of Glass — History of glassblowing and Murano
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — origami, kintsugi, Persian carpets, alebrijes
- UNESCO — Indonesian batik
- Victoria and Albert Museum — Lacquer; stained glass; Fabergé
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan — Living National Treasures
