Tanba Tachikui Yaki

Rustic ware for daily life

For about 800 years, Tanba Tachikui has made plain, rustic pottery for everyday use, with ash and iron glazes. In the climbing kiln, ash from burning pine wood falls on the pots and fuses with the glaze, leaving colours and patterns called haikaburi. No two pieces look the same. It is made in Tanba-Sasayama, Sanda and Kasai in Hyogo.

A wheel that turns left

Most pieces are thrown on a kick wheel that turns anticlockwise, a direction unique to this area; other pottery towns turn clockwise. Slab building, hand-building and press moulds are used too, and every piece is made one at a time. Unglazed work is fired in the climbing kiln or the older tunnel kiln.

One of the Six Old Kilns

Tanba is one of Japan's Six Old Kilns, begun in the late Heian period. Tunnel kilns (anagama) were used until the Momoyama period, then climbing kilns arrived along with the kick wheel. At first Tanba made jars, but in the Edo period, under tea masters such as Kobori Enshu, it produced many famous tea wares.