#ceramics

• Alcarraza — A rare graphic variant found in old technical literature for the noun 'alcarraza'; a porous, unglazed earthenware vessel traditionally used in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America for cooling water. Its operating principle relies on the latent microscopic evaporation of the liquid filtering through the vessel's porous walls, which lowers the temperature of the remaining content.
• Alcarraza — A highly porous, unglazed earthenware vessel of Spanish or Moorish origin, utilized specifically for keeping and cooling drinking water. The cooling effect is achieved through the physical process of evaporation of the water that sweats through the clay's microscopic pores, lowering the temperature of the liquid inside even in extremely hot climates.
• Amphoriskos — A miniature ceramic vessel from antiquity, shaped like a small amphora with two fine handles, specifically used in ancient Greece and the Hellenistic period for storing precious perfume essences, fine ointments, or as a ritual object within funerary inventories.
• Clay — An unconsolidated sedimentary rock with an extremely fine grain size (particles below 0.002 mm), primarily composed of hydrated aluminum silicates (clay minerals such as kaolinite, montmorillonite, or illite). It exhibits high plasticity when mixed with water, the property of hardening upon drying or firing at high temperatures, and is widely used in the ceramic industry, construction materials (bricks, cement), cosmetics, and medicine.
• Ausu — A specialized term designating a traditional container or a ritualistic clay mug, specific to certain prehistoric cultures, used for libations or storing volatile substances. In a broad sense, the word can also appear as a rare or archaic regional variant for certain collection tools or measuring vessels used in isolated rural communities.