Oil lamps

miṣbāḥ (məṣbāḥ) / maṣābīḥ

In North Africa the urban ceramic production is strictly the domain of professional male potters. Their wheel-made and glazed vessels are produced in specialized workshops expressly for sale in local markets and beyond. In rural areas pottery is almost entirely a task of women performed alongside their domestic work. They produce a wide range of utilitarian unglazed non-wheel-made earthenware, such as storage pots and containers for food and liquids. Village women produce their pottery primarily to fill their own family’s needs, or for local exchange, which permits them to acquire grain or other items of barter from their neighbours. They decorate their products with elaborate and intricate geometric patterns associated with fertility and abundance. At present throughout the Maghreb ceramics hand-built by the women are about to sink into oblivion.