KOLOTZI

​

Another type of vessel used parallel to the glass potses and ceramic vessels for the serving of liquids such as water and wine at the table was the kolotzia (bottle-shaped gourds) with a long neck and spherical body. Writing in the 19th century, M. Ohnefalsch-Richter reports the following: “Even though today many more European types of vessels are imported [to the island] in comparison to the Ottoman rule period, there is still no chance for a gourd to grow on the island, which will not find its use at the home as some form of a vessel. Even the middle and lower class inhabitants of the cities are not deprived of their own gourd […] One of the eminent elders of the city, who was a member of one of the wealthiest families, offered us a thirty-year old aged Koumandaria, so wonderful in taste and smell, which was stored in a gourd”.

​

The production of vessels made out of the bottle-shaped gourd was performed by amateur craftsmen. The initial stage in the process was the collection and drying of the gourd. Next, the edge of its neck was cut and a small hole was drilled through the neck and into the body with a thin stake. During the next stage, they filled the interior of the gourd with a small quantity of pointy athkiatzia (chert) fragments. By continuously twisting, moving around and emptying the gourd, the athkiatzia scraped the internal fibres and seeds leaving behind the clean shell of the gourd. The final stage of preparation, performed only when the vessel was intended for wine storage, required coating the interior of the gourd with tar for water-proofing purposes.

​

The kolotzia were often decorated with various motifs, which were usually directly incised on the exterior surface of the gourd with a knife, nail or needle and were subsequently covered with laomoutzian (mixture of mouzin=soot and oil). After rinsing the vessel, the soot-oil mixture remained in the incisions and thus the dark-coloured decorative motifs emerged on the lightly coloured surface of the kolotzin.