element

Clay

Elements · Colors & materials

Fine earth that takes water and a hand’s shape. Pottery and brick start here; not sand, and not soil as a farmer’s medium alone.

  • Clay is used in Medicine.

    Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica lists medicinal earths and clays among drugs: plasters, seals, and drying earths. First-century pharmacological use of plastic earth, not pottery alone and not sand.

    from Pedanius Dioscorides · De Materia Medica, 1st century CE

    used in · sourced · documented

sources