pottery-making is a dying art today in the region Traditional of Upper Egypt. The westernizing of Egypt, in progress throughout the post-Nasser era, has seen a pattern familiar to a host of developing nations: modern goods, particularly plastics, have displaced older materials and indigenous artifact forms as handmade goods have given way to machine-made products. When the last of the traditional potteries at Deir el-Gharbi shuts down, it will signal the end of a craft which reaches back to Pharaonic times. Ceramics have been made from the rich clay deposits in the hills around Ballâs (Qena Governorate) in Upper Egypt over the course of several millennia. Throughout that stretch of time, both the technology of the potters and the nature of their lives have remained elemental. Today there are roughly 15 workshops still extant in the village of Deir el-Gharbi, an ancient pottery center. As little as ten years ago, there were literally scores of pottery workshops in the area. So great is the rate of