Editing Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume7 Epilogue (section)

== "cracks" ==

:The photo she handed to me showed a pot with cracks all over, using a white wall as a background.

I take this to indicate a vessel with crackled glaze, not a cracked pot per se. A pot that wasn't watertight wouldn't have a readable 300 year-old piece of paper in it.  Ground water and  freeze-thaw cycles are not kind to cracked earthenware pots or their biodegradable contents... However, this point may lie beyond the range of the author's detailed consideration. Is the original Japanese any more specific than the translation as it stands?

:差し出した写真にはひび割れだらけの土器がどこか白い壁《かべ》を背景に写っている。

:The kanji 土器 means earthenware. Apparently there's two ways to read this: どき which is just "earthenware," and かわらけ which is specifically ''unglazed'' earthenware. It's impossible to tell which one is used, but apparently lead-based glaze was not uncommon for Genroku period pottery. I'd say the cracks were superficial if only because the pot seems to have been recovered intact. (I doubt they would casually glue together an otherwise priceless artifact and Tsuruya didn't mention anything about it being broken when dug up) [[User:Smidge204|Smidge204]] 10:01, 18 February 2007 (PST)