Villianur terracota Diya

The Villianur Terracotta Works are handicrafts made from fine green clay, fine sand and thennal which are hand made by villagers of Villianur, in the union territory Pondicherry also spelled Pudhucherry.
The basic materials used in handcrafting of the terracotta works are green clay, thennal and fine sand locally called savudu. Several types of tools made of bamboo are used in handcrafting the art forms. In the first step of processing clay is sifted to remove all stones. Then a mixture of 20 percent of clay, 40 percent of thennal and 40 percent of fine sand is made.
A specialty of Villianur terracotta, which is not possible with other terracotta works, is that they can be made to a height of 30 feet (9.1 m) and moulded to any thickness.
This art work is particularly traced to Villianur village and its neighboring areas, as an ancestral legacy of over 20 generations of the community known as "Kulalar". During the French rule of Pondicherry this art form received a fillip.